(John    M.  tCr-^b' 


vf     - 


\  4      *  V-  ■ 


.BIZ 


y 


'  I 


THE    APOSTLES 


JESUS    CHRIST. 


BY 


D.  FRANCIS  BACON. 


NEW  YORK: 
BAKEK    AND    SCRIBNER, 


145   NASSAU    STREET. 


1846. 


Enterep, 

According  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1835,  by 

DAVID  FRANCIS  BACON,  Author, 

Ii;  the  office  of  the  Clerk  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Connecticut 


LIVES 


OF 


THE    APOSTLES 


OF 


JESUS   CHRIST 


TO 


HIS  FIRST  TEACHER, 


ms  EARLIEST  INSTRUCTOR  IN  THE  SACRED  RECORD  OF  APOSTOLIC  HISTORY, 
—WHOSE  LESSONS,  PRECEDING  ALL  OTHERS,  AND  EXCELUNG  ALL  IN  VALUE 
AND  INTEREST,  HAVE  BEEN  MOST  CHERISHED  AND  BEST  REMEMBERED— TO 
HER  FROM  WHOM,  WITH  LIFE,  WAS  DERIVED  THE  POWER  OF  THOUGHT  AND 
EXPRESSION,  AS  WELL  AS  THE  TASTE  FOR  THEMES  LIKE  THIS,— 


TO    THE    MOTHER 

WHOSE  CARES  AND  TOILS  WERE  SO  DEVOTEDLY  GIVEN  TO  HIM,  IN  THE  HOPE 
THAT  HE  MIGHT  BECOME  WORTHY  OF  THE  HERITAGE  OF  A  TRULY  APOSTOLIC 
FATHER'S  NAME, 

THIS  WORK 

IS  GRATEFULLY  DEDICATED  BY 


THE  AUTHOR. 


There  are  many  revered  and  honored  names  well  entitled  to  the  acknow- 
ledgments of  this  inscription, — many  learned  theologians  and  profound  scholars, 
from  whom  the  author  has,  at  various  times,  derived  useful  instruction  on  these 
and  kindred  subjects, — to  commemorate  which,  in  this  place,  would  be  a  grateful 
duty ;  but  his  highest  obligations  for  the  knowledge  of  Divine  things  and  for 
the  love  of  the  truth,  antedate  all  these.  On  very  many  pages  of  this  work  are 
facts  and  expressions  drawn  from  that  earliest  and  purest  source  of  knowledge ; 
and  its  composition  was  often  cheered  by  the  imperishable  memories  of  his 
childhood's  hallowed  nurture.     Tliat  this  work  has  been  approved,  and  declared 


DEDICATION. 

worthy  of  success,  by  one  so  capable  of  judging  its  pretensions,  and  that  it  has, 
in  partial  recompense,  communicated  any  new  facts  to  the  information  of  one 
whose  early  teachings  have  contributed  so  much  to  develope  its  author's  taste 
for  such  studies,  may  well  be  deemed  a  sufficient  reward  of  the  labor  bestowed 
on  it. 

Blended  with  these  recollections  of  duty  and  gratitude,  are  the  saddened  re- 
membrances of  another,  who,  though  now  long-departed,  did  not  enter  into  his 
eternal  rest  till  he  had  breathed  into  the  ear  of  unconscious  childhood,  the 
name  of  God  and  the  simple  words  of  divine  truth,  in  reverent  and  instructive 
tones,  that  yet  sound  clearly  in  a  faithful  memory,  and  can  never  be  lost  among 
the  profane  clamors  of  a  troublous  world.  The  associations  of  his  name  and 
holy  calling,  of  his  self-sacriiicing  life  and  apostolic  labors,  have  also  influenced 
the  character  of  this  work.  And  therefore,  in  humble  witness  of  obligations 
worthy  of  a  richer  and  more  enduring  memorial,  these  pages  are  inscribed  to 
the  merits  of  a  devoted  mother  and  a  sainted,  missionary  father. 

D  F  B 


PREFACE. 


The  fair  and  just  fulfilment  of  the  promise  made  to  the  public,  in  the  previous  an- 
nouncement of  this  work,  would  require  it  to  contain  and  present,  simply,  "  a  distinct, 
plain,  historical  narrative  of  the  life  of  each  of  the  Apostles,  illustrated  by  such  aids 
as  could  be  draAvn  from  the  works  of  various  authors,  of  fonner  ages,  and  of  other 
countries,  which  hitherto,  in  the  inaccessible  fonns  of  a  dead  or  foreign  tongue,  have 
been  too  long  covered  from  the  eyes  of  thousands,  who  might  be  profited  by  their  more 
open  coimnunication, — from  these  sources,  as  well  as  from  the  sacred  record,  to  draw 
the  materials  of  the  narrative, — to  throw  occasionally  the  lights  of  historical,  topo- 
graphical, and  scientific,  as  well  as  exegetical  illustrations  on  the  word  of  truth, — 
and  from  all,  to  show  how  we  may  live,  labor,  and  die,  as  did  these  first  champions 
of  Chi'ist  crucified."  A  hope  was  also  expressed  by  the  author,  that  the  facilities 
of  his  situation  would  enable  him,  by  research  among  the  long-hidden  treasures  of 
large  and  costly  libraries,  to  bring  forth,  in  direct  illustration  of  this  narrative,  many 
of  those  collections  of  scriptural  knowledge,  which,  by  their  size  and  rarity,  are  be- 
yond the  reach  and  the  means  of  a  vast  number  of  Biblical  students,  who  would  de- 
rive great  advantage  and  pleasure  from  their  perusal ;  and  that  even  clergymen  and 
students  of  theology  might  find  in  this  work  many  things  drawn  from  these  valuable 
materials,  that  would  make  this  a  desirable  book  for  them.  Yet,  far  from  promising 
the  combined  results  of  all  the  labors  of  the  learned  on  these  subjects,  the  author  then 
distinctly  professed  his  main  object  to  be — the  collection  and  combination  of  such  facts 
and  illustrations  as  vi'ould  make  the  work  acceptable  and  interesting  to  readers  of  all 
classes — to  popular,  as  well  as  to  learned  readers ;  and  he  accordingly  engaged  to  pre- 
sent all  the  contents  of  the  book,  clear  and  plain,  even  to  those  whose  minds  have  not 
been  accustomed  to  deep  research  in  Biblical  study. 

"With  these  objects  constantly  in  view,  the  author  has  long  been  steadily  and  labori- 
ously devoted  to  the  preparation  and  composition  of  this  book.  In  presenting  this  re- 
sult of  his  labors,  he  is  not  conscious  ot  having  actually  failed  to  comply  with  the 
general  terms  of  his  published  engagement ;  yet  the  critical  eyes  of  many  among  his 
readers  will  doubtless  light  upon  parts  of  the  work,  which  have  been  materially  affect- 
ed in  their  character  by  the  very  peculiar  circumstances  under  which  the  labor  has 
been  vmdertaken  and  prosecuted, — circumstances  so  very  peculiar,  that,  in  accordance 
with  the  universal  custom  of  those  who  have  completed  such  tasks,  he  is  justified  in 
referring  to  some  important  details  of  the  history  of  the  \vTiting.  The  fii'st  summons 
to  the  task  found  him  engrossed  in  pursuits  as  foreign  to  the  investigations  necessary 
for  this  work,  a.s  any  department  of  knowledge  that  can  be  mentioned ;  and  though 
the  study  of  critical  and  exegetical  theology  had,  at  a  former  period,  been  to  him  an 
object  of  regular  attention,  the  invitation  of  this  work  seemed  so  uncongenial  to  his 
adopted  pursuits,  that  he  rejected  it  promptly ;  nor  was  it  until  after  repeated  and 
urgent  solicitations,  that  he  consented  to  undertake  it.  But  even  then,  so  little  aware 
was  he  of  the  inexhaustible  richness  of  his  noble  subject,  that  he  commenced  his  re- 
searches with  oft-expressed  doubts,  whether  it  would  admit  of  such  ample  disquisition 
as  was  hoped  by  the  original  proposer.  How  just  those  doubts  were,  may  be  best 
learned  from  the  hurried  and  brief  notice  which  many  important  points  in  this  great 
theme  have  necessarily  received  within  such  narrow  limits. 

Begun  under  these  unfavorable  au.spices,  the  work  was  an  object  of  pursuit  with 
him  through  a  long  period  of  time ;  nor  did  his  investigations  proceed  far,  before  he 
was  fully  assured  that  it  was  vast,  beyond  his  highest  expectations;  and  from  that 
time  the  difficulty  has  been,  not  to  meet  the  expectation  of  a  large  book,  but  to  bring- 
these  immense  materials  within  this  limited  space.     Growing  thus  in  his  hands, 


b  PREFACE. 

tlmmgh  months  and  years,  his  work  soon  increased  also  in  its  interest  to  him,  till 
in  the  progress  of  time,  amid  various  other  contem]X)raneous  occupations,  it  rose  liom 
the  character  of  a  task  to  that  of  a  delightful,  a  dignified,  and  dignifying  pur.-^uit ; 
and  he  was  soon  disposed  to  look  on  it  not  as  a  labor,  but  as  a  recreation  Irom  voca- 
tions less  congenial  to  his  taste.  It  called  him  fiist  from  the  study  of  a  profession, 
sickening  and  distasteful  in  many  of  its  particulars  ;  and  it  was  his  frequent  resource 
for  enjoyment  in  many  a  season  of  repose.  His  attention  was  often  distracted  from 
it,  by  calls  to  diverse  and  opposite  pursuits, — by  turns  to  the  public  labors  and  respon- 
sibilities of  an  editor  and  an  instructor ;  but  in  the  midst  of  these  it  was  his  solace 
and  refreshment,  till  at  last  it  wholly  drew  him  away  from  everything  besides  itself, 
and  became  lor  months  his  sole,  constant,  absorbing  and  exhausting  occupation. 
Too  olten,  indeed,  were  the  pm-suits  with  which  it  was  at  iir.'^t  varied  and  inter- 
changed, the  occasion  of  disturbances  and  anxieties  that  did  anything  but  fit  him  lor 
the  comfortable  pursuit  of  his  noble  task;  yet  these  evils  themselves  became  the 
means  of  inspiring  him  with  a  higher  and  purer  regard  for  it,  because  they  drove 
him  to  this,  as  an  only  coasolation.  As  was  most  eloquently  and  beautifully  said  by 
evangelical  George  Home,  at  the  conclusion  of  a  similar  task, — "  And  now,  could 
»he  author  flatter  himself,  that  any  one  would  take  half  the  pleasure  in  reading  the 
work,  which  he  had  taken  in  writing  it,  he  would  not  fear  the  loss  of  his  labor." 
Well  would  it  be,  both  for  the  wTiter  and  his  work,  if  he  could  truly  add,  in  the  me- 
lodious sentence  which  Home  subjoins,  that  "  the  employment  detached  him  from 
the  bustle  and  hurry  of  life,  the  din  of  politics,  and  the  noise  of  tolly ;" — that  "  vanity 
and  vexation  flew  away  for  a  season, — care  and  disquietude  came  not  nigh  his  dwell- 
ing." 

The  MATERIALS  of  this  work  should  be  found  in  all  that  has  been  written  on  the 
subject  of  the  New  Testament  history,  since  the  .scriptural  canon  was  completed.  But 
"  who  is  sufficient  for  these  things "?"  A  long  life  might  fijid  abundant  emplo}Tnent 
in  searching  a  thousand  libraries,  and  in  compiling  from  a  hundred  thousand  volumes, 
the  facts  and  illustrations  of  this  immense  and  noble  subject;  and  then  the  best  energies 
of  another  long  life  would  be  needed  to  bring  the  mighty  masses  into  fonn,  and  give 
them  in  a  narrative  for  the  mind  of  the  unlearned.  What,  then,  is  here  attempted,  as  a 
substitute  for  this  immensity  1  To  give  a  clear,  distinct,  narrative  of  each  apostle's 
life,  with  such  illustrations  of  the  character  of  the  era  and  the  .scene  in  which  the  inci- 
dents occurred,  and  such  explanations  of  the  terms  in  which  they  are  recorded,  as  may, 
consistently  with  the  limits  of  this  book,  be  drawn  Irom  those  works  of  the  learned  of 
ancient  and  modern  times,  which  are  within  the  Avriter's  reach.  Various  and  nume- 
rous are  the  books  that  swell  the  list  of  faithful  and  honest  relereuces ;  many  and  weighty 
the  volumes  that  have  been  turned  over,  in  the  long  course  of  research ;  ancient  and 
venerable  the  dust,  which  has  been  shaken  into  suiibcating  clouds  about  tire  seajcher's 
head,  and  has  obscured  his  vision,  as  he  dragged  many  a  forgotten  folio  from  the  slum- 
ber of  ages,  to  furnish  the  modern  compiler  with  the  rich  productions  of  antique  lore. 
Histories,  travels,  geographies,  maps,  commentaries,  criticisms,  introductions,  and 
lexicons,  have  been  "  daily  and  nightly  turned  in  the  hand ;"  and  of  this  labor  some 
fruit  is  offered  on  every  page.  But  the  unstained  source  of  sacred  history !  the  pure 
well-spring,  at  which  the  wearied  searcher  always  refreshed  himself,  after  unrequited  toils 
through  dry  masses  of  erudition,  was  the  simple  story  of  the  Apostles  and  Evangelists, 
told  by  themselves.  In  this  same  simple  storj^,  indeed,  were  found  the  points  on  which 
the  longest  labor  was  required;  yet  these,  at  best  only  illustrated,  not  improved,  by  all 
the  labors  of  the  learned  of  various  ages,  were  the  materials  of  the  work.  These  were 
the  preparations  of  months  and  years  ;  the  execution  must  decide  on  their  real  value. 

The  office  of  an  Apostolic  historian  becomes  at  once  most  arduous  and  most  im- 
portant, and  the  usefulness  of  his  labor  is  most  fully  showTi,  in  passages  where  the  task 
of  weaving  the  various  threads  and  scraps  of  sacred  history  in  an  even,  continuous  and 
uniform  text,  is  one  to  which  few  readers,  taking  the  parts  detailed  in  the  ordinary  way, 
are  competent,  and  which  requires  for  its  satisfactory  achievement,  more  aids  from  the 
long-accumulated  labors  of  the  learned  of  past  ages,  than  are  within  the  reach  of  any 
but  a  favored  lew.  To  pass  back  and  forth  from  gospel  to  gospel,  in  the  search  after 
order  and  consistency, — to  bring  the  lights  of  other  history  to  clear  up  the  obscurities, 
and  show  that  which  fills  up  the  deficiencies  of  the  gospel  "history, — to  add  the  helps  of 
ancient  and  modern  travelers  in  tracing  the  topography  of  the  Bible, — to  find  in  lexi- 
cons, commentaries,  criticisms  and  interpretations,  the  true  and  full  force  of  every 
word  of  those  passages  in  which  an  important  fact  is  expressed, — these  are  a  few  of 


PREFACE.  7 

the  writer's  duties  in  giving  to  common  readers  the  results  of  the  mental  efforts  of  the 
theologians  of  this  and  past  ages,  Avhose  copyist  and  ti'anslator  he  frequently  is.  Often 
aiming,  however,  at  an  effort  somewhat  higher  than  that  of  giving  the  opinions  and 
Uioughts  of  others,  he  offers  his  own  account  and  arrangement  of  the  subject,  in  pre- 
ference to  those  of  the  learned,  as  being  free  from  such  considerations  as  are  involved 
in  technicalities  above  the  appreciation  of  ordinary  readers,  and  as  standing  in  a  con- 
nected naiTative  tbrm,  while  the  information  on  these  points,  found  in  the  works  of 
eminent  Biblical  scholars,  is  mostly  in  detached  fragments,  which,  however  complete 
to  the  student,  require  much  explanation  and  illustration,  to  make  them  useful  or  inter- 
esting to  the  majority  of  readers.  In  the  discussion  of  particular  points,  reference  has 
been  properly  made  to  the  authority  of  others,  where  necessary  to  explain  or  support. 

In  the  narrative  of  the  lives  of  the  Twelve,  tlie  author  has  been  driven  entirely  to  the 
labor  of  new  research  and  composition,  because  the  task  of  composing  complete  biogra- 
phies of  those  personages  had  never  before  been  undertaken  on  so  large  a  scale. 
Cave's  Lives  of  the  Apostles,  the  only  work  that  has  ever  gone  over  that  ground,  is 
much  more  limited  in  object  and  extent  than  the  task  here  undertaken,  and  afforded  no 
aid  whatever  to  the  author  of  this  work,  in  those  biographies.  Both  the  text  and  the 
notes  of  that  part  of  the  work  are  entirely  new, — nothing  whatever,  except  a  few  ac- 
knowledged quotations,  in  those  narratives,  having  ever  appeared  before  on  this  subject. 
A  list  of  the  works  which  were  resorted  to  in  the  prosecution  of  this  new  labor,  would 
fill  many  pages,  and  would  answer  no  useful  purpose,  after  the  numerous  references 
made  to  each  source  in  connexion  with  the  passages  which  were  thence  derived.  It  is 
sufficient  in  justice  to  himself  to  say  that  all  those  references  were  made  by  the  author 
himself;  nor  in  one  instance,  that  can  now  be  recollected,  did  he  quote  second-hand 
without  acknowledging  the  intermediate  source.  In  the  second  part  of  the  work,  the 
labor  was  in  a  iield  more  completely  occupied  by  previous  labor.  But  throughout  that 
part  of  the  work  also,  the  whole  text  of  the  narrative  is  original ;  and  all  the  fruits  of 
others'  research  are,  with  hardly  one  exception,  credited  in  the  notes,  both  to  the  original, 
and  to  llij  medium  through  which  they  were  derived.  In  this  portion  of  the  work, 
much  labor  has  been  saved,  by  making  use  of  the  very  full  illustrations  given  in  the 
works  of  those  who  had  preceded  the  author  on  the  life  of  Paul,  whose  biography  has 
frequently  received  the  attention  and  labor  of  the  learned. 

The  following  have  been  most  useful  in  this  part  of  the  work.  "  Hermanni  Witsii 
Meletemata  Leidensia,"  Par.  1.  "  VitaPauli  Apostoli."  4to.  Leidiae,  1703. — "  Der 
Apostel  Pardus.  Von  J.  T.  Hemsen."  8vo.  Gottingen,  1830. — "  Pearson's  Annals  of 
Paul,  translated,  with  notes,  by  Jackson  Muspratt  Williams."  l2mo.  Cambridge 
(Eng.),  1827. — Bloomfield's  Armotations,  or  "  Recensio  Synopsis."  Much  valuable 
matter  contained  in  the  two  fij.st,  however,  was  excluded  by  want  of  room. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  throughout  the  book,  the  text  is  on  many  pages  broken  by 
matter  thrown  in  at  the  ends  of  paragraphs,  in  smaller  t}^e.  The  design  is,  that  these 
notes,  thus  running  through  the  body  of  the  work,  shall  contain  such  particulars  as 
would  too  much  break  the  thread  of  the  story  if  made  a  part  of  the  common  text,  and 
yet  are  of  the  highest  importance  as  illustrations,  explanations  and  proofs  of  passages 
in  the  history.  In  many  places,  there  has  been  need  of  references  to  history,  antiquities, 
topography,  and  various  collateral  helps,  to  make  the  story  understood.  All  these 
things  are  here  given  in  minute  type,  proportioned  to  the  minuteness  of  the  investiga- 
tion therein  followed.  Being  separated  in  this  way,  they  need  be  no  hindrance  to  those 
who  do  not  wish  t-o  learn  the  reasons  and  proofs  of  things,  since  all  such  can  pa.ss  them 
by  at  once,  and  keep  the  thread  of  the  narrative,  in  the  larger  type,  unbroken. 

The  different  sizes  and  arrangements  of  type  indicate  the  varieties  of  subject  and 
matter.  The  main  narrative,  or  general  text,  is  in  "  Small  Pica  type,  leaded;"  the 
history  of  the  writings  of  the  Apostles,  or  books  of  the  New  Testament,  is  in  the  same 
t^^pe,  "  solid,"  or  without  leads ;  the  faiulous  history  of  the  Apostles  is  in  "  Long  Primer 
type ;"  the  only  pa.ssage  taken  from  the  manuscript  of  another  author  is  in  "  Bourgeois 
type ;"  and  the  notes,  or  commentaries  on  the  narratives,  are  in  "  Brevier." 

The  book  is  believed  to  be  entirely  free  from  typographical  errors.    Certain  pecu- 
liarities in  orthography  are  based  on  analogical  reasons  elsewhere  given. 
New  Haven,  December  24,  1835. 

The  foregoing  statements  accompanied  the  first  edition  of  this  work,  published  in 
New  Haven,  January  1,  1836.  In  the  course  of  that  year,  tl^c  book  was  stereotj'ped, 
with  large  additions  and  corrections ;  and  seve  ral  editions,  amounting  to  seven  thousanc 


8  PREFACE. 

copies,  were  issued  from  that  date  to  18-10.  By  the  general  difficulties  then  obstructing 
all  departments  of  business,  the  former  publishers  became  involved ;  and  the  stereotyiw 
plates  were,  lor  nearly  six  years,  so  held  as  to  prevent  their  use  in  the  publication, 
which  has  consequently  been  suspended  during  that  period,  though  a  considerable 
demand  for  the  book  has  continued.  Within  a  few  weeks,  the  author  has  been  enabled 
to  become  the  proprietor  of  the  stereotype  plates ;  and  he  has  availed  himself  of  the 
facilities  thus  alfurded  (with  the  liberal  aid  of  the  capable  and  enterprising  publishers 
whose  names  appear  on  the  title-page)  to  offer  the  present  edition  to  tlie  public. 

Many  important  improvements  have  been  made  in  the  stereotype  plates.  The  read- 
ings, revisions  and  reflections  of  the  la-st  ten  years  have  been  exercised  on  the  correction 
of  the  work ;  and  however  far  short  of  satisfying  the  writer  or  the  reader  it  may  still  be, 
it  contains  no  errors  which  are  merely  the  result  of  haste,  or  want  of  deliberation.  Its 
incompleteness  cannot  be  remedied  without  a  material  addition  to  the  bulk  and  expense. 

In  every  change  of  diversified  occupation,  since  the  first  production  of  this  worK,  the 
author  has  made  it  his  constant  effort  to  discover  its  imperfections,  and  correct  its  errors. 
Hoping  continually  to  be  able  to  resume  its  publication,  he  has,  with  unceasing  solici- 
tude and  ever-freshening  interest,  labored  to  make  it  more  worthy  of  the  favor  of  the 
learned  and  the  public,  and  of  the  solemn  importance  of  the  subject.  It  has  still  been 
what  it  was  during  its  composition, — a  source  of  enjoyment  and  benefit  that  can  hardly 
be  expressed.  The  labor  of  comparing  its  statements  and  opinions  with  those  of  reve- 
lation has  been  productive  of  advantage  to  him,  equal  to  any  that  can  ever  be  derived 
from  it  by  the  most  favored  reader.  The  conviction  and  feeling  of  the  honesty,  beauty, 
and  perfection  of  the  sacred  record,  from  which  its  facts  have  been  mostly  drawn,  have 
deepened  as  he  has  searched  again  and  again  for  hidden  or  neglected  historic  truths.  No 
new  pmsuit  has  approached  it  in  interest,  or  excluded  it  wholly  from  meditation.  His 
happiest  days  have  been  passed  in  these  studies ;  and  every  other  occupation  has  .seem- 
ed tedious  and  trifling  in  comparison  with  them.  They  have  been  the  .solace  of  care, 
the  refreshment  of  a  toil-worn  mind,  the  inspiration  of  other  and  uncongenial  efibrts, 
a  "  consolation  in  travel,"  and  a  companionship  in  many  solitudes.  They  most  prema- 
turely began  in  youth,  and  have  been  gratefully  renewed  in  manhood,  through  every 
change  of  scene,  in  this  and  other  lands,  amid  the  throng  of  the  city,  over  the  wide 
ocean,  on  torrid  shores,  on  "  missionary  ground,"  and  on  the  borders  of  the  Great  Desert. 

That  the  twelve  years  which  have  passed  since  the  commencement  of  the  task  should 
have  failed  to  produce,  in  its  accomplishment,  the  satisfaction  of  all  expectations,  is  a 
consequence  of  inherent  defects  of  capacity,  not  want  of  sincerity  or  industry,  in  the 
writer.  More  may  be  sought  in  these  pages  than  was  designed  to  be  furnished.  It  is 
not  ofiered  as  a  professional,  clerical  work,  or  as  a  series  of  sermons  upon  the  historical 
parts  of  the  New  Testament.  It  does  not  invade  the  duties  of  the  church  or  the  pulpit. 
In  style,  substance,  and  purpose,  it  is  a  secular  work, — a  history  of  sacred  things, 
designed  to  interest  men  of  the  world,  of  whatever  opinion  or  negation  of  opinion. 
Peculiarities  in  its  matter  and  manner,  which  might  be  censured  by  a  hasty  judgment, 
are  justified  by  its  object  and  professed  chjiracter.  That  it  has  not  wholly  failed  to 
minister  also  to  the  uses  of  those  more  deeply  interested  in  such  things,  appears  from 
the  favor  with  which  it  has  been  received  by  eminent  scholars  and  venerated  clergymen, 
both  living  and  dead,  as  well  as  by  members  of  nearly  every  denomination  of  those 
"  who  profess  and  call  themselves  Christians." 

City  of  New  York,  March  4, 1846. 


THE 


LIVES  OF  THE   APOSTLES. 


PLAN  AND  SCOPE  OF  THE  WORK. 


THE    NAME. 

The  "word  apostle  has  been  adopted  into  all  the  languages 
of  Christendom,  from  the  Greek,  in  which  the  earliest  records  of 
the  Christian  history  are  given  to  us.  In  that  language,  the  cor- 
responding word  is  derived  from  a  verb  which  means  "  fit  out  "  or 
"  equip  off,"  so  that  the  primary  meaning  of  the  derivative  is  "  one 
equipped  off,"  "fitted  out,"  "instructed  forth."  In  all  uses, 
this  sense  is  kept  in  view.  Of  its  ordinary  meanings,  the  most 
frequent  was  that  of  "a  person  employed  at  a  distance  to  execute 
the  commands,  or  exercise  the  authority,  of  the  supreme  power," 
in  which  sense  it  was  appropriated  as  the  title  of  an  embassador, 
and  of  a  naval  commander ;  and  it  is  used  to  designate  these  offices 
by  the  classic  Grecian  writers.  In  reference  to  its  general,  and 
probably  not  to  any  technical  meaning,  it  was  applied  by  Jesus 
Christ  to  those  of  his  followers  who  were  made  the  objects  of  his 
most  careful  instruction,  preparation,  and  commission,  that  they, 
thus  equipped^  might  go  into  all  the  world,  to  preach  the  gospel  to 
every  creature.  The  use  of  the  term  in  connexion  with  this  high 
and  holy  commission,  did  not  give  it  such  a  character  of  peculiar 
sanctity  or  dignity  as  to  limit  its  application  among  Christians  of 
the  early  ages,  to  the  chosen  ministers  of  Christ's  own  appointment ; 
but  it  is  applied  even  in  the  writings  of  the  New  Testament,  as  well 
as  by  Grecian  and  Latin  Fathers,  to  other  less  eminent  persons, 
who  might  be  included  under  its  primary  meaning.  It  was  also 
extended,  in  the  peculiar  sense  in  which  Christ  first  applied  it, 
2 


10  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

from  the  twelve,  to  other  eminent  and  successful  preachers  of  the 
gospel  who  were  contemporary  with  them,  and  to  some  of  their 
successors. 

Apostle.— The  most  distant  theme  to  which  this  word  can  be  certainly  traced,  in 
Greek,  is  the  verb  ErtXXw,  {Stello,)  which  enters  into  the  composition  of  'Arrotrn'AXa), 
{Apostello,)  from  which  apostle  is  direqtly  derived.  In  tracing  the  minute  and  dis- 
tant etymologv  of  EtcXXm,  {Stello,)  it  is  worth  noticing,  that  the  first  elements  of  tlie 
word  make  the  radical  st,  which  is  at  once  recognised,  by  Oriental  scholars,  as 
identical  with  the  Sanscrit  and  Persian  root  st,  which,  in  those  and  all  the  Indo- 
European  languages,  is  remarkable  for  entering  into  the  composition  of  a  vast  num- 
ber of  words,  whose  primary  idea  is  "fixity,"  and  this  is,  therefore,  the  ground- 
meaning  of  this  prime  root.  In  these  languages,  its  combinations  are  very  apparent ; 
as  in  Greek  Erd<o,  aripcos,  (rrfiXri,  ario),  &c. ;  in  Latin,  sto,  statuo,  struo,  &c.;  in  German, 
stehen,  stecken,  stelleji,  starr,  statt,  &c. ;  and  in  English,  a  still  more  numerous  class  of 
words,  such  as  stay,  stand,  stick,  stop,  stead,  stiff,  still,  with  a  great  many  others,  which 
a  moment's  consideration  will  suggest  to  any  reader.  This  idea  of  "  fixity,"  is 
prominent  in  the  primary  meaning  of  artWo),  as  given  by  Passow,  who,  in  his  Greek 
lexicon,  (almost  the  only  one  of  the  whole  language  which  philosophically  and  justly 
deduces  and  arranges  the  meanings  of  words,)  gives  the  German  M'ord  stcllcn,  as  the 
original  ground-meaning  {grundbedeutung)  of  the  Greek  word.  This  German  verb, 
stellen,  (evidently  from  the  same  stock  as  the  Greek  word  to  which  it  so  strikingly 
corresponds,)  is  best  expressed  by  the  English  verb  "fix,"  which,  in  all  its  vag-ieness 
of  meaning  as  commonly  applied,  may  be  taken  as  the  fair  representative  of  the  Greek 
Srt'XXo) ;  and  though  a  common  reader  may  not,  at  once,  easily  conceive  how  a  single 
word  may  be  used  in  such  a  variety  of  senses,  the  fact  really  is  manifest,  that  this 
English  word  bears  a  much  greater  variety  of  opposite  meanings  than  the  Greek. 
For  we  talk  of  "fixing"  any  movable  thing,  when  we  put  it  in  a  condition  to  move; 
a  person,  in  vulgar  phrase,  is  said  to  be  "fixed,"  when  he  is  dressed  for  company; 
and,  in  short,  any  thing  is  said  to  be  "fixed,"  when  it  is  prepared  for  its  proper  office, 
place,  or  function,  without  regard  to  the  circumstances  of  motion  or  of  real  "fixity." 
llrau)  (Stao)  may  very  reasonably  be  considered  the  true  Greek  theme  of  ariXXo, 
though  the  lexicons  do  not  give  it  as  such.  At  any  rate,  it  seems  better  than  the  sug- 
gestion of  Tt'XXw,  (  Tello,)  made  by  Lennep — which  is  also  given  by  Damm. 

As  to  the  primary  meaning  of  ErtAXu,  there  appears  to  be  some  diflference  of  opin- 
ion among  lexicographers.  All  the  common  lexicons  give  to  the  meaning  "  5en.<i," 
the  first  place,  as  the  original  sense  from  which  all  the  others  are  formed,  by  diflTerent 
applications  of  the  term.  But  a  little  examination  into  the  history  of  the  word,  in 
its  uses  by  the  earlier  Greeks,  seems  to  give  reason  for  a  different  arrangement  of 
the  meanings. 

In  searching  for  the  original  force  of  a  Greek  word,  the  first  reference  must,  of 
course,  be  to  the  father  of  Grecian  song  and  story.  In  Homer,  this  word  ctteXXcj,  is 
found  in  such  a  variety  of  connexions,  as  to  give  the  most  desirable  opportunities  for 
reaching  its  primary  meaning.  Yet  in  none  of  these  passages  does  it  stand  in  such  a 
relation  to  other  words,  as  to  require  the  meaning  of  "  send."  Only  a  single  passage 
in  all  his  works  has  ever  been  supposed  to  justify  the  translation  of  the  word  in  this 
sense;  and  even  that  is  translated  with  equal  force  and  justice,  and  far  more  in 
analogy  with  the  usages  of  Homer,  by  the  meaning  of  "  equip,"  or  "frepare,"  which 
is  the  idea  expressed  by  it  in  all  other  passages  where  it  is  used  by  that  author. 
(See  Damm,  sub  voc.)  This  is  the  meaning  which  the  learned  Valckenaer  gives  as 
the  true  primary  signification  of  this  word.  (In  Lennep.  Etymologic.  Grace,  sub 
voce,  ErtXXo).)  This  learned  and  acute  lexicographical  critic,  is  the  first  who  rightly 
apprehended  the  true  primary  meaning  of  the  word  ;  and  in  the  passage  abovemen- 
tioned,  very  clearly  refutes  the  erroneous  notions  of  H.  Stephens,  Scapula,  and  Len- 
nep, about  the  derivation  and  order  of  its  significations.  He  says — "  The  peculiar 
force  of  the  word  is  that  of  arraying,  equipping,  arranging ;  {instruendi,  ornandi, 
componendi;)  and  hence  arose  the  secondary  signification  of  'sending  the  person 
prepared  or  equijyped.'  For  the  word  never  means  simply  send,  except  improperly, 
and  only  in  the  usage  of  the  Latin  writers.  The  idea  of  simply  sending,  is  expressed 
in  Greek  by  mfiTroi,  Xpempo ;)  so  that  while  Trlfi-jeiv  vavv  means  'to  send  a  ship,'  oTtWtiv 
vavv  may  mean  '  to  equip  a  ship,'  or  '  to  send  one  already  equipped  and  provided,* 
whether  with  arms,  or  with  a  convoy,  or  with  seamen,  or  with  merchandiie.    And 


PLAN  AND  SCOPE.  11 

hence  the  derivative  irrrfXoj  (stolos)  has  the  meaning  of  "  a  fleet  equipped  with  arms 
and  men,"  precisely  corresponding  to  the  expression  which  Julius  Caesar  uses  in  the 
Latin, — "  ornaUi  classis."  Valckenaer  gives  no  instances  from  the  classics,  to  support 
his  view  of  the  true  signification  of  the  verb,  but  a  reference  not  only  to  Homer,  but 
to  Pindar,  AEschylus,  Euripides,  Sophocles,  and  Herodotus,  has  shown  me,  that 
in  aii  passages  where  this  word  is  used  by  these  ancient  authors,  it  occurs  in  such 
connexions  as  to  abundantly  justify  the  broad  assertion  of  Valckenaer,  that  "  this 
word  NEVER  means  simply  to  send."  In  Homer  it  occurs  eight  times.  In  Pindar 
twice,  Olymp.  vii.  61.  vauiv  tt\6ov  UtIWiv  eg,  &c. — "  to  array  a  fleet  against  the  sea-girt 
land,"  &c. — Olymp.  xiii.  69.  cv  Kotv(i  araXcis — "appointed  delegate."  See  Damm's 
"Lexicon  Horn,  et  Pind.,"  under  ortXXco,  of  which  he  gives  "abordnen,"  "to  fit 
out,"  as  the  first  signification,  a  notion  accordant  with  Valckenaer's.  Passow  also 
refers  to  the  first  of  these  Pindaric  passages,  and  translates  the  verb  there  by  "fit  out" 
{ausrusten.) 

The  brief  allusion  to  these  early  authorities  will  be  suflicient,  without  a  prolonged 
investigation,  to  show  that  the  meaning  of  "  send"  was  not,  historically,  the  first  sig- 
nification. But  a  still  more  rational  ground  for  this  opinion  is  found  in  the  natural 
order  of  transition  in  sense,  which  would  be  followed  in  the  later  applications  of  the 
word.  It  is  perfectly  easy  to  see  how,  from  this  primary  meaning  of  "j^.t,"  or 
*'  equip"  when  applied  to  a  person,  in  reference  to  an  expedition  or  any  distant  ob- 
ject, would  insensibly  originate  the  meaning  of  "  send ;"  since,  in  most  cases,  to  equip 
or  fix  out  an  expedition  or  a  messenger,  implies  a  purpose  to  send  one.  In  this  way, 
all  the  secondary  meanings  flow  naturally  from  this  common  theme,  but  if  the  order 
should  be  inverted  in  respect  to  any  one  of  them,  the  beautiful  harmony  of  derivation 
would  be  lost  at  once.  There  is  no  other  of  the  definition  of  ctteXXw  which  can  be 
thus  taken  as  the  natural  source  of  all  the  rest,  and  shown  tc  originate  them  in  its 
various  secondary  applications. 

A  distinction  must  here  be  clearly  drawn  between  the  ground-meaning,  or  radical 
idea  conveyed  by  the  word,  and  the  true  primitive  signification  of  the  word.  The 
former  is  not  in  fact  supposed  to  be  a  real  definition  of  the  word,  but  only  a  simple 
expression  of  its  general  force ;  while  the  latter  is  the  proper  definition  of  the  word 
as  it  actually  occurs  in  various  connexions,  and  is  that  which  precedes  the  other 
meanings  in  use.  Thus,  "fix"  is  the  ground-meaning  or  radical  idea  of  oteXXw,  but 
"equip"  is  considered  the  primitive  signification,  or  the  earliest  and  the  original 
application  of  the  word  in  the  Greek  writers.  The  discovery  of  these  two  distinct  im- 
portant points  in  the  lexicography  of  ariWco  is  due  to  two  diiferent  persons,  the  ground- 
meaning  having  been  discovered  by  Schneider,  though  the  priority  of  "equip"  among 
the  actual  significations  of  the  word  as  it  occurs  in  the  classics,  had  been  long  before 
shown  by  Valckenaer.  But  the  learned  Schneider,  not  rightly  apprehending  this  dis- 
tinction between  the  ground-meaning  and  the  first  of  the  significations,  has  erro- 
neously imagined  his  view  to  be  opposite  to  that  of  Valckenaer.  Passow  however, 
the  editor,  improver,  and  corrector  of  Schneider,  has  perceived  the  true  harmony  of 
these  views,  and  has  well  combined  them  in  his  account  of  the  word.  (Handworter- 
buch  der  Griechischen  Sprache.  II.  Band.)  The  first  mention  of  the  analogy  be- 
tween the  Teutonic  "  stellen"  and  this  Greek  word,  is  said  by  Everard  Scheidius, 
(in  Lennep.  Etym.  Graec.  ed.  Nagel,  1808,  p.  689,)  to  be  found  in  a  passage  of  Ha- 
vercamp.  (De  pronunt.  L.  Gr.  p.  87.)  The  first  lexicographer  who  made  use  of  this 
analogy,  is  Schneider. 

Those  meanings  which  may  be  properly  grouped  together  under  the  first  class  of 
the  definitions  of  otc-XXw,  along  with  "equip,"  of  which  they  are  only  new  applica- 
tions and  extensions,  are  "  fit  out,"  "  arrange,"  "prepare,"  "  array,"  "  dress,"  "  adorn," 
&c.  To  this  class  of  definitions  may  be  referred,  as  it  seems  to  me,  the  meaning  of 
the  word  in  the  verse  of  Homer  already  alluded  to.  The  passage  is  in  the  Iliad, 
xii.  325,  where  Sarpedon  is  addressing  Glaucus,  and  says,  "  If  we  could  hope,  my 
friend,  after  escaping  this  contest,  to  shun  for  ever  old  age  and  death,  I  would  nei- 
ther myself  fight  among  the  foremost,  nor  prepare  (or  array)  you  for  the  glorious 
strife."  (OiV£  kc  ae  cTcWoijit  iiUxw  t;  Kviuifcipav.)  Or  as  Heyne  more  freely  renders  it, 
hortarer,  "urge,"  or  "incite."  The  inappropriateness  of  the  meaning  "  send,"  given 
in  this  place  by  Clark,  {mitterem,')  and  one  of  the  scholiasts,  (jreinrotin,)  consists  in  the 
fact,  that  the  hero  speaking  was  nimself  to  accompany  or  rather  lead  his  friend  into 
the  deadly  struggle,  and  of  course  could  not  be  properly  said  to  send  him,  if  he  went 
with  him  or  before  him.  It  was  the  partial  consideration  of  this  circumstance,  no 
doubt,  which  led  the  same  scholiast  to  offer  as  an  additional  probable  meaning,  that 


12  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

of  "  prepare,"  "  make  ready,"  (wapaoKsva^otfit,)  as  though  he  had  some  misgiving  about 
tho  propriety  of  his  first  translation.  For  a  full  account  of  these  renderings,  see 
Heyne  in  loc.  and  Stephens's  Thes.  sub  voc.  In  the  latter  also,  under  the  second  para- 
graph of  i^TtXAo),  are  given  numerous  other  passages  illustrating  this  usage,  in  pas- 
sive and  middle  as  well  as  active  forms,  both  from  Homer  and  later  writers.  In 
Schneider  and  Passow,  other  useful  references  are  given  sub  voc. ;  and  in  Damm 
is  found  the  best  account  of  its  uses  in  Homer  and  Pindar. 

In  the  applications  of  the  word  in  this  first  meaning,  the  idea  of  equipment  or 
preparation  was  always  immediately  lollowed  by  that  of  future  action;  for  the  very 
notion  of  equipment  or  preparation  implies  some  departure  or  undertaking  imme- 
diately subsequent.  In  the  transitive  sense,  when  the  subject  of  the  verb  is  the  in- 
strument of  preparing  another  person  for  the  distant  purpo.se,  there  immediately 
arises  theinferreQmeaning"sc?i.d,"  constituting  the  second  branch  of  definition,  which 
has  been  so  unfortunately  mistaken  for  the  root,  by  all  the  common  lexicographers. 
In  the  reflexive  sense,  when  the  subject  prepares  himself  for  the  expected  action,  in 
the  same  manner  originates,  at  once,  the  meaning  ^^  go,"  which  is  found,  therefore, 
the  prominent  secondary  sense  of  the  middle  voice,  and  also  of  the  active,  when,  aj? 
is  frequent  in  Greek  verbs,  that  voice  assumes  a  reflexive  force.  The  origin  of  these 
two  definitions,  apparently  so  incongruous  with  the  rest  and  with  each  other,  is  thus 
made  consistent  and  clear;  and  the  identity  of  origin  here  shown,  justifies  the 
arrangement  of  them  both  together  in  this  manner.  The  arrangement  here  given  of 
the  meanings  of  (ttcXXm,  is  also  justified  by  the  authority  of  the  ancient  scholiast  on 
Euripides,  (Hecub.  117.)  He  classifies  the  definitions  of  the  word  in  this  order. 
1.  "  Equip"  or  "  Adorn"  or  "  Dress."  2.  "  Send,"  &c.  (See  Barnes's  Euripides,  p.  5. 
folio,  Cambridge,  1G94.)  This  arrangement  is  also  that  which  is  adopted  and  ably 
supported  by  Valckenaer,  Damm,  and  Passow,  as  above  quoted:  and  these  three  great 
names,  connected  with  the  mass  of  evidence  here  presented,  are  sufficient  to  justify 
the  boldness  of  opinions  which  may  appear,  not  only  novel,  but  unauthorized,  to 
those  who  are  able  to  refer  only  to  the  common  lexicons,  or  to  those  of  older  date. 
Henry  Stephens  and  his  epitoniizer.  Scapula,  followed  by  the  majority  of  common 
lexicographers,  Hedericus,  Schrevelius,  Schneider,  and  his  translator  Donnegan, 
with  numerous  other  English  lexicographers  of  the  Greek  language,  are  equally  far 
from  a  true  perception  of  the  force  of  the  word. 

The  simple  verb  (iriAAw,  among  its  numerous  combinations  with  other  words,  is 
compounded  with  the  preposition  dno,  (apo,)  making  the  verb  dKooTeXXcj,  {apostello.) 
This  preposition  meaning  "off,"  "out,"  "away,"  "from,"  when  united  with  a  verb, 
generally  adds  to  it  the  idea  of  motion  off  from  some  object.  Thus  d-noaTiWw  ac- 
quires by  this  addition  the  sense  of  "  away,"  which  however  only  gives  precision 
and  force  to  the  meaning  "  fix,  "  which  belongs  to  the  simple  verb.  By  prefixing 
this  preposition,  the  verb  is  always  confined  to  the  definition  "send,"  and  the  com- 

Eound  never  bears  any  other  of  the  definitions  of  ariXXu  but  this.  This  derivation  may 
e  illustrated  in  English,  by  the  popular  uses  of  the  word  "fix,"  which  has  already 
been  specified  as  a  convenient  expression  of  the  ground-meaning  of  CTrtXXw.  The  word 
"fix"  is  often  used  to  express  the  idea  of  preparation  and  commission  for  a  departure 
to  something  distant.  Thus  we  say  "  he  is  fixed  for  the  journey," — which  implies  that 
he  is  prepared  for  departure,  and  this  preparation  of  course  is  equivalent  to  "  being 
sent"  by  those  who  prepare  him,  or  to  "going"  if  he  prepares  himself.  This  is  exactly 
the  application  of  the  simple  Greek  verb  as  above  described;  and  as  with  that,  so  in 
Englisn,  the  word  "  fix"  has,  by  itself,  an  immense  variety  of  meanings, — each  signifi- 
cation being  always  determined  by  the  connexion  in  which  the  verb  is  used.  But  the 
annexing  of  a  single  preposition  to  the  English  word  limits  it  absolutely  to  the  single 
meaning  of  "  sending."  Thus  in  vulgar  usage,  when  a  man  is  said  to  be  "  fixed  off," 
it  is  always  implied  that  ne  is  sent,  and  the  expression  "  fix  off'  is  therefore  equivalent 
to  the  verb  "  send."  And,  to  conclude  these  convenient  illustrations  of  Greek  lexico- 
graphy from  English  vulgarisms;  asaHWo)  means  "/.z," so  d:ro(7r£XXa) means  "fix  off," 
or  "fit  out."  Yet,  as  Valckenaer  justly  remarks  in  the  passage  above  quoted,  respect- 
ing ffT-tXXa),  that  it  "tiever  means  send  merely,  as  niniroi  does, — so  the  derivative  dn-o- 
ffrtXXoj  never  means  simply  "send,"  but  is  always  inseparably  connected  with  the  idea 
of  "'preparing"  "fitting,"  or  "  equipping"  the  person  sent,  for  the  duties  to  which  he 
is  commissioned.  This  is  distinctly  expressed  also  in  the  just  definition  of  this  verb 
given  by  the  great  Suicer  in  his  Thesaurus  Ecclesiasjicus,  (sub  voce  d7r(5<rroXo{.)  He 
says,  "  The  verb  dTrsffrtXXu  signifies  '  to  send  with  some  kind  ofpoioer  and  authority,' " — 
thus  connecting,  inseparably,  the  notion  of  equipment  and  preparation.    The  simple 


PLAN  AND  SCOPE.  13 

verb  without  the  prefix  expresses  the  idea  of  "  send"  only  in  certain  peculiar  relations 
with  other  words;  while  the  compound,  limited  and  aided  by  the  preposition,  always 
implies  action  directed  "away  from"  the  a^ent  to  a  distance,  and  thus  conveys  the 
idea  of  "send,"  by  a  sort  of  implication.  From  this  compound  verb  thus  defined,  is 
directly  formed  the  substantive  which  is  the  true  object  and  end  of  this  protracted 
research. 

'AnOLTOAOS,  (Apostnlos,)  is  derived  from  the  preceding  verb  by  changing  the 
penult  vowel  E  into  O,  and  displacing  the  termination  of  the  verb  by  that  of  the  noun. 
The  change  of  the  vowel  is  described  in  the  grammars  as  caused  by  its  being  derived 
from  the  perfect  middle,  which  has  this  peculiarity  in  its  penult.  The  noun  preserves 
in  all  its  uses  the  uniform  sense  of  the  verb  from  which  it  is  derived,  and  in  every 
instance  maintains  the  primary  idea  of  "a  person  or  thing  equipped  and  setit."  It 
was  often  used  adjectively  with  a  termination  varying  according  to  the  gender  of  the 
substantive  to  which  it  referred.  In  this  way  it  seems  to  have  been  used  by  Herodo- 
tus, who  gives  it  the  termination  corresponding  to  ihe  neuter,  when  the  substantive  to 
which  it  refers  is  in  that  gender.  (See  Porti  Dictionarium  lonicumGraeco-Latinum.) 
Herodotus  is  the  earliest  author  in  whom  I  am  able  to  discover  the  word,  for  Homer 
never  uses  the  word  at  all,  nor  does  any  author,  as  far  as  I  know,  previous  to  the 
father  of  history.  Though  always  preserving  the  primary  idea  of  the  word,  he 
varies  its  meaning  considerably,  according  as  he  applies  it  to  a  person  or  a  thing. 
With  the  neuter  termination,  aTrdo-roXoi/,  (aposiolon,)  refemn^  to  the  substantive  r'Xotov, 
(ploion,)  it  means  a  "  vessel  equipped  and  se7it."  In  Plato,  (Epist.  7,)  it  occurs  in  this 
connexion  with  the  substantive  nXoTov  expressed,  which  in  Herodotus  is  only  implied. 
For  an  exposition  of  this  use  of  the  term,  see  H.  Stephens's  Thesaurus,  (sub  voc. 
arT6(TTo>oi.)  With  the  masculine  termination,  Herodotus,  applying  it  to  persons,  uses 
it  first  in  the  sense  of  "embassador,"  or  "herald,"  in  Clio,  21,  where  relating  that 
Halyattes,  king  of  Lydia,  sent  a  herald  (<f>7f)«|,  kerux)  to  treat  for  a  truce  with  the 
Milesians,  he  mentions  his  arrival  under  this  synonymous  term.  "  So  the  apostolos 
(affdo-ToXos)  came  to  Miletus."  ('O  ntv  fn  aTraaro'Koi  ci  TTiv  MiAijroi;  rji/.)  In  Terpsichore, 
38,  he  uses  the  same  term.  "  Aristagoras  the  Milesian  went  to  Lacedaemon  by  ship, 
as  embassador  (or  delegate)  from  the  assembly  of  Ionic  tyrants,"  {AnocTo'Sos  cyivsro.) 
These  two  passages  are  the  earliest  Greek  in  which  I  can  find  this  word,  and  it  is 
worth  noticing  here,  that  the  word  in  the  masculine  form  was  distinctly  applied  to 
persons,  in  the  sense  given  as  the  primary  one  in  the  text  of  this  book.  But,  still 
maintaining  in  its  uses  the  general  idea  of  "equipped  and  sent,"  it  was  not  confined, 
in  the  ever-changing  usage  of  the  flexible  Greeks,  to  individual  persons  alone.  In 
reference  to  its  expression  of  the  idea  of  "distant  destination,"  it  was  applied  by 
later  writers  to  naval  expeditions,  and  in  the  speeches  of  Demosthenes,  who  fre- 
quently uses  the  word,  it  is  entirely  confined  to  the  meaning  of  a  "warlike  expedi- 
tion,/^<e<i  out  and  seiit  by  sea  to  a  distant  contest."  (References  to  numerous  pas- 
sages in  Demosthenes,  where  this  term  is  used,  may  be  found  in  Stephens's  Thesau- 
rus, on  the  word.)  From  the  fleet  itself,  the  term  was  finally  transferred  to  the  naval 
commander  sent  out  with  it,  so  that  in  this  connexion  it  became  equivalent  to  the 
modern  title  of  "  admiral." 

In  all  these  eincient  classical  applications  of  the  word  to  persons,  is  preserved  a 
constant  reference  to  the  original  idea  of  its  root.  It  everywhere  means,  not  merely 
"  one  sent"  but  "  one  equipped"  with  a  high  commission  as  the  representative  of  a  supe- 
rior power.  This  peculiarity  of  its  meaning  is  well  marked  by  the  acute  Suicer,  in 
his  exposition  of  the  word.  "  In  communi  ergo  Graecorum  usu,  apostoli  dicebantur 
certi  homines,  qui  negotii  gerendi  gratia  magis,  quam  deferendi  nuncii,  aliquo  mitte- 
bantur;" — "sent  rather  for  the  purpose  of  managing  some  business,  than  of  merely 
carrying  a  message."  This  idea  of  the  implied  force  of  the  word  is  still  more  dis- 
tinctly brought  out  and  improved  by  Schleusner.  (Lex.  Nov.  Test,  in  voc.)  He 
says, — "it  means,  not  merely  a  messenger,  but  a  messenger  who  is  the  representative 
(or  vicegerent)  of  him  who  sends  him."  ("Non  nude  nuntium,  sed  nuntium  vices 
mittentis  gerentem.")  In  short,  it  is  of  a  higher  import  than  the  word  messenger,  and 
designates  a  person  as  the  representative  and  minister  plenipotentiary  of  the  power 
that  commissions  him.  Such  are  evidently  its  uses  in  Herodotus,  (for  an  embassa- 
dor plenipotentiary,  with  full  powers  to  treat  and  conclude  a  treaty,)  and  by  Demos- 
thenes, (for  an  admiral,  or  naval  commander-in-chief,  representing  the  sovereign 
absolute  power  of  the  state.)  These  are  the  only  significations  given  by  Hesychius. 
(See  his  Lexicon,  in  dTrdo-roXof,  and  itpialiei^.^ 
The  earliest  passage  in  the  sacred  records  of  Christianity,  in  which  the  word 


14  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

apostle  is  used,  is  the  second  verse  of  the  tenth  chapter  of  Matthew,  where  the  dis- 
tinct nomination  of  the  twelve  chief  disciples  is  first  mentioned.  They  are  here 
called  apostles,  and  as  the  term  is  used  in  connexion  with  their  being  equippf.d  with 
instructions  andl'ittedoMi  on  their  first  mission,  it  seems  j)lain  that  the  application  of 
the  name  had  a  direct  reference  to  this  primary  signification.  The  word,  indeed, 
which  Jesus  uses  in  the  sixteenth  verse,  (when  he  says,  "  Behold  !  I  send  you  /or/A  as 
sheep  in  the  midst  of  wolves,")  is  dnoaTtWot,  {apostcllo,)  and  when  in  the  filth  verse, 
Matthew,  after  enumerating  and  nammg  the  apostles,  says,  "  These  twelve  Jfsus  sent 
forth,"  the  past  tense  ol  the  same  verb  is  used,  {dKiaretXei',  apes/eilcji.)  Mark  also,  in 
his  third  chapter,  relating  the  appointment  and  commissioning  of  the  twelve,  uses 
thiu  verb  in  verse  14.  "  And  he  appointed  twelve,  that  they  might  be  with  him,  and 
that  he  might  send  tke7ii  forth  to  preach,"  ((iTruCTi-tAX?;,  apostelie.)  Luke  merely  men- 
lions  the  name  aposlle,  in  giving  the  list  of  the  twelve,  (vi.  13,)  and  ix.  2  gives  the 
verb  in  the  same  way  as  Matthew.  The  term  certainly  is  of  rare  occurrence  in  all 
the  gospels  ;  those  persons  who  are  thus  designated  being  commonly  mentioned  under 
the  general  title  of  disciple  or  learner,  {ftadnrm,)  and  when  it  is  necessary  to  separate 
them  from  the  rest  of  Christ's  followers,  they  are  designated,  from  their  number,  "  the 
twelve."  John  never  uses  it  in  this  sense,  nor  does  Mark  in  giving  the  list,  though 
he  does  in  vi.  30,  and  the  only  occasion  on  which  it  is  applied  to  the  twelve  by 
Matthew,  is  that  of  their  being  equipped  and  fitted  out  on  their  brief  experimental 
mission  through  Galilee,  to  announce  the  approach  of  the  Messiah's  reign.  The 
simple  reason  for  this  remarkable  exclusion  of  the  term  from  common  use  in  the 
gospel  story,  is,  that  only  on  that  one  occasion  just  mentioned,  were  they  equipped  as 
apostles,  or  persons  fitted  out  by  a  superior.  This  circumstance  shows  a  beautiful 
justness  and  accuracy  in  the  use  of  the  words  by  the  gospel  writers,  who,  in  this  mat- 
ter at  least,  seem  to  have  fully  apprehended  the  true  etymological  force  of  the  noble 
language  in  which  they  wrote.  The  twelve,  during  the  whole  life  of  Jesus,  were 
never  fitted  out  to  proclaim  their  Lord's  coming,  except  once ;  but  until  the  ascen- 
sion, they  were  simple  learners,  or  disciples,  (^u0»jrn(,  mathctai,)  and  not  apostles  or 
messengers,  who  had  so  completely  learned  the  will  of  God  as  lo  be  qualified  to 
teach  it  to  others.  But  immediately  after  the  final  departure  of  Jesus,  the  sacred 
narrative  gives  them  the  title  of  apostles  with  much  uniformity,  because  thev  had 
now,  by  their  ascending  Lord,  been  solemnly  prepared  by  his  last  words,  instructed 
forth  as  embassadors  "  to  all  nations."  Even  common  readers  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment must  notice  that,  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  this  title  is  the  most  usual  one 
given  to  the  chosen  twelve,  though  even  there  an  occasional  use  is  made  of  the  col- 
lective term  taken  from  the  idea  of  their  number.  It  deserves  notice,  however,  that 
Luke,  tne  author  of  the  Acis,  even  in  his  gospel,  uses  this  name  more  frequently 
than  any  other  of  the  evangelists;  and  his  individual  preference  for  this  word  may, 
perhaps,  have  had  some  influence  in  producing  its  very  frequent  use  in  the  second 
part  of  his  narrative,  though  the  whole  number  of  times  when  it  is  used  in  his  gospel 
is  only  six,  whereas  in  Acts  it  occurs  twenty-seven  times.  So  that  on  the  whole  it 
would  seem  clear,  that  the  change  from  the  common  use  of  the  term  "disciple,"  in 
the  gospels,  to  that  of  "apostle,"  in  the  history  of  their  acts  after  the  ascension,  was 
made  in  reference  to  the  corresponding  change  in  the  character  and  duties  of  the 
persons  thus  named. 

The  name  apostle  is  not  only  shown  by  New  Testament  usage  to  have  had  an  origi- 
nal reference  to  the  sense  of  preparation  and  equipment,  as  well  as  of  sending,  but  is 
still  further  illustrated  in  this  deeper  meaning  by  the  explanations  offered  by  the 
Christian  Fathers.  It  is  true  that  these  ancient  writers  were  not  endued  with  either 
the  learning  or  the  taste  essential  to  minute  philological  investigation ;  but  the  familiar 
acquaintance  which  many  of  them  had  with  the  usages  of  the  language  that  they 
spoke  and  wrote,  enabled  them  to  see  that  the  word  apostolos  meant  something  more 
than  barely  "  a  person  sent ;"  for,  in  their  explanations,  they  distinctly  acknowledge 
the  additional  force  which  has  already  been  expressed  in  the  definition  given  above 
from  Suicer,  the  great  patristic  lexicographer.  Thus  Theophylact,  commenting  on 
2  Cor.  viii.  23,  says  "  Apostles  of  the  churches, — that  is,  those  who  were  sent  and 
ordained  (or  appointed)  by  the  churches."  He  does  not  rest  satisfied  with  the  simple 
definition  of  "  sent,"  {ircjiipdivTcs,  pemphlhentes ;)  but  appends  a  word  implying  the  addi- 
tional force  of  complete  preparation  and  equipment,  with  all  that  the  consecrating 
commission  of  the  church  could  furnish.  In  the  same  manner  also  Cluintinus,  though 
a  Latin  writer,  partly  appreciated  this  additional  force  of  the  word.  "Apostolus 
Graece,  dicitur  Latine  missus, — nuncius,  legatus,  qui  cum  mandatis  aliquo  mittitur  t" 


PLAN  AND  SCOPE.  15 

"  one  who  is  sent  anywhere  with  commands"  or  "  a  commission."  The  Latin  Fathers 
in  general,  however,  seem  not  to  have  apprehended  the  distinction  between  this  word 
and  the  mere  participle  "  sent."  by  which  tliey  translate  it  without  any  additional  sense. 
Thus  Tenullian  (De  praescript.  '20,)  interprets  the  name  "Apostle"  by  the  participle 
"sent,"  merely.  {'^  ApoUoli  quos  haec  appellatio  nissos  interprelatur.")  Chrysostom, 
as  well  as  Theophylact  and  Theodoret,  (commenting  on  Hebrews  iii.  1,)  being  all 
Grecians,  were  led  to  illustrate  that  peculiar  application  of  the  vfoi A  apostle,  by  a 

relerence  to  its  theme.      'An-ooroXos  Sia  to  dircerTiiXdai. 

By  way  ol'  summary,  the  various  applications  and  significations  of  the  word 
'A-xrroXof,  may  be  arranged  according  to  the  class  of  writers  using  it. 

In  the  classic  Greek.  1.  An  embassador.  Herodotus,  Hesychius.  2.  (Adjectively.) 
A  vessel  equipped  for  distant  service,  and  sent  as  a  transport  or  express.  He- 
rodot.  and  Plato.  3.  A  naval  armament — a  whole  fleet,  equipped,  commissioned,  and 
sent,  on  a  distant  expedition.  Demosthenes.  4.  A  naval  commander-in-chief — an. 
«fZ?«i>a/,  sent  in  command  of  a  distant  expedition.  Demosthenes,  Hesychius. ...  5.  A 
brideman — the  person  who,  in  the  arrangements  of  a  Grecian  wedding,  was  sent  by 
the  bridegroom  to  wait  upon  the  bride  from  her  father's  house  to  her  husband's. 
(This  use  of  the  word  does  not  occur  in  any  of  the  extant  classics,  as  far  as  I  know ; 
but  the  fact  that  it  was  thus  used  in  classic  days,  is  preserved  by  Phavorinus,  or 
Favorinus,  a  lexicographer  of  the  age  of  Adrian.)  Witsius.  Melet.  Leid.,  Vit. 
Paul.  ii.  17.  The  common  classical  name  for  this  bridal  attendant  was,  Nv/j^oywydy, 
{^Nwnpluigogos.) 

In  the  New  Testament,  it  is  applied  only  to  persons,  and  is  never  used  for  inanimate 
things.  There  are  various  classes  of  persons  to  whom  this  term  is  thus  applied. — 
I.  Those  commissioned  and  sent  directly  from  God  to  man.  In  this  sense  it  is  applied 
(1.)  to  Jesus,  Heb.  iii.  1.  This  passage  was  distinctly  explained  by  Chrysostom, 
Theophylact,  and  Theodoret,  as  referring  to  the  primary  general  meaning  of  the 
word,  and  not  to  any  previous  application  to  any  person  or  set  of  persons.  (See  their 
expositions,  as  given  in  Suicer's  Thesaur.  Ecc.  in  voce.  I.  1.)  (2.)  It  is  applied  indefi- 
nitely to  persons  sent  from  God,  where  they  are  classed  together  without  individual- 
ization. Luke  xi.  49 ;  P^ev.  ii.  2,  &c. — II.  Those  directly  commissioned  to  the 
work  of  spreading  the  gospel;  among  whom  are  noticeable  three  distinct  divisions: 
(1.)  The  twelve  chief  disciples,  chosen  personally  by  Jesus  Christ  in  bodily  form, 
(except  Matthias,) — all  Galileans,  (Acts  i.  11;  ii.  7,  &c.) — enjoying  his  personal 
instructions,  counsels,  and  warnings;  and  made  the  eyewitnesses  of  his  wonderful 
works  throughout  the  whole  period  of  his  public  ministry.  (2.)  The  two  later  apos- 
tles, (Actsxiv.  4.  14,)  Paul  and  Barnabas, — personally  unknown  to  Jesus,  (probably,) 
or  at  least  never  enjoying  his  peculiar  instructions,  nor  honored  by  his  personal  corn- 
mission,  but  distinctly  summoned  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  (Acts  xiii.  2,  4,)  the  former, 
also,  in  a  vision  by  Jesus,  (Acts  xxvi.  16,  17,) — both  Hellenists,  or  Jews  brought  up 
among  the  Gentiles. — and  speaking,  reading,  and  writing  the  Greek  language. — III. 
Those  commissioned  and  summoned  to  the  gospel  work  only  by  human  agencies,  and 
altogether  uninspired,  and  Urns  of  inferior  rank  as  Christian  ministers,  and  called 
APosTLE.s,  not  in  the  sense  in  which  the  twelve,  and  Paul  and  Barnabas,  were  thus 
named,  but  in  the  mere  common  meaning  of  the  Greek  word,  as  "  messengers"  between 
Paul  and  the  churciies. — These  are  thus  incidentally  mentioned  in  but  two  or  three 
places. — Titus  and  his  companion  employed  in  collecting  the  contributions  of  the 
churches,  (2  Cor.  viii.  23,) — Epaphrodiius,  (Philippians  ii.  25.)  Perhaps  also  Andro- 
nicus  and  Juntas,  (Juni«  in  the  common  versions.)  See  Schleusner,  Bretschneider, 
Wahl,  and  Rosenmuller.  (Rom.  xvi.  7.) 

In  the  writings  of  the  Christian  Fathers,  the  name  is  still  farther  extended  to  per- 
sons of  inferior  rank,  being  applied  indefinitely  to  all  ministers  or  pastors  of  the 
church,  who  are  (fitted,  equipped,  and)  sent  to  preach  the  gospel.  (J.  C.  Suicer. 
Thes.  Ecc.  in  voce.)  Salvianus,  of  Gaul,  in  the  preface  to  his  book  on  avarice, 
calls  Timothy  an  apostle ;  and  Pachymeres  does  the  same.  (De  coel.  Hierarchia.  II.) 
Hydatius,  or  Idatius,  in  his  Fasti  Consulares,  quoted  by  Barthius,  (Advers.  LI.  iv.) 
speaks  of  Timothy  as  an  apostle,  and  also  of  Luke,  associating  him  and  Andrew 
under  the  title  of  Apostles.  The  old  calendar  of  the  Greek  church  speaks  of  Phile- 
mon and  Archippus  as  apostles;  and  mentions  the  appointment  of  the  seventy 
apostles  by  Jesus.  (Luke  xi.  1.  17.)  It  even  includes  Apphia,  a  female,  among  them; 
and  Theophanes,  (Horn.  30,')  says  of  Mary  Magdalene,  that,  in  announcing  the  resur- 
rection of  Jesus  Christ,  "  sne  became  an  apostle  to  the  apostles."  By  writers  of  far 
earner  date,  and  much  higher  authority,  the  term  is,  with  peculiar  justice,  applied  to 


16  *  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

Mark  and  Luke,  the  fellow-laborers  of  Peter,  Paul,  and  Barnabas,  and  inspired  as  the 
•writers  of  the  gospels.  Eusebius  (Hist.  Ecc.  II.  24)  calls  "Mark.,  the  apostle  and 
evangelist ;"  and  (I.  13)  calls  Thaddeus  an  apostle.  In  the  Synopsis  ascribed  to 
Athanasius,  Luke  is  called  "the  blessed  ajjostle  and  physician."  But  Suicer  does 
not  seem  to  know  these  three  passages. 

Another  very  peculiar  usage  in  the  early  ecclesiastical  writers,  is  in  application  to 
things  b)'^  a  metonymy  from  the  persons,  naming  the  work  from  the  author.  It  is 
used  as  the  name  of  the  epistolary  portion  of  the  New  Testament,  which,  in  the 
ancient  liturgies,  was  divided  into  the  Gospel  and  the  Apostles,  corresponding  to  the 
Law  and  the  Prophets — the  principal  divisions  of  the  Hebrew  scriptures.  This  part 
of  the  ancient  liturgy  being  made  up  mostly  of  the  epistles  of  Paul,  was  therefore 
named  in  the  singular  number,  and  with  the  early  Fathers,  is  often  used  for  the  writings 
of  this  apostle  alone.  Origen,  quoted  by  Eusebiu.s,  (H.  E.  vi.  38,)  and  Theodoret, 
(Haeret.  fab.  ii.  7,)  use  the  term  in  this  sense.  In  application  to  the  liturgy,  Cyiil 
of  Scj-^thopolis,  (in  Vit.  Sabae,)  and  Codinus,  (cap.  vi.)  are  quoted  by  Suicer. 

On  the  usages  of  this  word,  among  the  Fathers,  Suicer  is  by  no  means  so  full  as 
might  be  expected;  and  many  valuable  references,  in  addition,  are  obtained  from  H. 
Valesius,  (Annotat.  in  Euseb.  H.  E.  I.  12,  II.  24,  pp.  21  and  41,  of  the  Mayence 
edition,  1672.)  He  quotes  Eusebius  (I.  12)  as  distinctly  saying,  that  though,  by 
Jesus  Christ,  the  twelve  only  were  called  apostles,  yet  the  term  was  afterward  ex- 
tended to  very  many  others,  in  imitation  of  the  twelve:  (TrXci'orcai/  Sooiv  viran^uvTav 
'Avo<7t6\o}v,  Kara  jiinr^aiv  tCiv  (Jo'i&zca.)  Valcsius  quotcs  also  Epiplianius,  Jerome,  Hilary, 
the  Theodosian  code,  and  Metaphrastes,  for  the  various  extensions  of  the  term. 

By  the  Jews,  of  the  early  ages  of  the  Christian  era,  the  term  d-6aTo\oi  was  applied 
to  a  class  of  officers  among  them,  described  by  Eusebius,  as  employed  to  bear  the 
circulars  addressed  by  the  chiefs  of  the  Jewish  faith  at  Jerusalem,  to  the  Jews  through- 
out the  world.  Oecumenius  is  also  quoted  to  the  same  effect,  as  to  this  use  of  the 
term.    (See  Suicer  and  Valesius,  in  loc.  cit.) 

By  the  law-writers,  both  Roman  and  Byzantine,  the  name  nn-cJcrroXoi  (in  the  plural) 
is  used  in  a  technical  sense,  not  in  application  to  persons,  but  to  things,  being  made 
equivalent  to  the  Latin  term,  "  literae  dimissoriae,"  which  were  "  letters  of  appeal," 
by  which  a  cause  was  transferred  from  one  tribunal  to  a  higher  one.  (Basilic.  V. — 
Julius  Paulus  Patavinus.  Sent.  V.  34. — Brisson,  De  significatione  verborum.  IV. 
"Dimissoriae."— Meursius,  Gloss,  in  voce. — Suicer,  Thes.  Ecc.  in  voce.  6.) 

These  are  all  the  significations  which  this  word  bears  in  the  writings  of  the  classic, 
the  scriptural,  the  ecclesiastical,  and  the  legal  writers ;  nor  has  it,  as  far  as  I  know, 
ever  been  used  in  any  other  sense  or  application.  No  other  work  has  ever  pre- 
sented all  these  meanings,  here  collected  ;  and  those  who  can  consult  Stephens's  The- 
saurus Linguae  Graecae,  Suicer's  Thesaurus  Ecclesiasticus,  Stock's,  Schleusner's, 
Parkhursl's,  Bretschneider's  and  Wahl's  Lexicons  of  the  New  Testament,  will  find, 
that  though  each  of  these  great  works  has  contributed  to  the  completeness  of  this  view, 
yet  no  one  of  them  contains  even  a  majority  of  the  particulars ;  and  that  there  are  here 
many  peculiarities  of  arrangement  which  difier  from  those  and  all  other  authorities. 
I  The  corresponding  Hebrew  word,  was  r.iVar  or  n>'7iy  (sheludhh,  or  shclidhh,)  whose 
primary  meaning,  like  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  Greek  word,  is  "  one  sent,"  and  is 
derived,  from  the  passive  Kal  participle  of  the  verb  nSa*  {sha  lahh,)  meaning  "  he  sent." 
This  word  is  often  used  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  is  usually  translated  in  the  Alex- 
andrine Greek  version,  by  the  word  aromoXos.  A  remarkable  instance  occurs  in 
1  Kings  xiv.  G;  where  the  prophet  Ahijah,  .speaking  to  the  wife  of  Jeroboam,  says, 
nVif  ■'^:n  T'Vn  "  to  thee  am  I  sent;"  the  Alexandrine  version  gives  the  noun  dTrdaroXos, 
so  as  to  makeit  literally  "to  thee  I  am  an  apostle,"  or  "embassador;"  or  truly^  in  the 
just  and  primary  sense  of  this  Greek  word,  "  to  thee  I  am  commissioned  and  sent.'' 
This  passage  is  a  valuable  illustration  of  the  use  of  the  same  Greek  word  in  John 
3uii.  16,  as  above  quoted. 

Aquila,  also,  in  his  Greek  version  of  the  Old  Testament,  has  translated  the  He- 
brew ■\"'s  (<.sr/-,)  by  this  word  in  Isaiah  xviii.  2,  Avhere  the  English  translation  gives 
*' embassadors," — a  word  which,  of  course,  implies  some  dignity  and  trust,  above  a 
mere  messenger's  office.  Both  of  these  Hebrew  words  imply  this  peculiar  force;  and 
Schleusner  (see  Lex.  N.  T.  in  voc.)  says,  that  the  former,  in  particular,  has  the 
meaning,  "  not  of  a  mere  messenger,  but  of  a  representative  vicegerent." 

The  Hebrews  had  another  word  also,  which  they  used  in  the  sense  of  an  apostle  or 
messenger.  This  was  inVd  (mat  ak,)  derived  from  a  verb  which  means  "  send,"  sc 
that  the  primary  meaning  of  this  also  is  "  one  sent."    It  was  commonly  appropri- 


^  PLAN  AND  SCOPE.  17 

ated  to  angels,  but  was  sometimes  a  title  of  prophets  and  priests.  (Haggai  i.  19: 
Malachi  ii.  7.)  It  was,  on  the  whole,  the  most  dignified  term,  the  first-menlionea 
being  never  applied  to  angels,  but  restricted  to  men.  The  first  and  last  of  these  terms 
are  very  fairly  represented  by  the  two  Greek  words,  diruVroXos  and  ayytXof,  in  English, 
"apostle"  and  "  angel,"  the  latter,  like  its  corresponding  Hebrew  term,  being  some- 
times applied  to  the  human  servants  of  God. 

In  the  dificrent  translations  of  the  Bible,  it  appears  that  the  ancient  translators  into 
the  Shemitish  languages,  have  represented  the  Greek  word,  by  that  word  in  each  of 
their  languages,  which  seemed  to  them  a  fair  expression  of  the  original.  These 
Shemitish  languages  being  all  of  the  same  stock  as  the  Hebrew,  express  this  idea  by 
the  same  word,  already  referred  to  as  the  common  Hebrew  term  for  "  apostle."  Thus 
the  Syriac  (ihe  oldest  translation  ever  made  of  the  New  Testament)  has  |..Ki-*.Si.Jft 
{skcliMo,)  evidently  the  same  word  modified  in  termination,  to  suit  the  genius  of  the 

dialect.  The  ancient  Arabic  and  Persian  translators  have  given  the  word  VL  _^-**^ 
(s7da,)  also  from  the  same  root.  The  Ethiopic  is  probably  like  the  other  Shemitish 
languages  in  the  version  of  this  word ;  but  my  ignorance  of  the  letters  of  that  language, 
prevents  me  from  speaking  with  certainty.  Of  the  Coptic,  Armenian,  and  other 
ancient  Oriental  versions,  I  can  say  nothing. 

But  the  Western,  and  all  the  modern  versions  of  the  New  Testament,  have  univer- 
sally avoided  translating  the  Greek  word  by  any  correspondent  expressive  term  in 
their  own  language,  and  have  adopted  the  original  word,  with  such  a  change  of  form 
and  termination  as  the  genius  of  each  language  required.  Thus  the  Latin  presented 
the  Greek  apostolos,  almost  unchanged,  in  apostolus ;  the  Italian  has  apostolo ;  the 
^'^d.-aiih.  apostol ;  the  Portuguese  oj^os^eZo ;  the  French  cpos^re ;  the  English  apostle; 
the  German,  Dutch,  Danish,  Swedish,  &c.  apostel ;  the  Polish  apostol ;  and  probably 
all  other  modern  languages,  into  which  the  New  Testament  has  been  translated, 
would  show,  to  an  Adelung  or  a  Vater,  this  same  word  in  a  hundred  varying  forms. 

THE  PERSONS. 

The  term  apostle^  in  modem  Christian  usage,  is  hmited  to  the 
twelve  chief  disciples  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  to  those  two  of  their  most 
eminent  associates,  who  are  distinguished  by  this  title  in  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles.  The  scope  of  the  term  in  the  scheme  of  this  work 
is  somewhat  extended  by  including,  along  with  the  second  class  of 
apostles,  certain  of  their  most  eminent  fellow-workers  and  fellow- 
partakers  in  the  gifts  of  inspiration,  to  whom,  in  the  writings  of 
the  early  Christian  Fathers,  the  honors  of  the  apostohc  name  are 
also  conceded.  From  the  different  origins,  circumstances,  labors, 
and  characters  of  the  first  chosen  apostles,  and  those  called  after 
the  ascension  of  Jesus,  arises  an  occasion  for  dividing  the  true 
apostles  into  two  natural  orders,  whose  biographies  will  constitute 
two  totally  distinct  and  independent  divisions  of  their  historian's 
work.  From  the  circumstances  of  the  origin,  habits,  and  sectional 
peculiarities  of  each,  these  two  classes  are  here  named ; — the  coun- 
tries where  they  originated  furnishing  the  distinctive  appellations. 
The  original  chosen  followers  of  Jesus  are  named  Galileans,  from 
their  native  province  ;  and  the  later  teachers  of  the  Christian  faitli, 
having  been  born  and  educated  in  the  regions  of  Hellenic  re- 
finement, are  named  Hellenists,  in  accordance  with  the  name 
applied  to  them  by  the  Jews  of  Palestine. 
3 


18  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

I.  The  Galilean  apostles  are — Simon  Peter,  and  Andrew 
his  brother, — James  and  John,  the  sons  of  Zebedee, — Philip, — 
Bartholomew, — Matthew, — Thomas, — James,  the  son  of  Al- 
pheus, — Simon  Zelotes, — Jude,  the  brother  of  James, — and  Judas 
Iscariot,  whose  place  was  afterwards  filled  by  Matthias. 

II.  The  Hellenist  apostles  are — Paul  and  Barnabas,  with 
whom  are  included  their  companions,  Mark  and  Luke,  the  evan 
gelists. 

These  two  classes  of  apostles  are  distinguished  from  each  other, 
mainly,  by  the  circumstances  of  the  appointment  of  each ;  the 
former  being  all  directly  appointed  by  Jesus  himself,  (excepting 
Matthias,  who  took  the  forfeited  commission  of  Judas  Iscariot,) 
while  the  latter  were  summoned  to  the  duties  of  the  apostleship 
after  the  ascension  of  Christ ;  so  that  they,  however  highly  equipped 
for  the  labors  of  the  office,  had  never  enjoyed  his  personal  instruc- 
tions ;  and  however  well  assured  of  the  divine  summons  to  preach 
the  gospel  to  the  Gentiles,  theirs  was  not  a  distinct  personal  and 
bodily  commission,  formally  given  to  them,  and  repeatedly  enforced 
and  renewed,  as  it  was  to  the  chosen  ones  of  Christ's  own  appoint- 
ment. These  later  apostles,  too,  with  hardly  one  exception,  were 
foreign  Jews,  born  and  brought  up  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  land 
of  Israel,  while  the  twelve  were  all  Galileans,  whose  homes  were 
v/ithin  the  holy  precincts  of  their  fathers'  ancient  heritage.  Yet 
if  the  extent  of  their  labors  be  regarded,  the  later  commissioned 
must  rank  far  above  the  twelve.  Almost  two  thirds  of  the  New 
Testament  were  written  by  Paul  and  his  companions ;  and  before 
one  of  those  commissioned  by  Jesus  to  go  into  all  the  world  on 
their  great  errand,  had  ever  gone  west  of  the  boundary  of  Palestine, 
Paul,  accompanied  either  by  Barnabas,  Mark,  Silas,  or  Luke,  had 
gone  over  Syria  and  Asia,  traversed  the  sea  into  Greece,  Mace- 
donia, and  Illyria,  bringing  the  knowledge  of  the  word  of  truth  to 
tens  of  thousands,  who  would  never  have  heard  of  it,  if  they  had 
been  made  to  wait  for  its  communication  by  the  twelve.  This  he 
did  through  constant  toils,  dangers,  and  sufferings,  which  as  far 
transcended  all  which  the  Galilean  apostles  had  endured,  as  the 
mighty  results  of  his  labors  did  the  immediate  effects  of  theirs. 
And  afterwards,  while  they  were  struggling  with  the  paltry  and 
vexatious  tyranny  of  the  Sanhedrim,  within  the  walls  of  Jerusalem, 
Paul  was  utterinq-  the  solemn  truths  of  his  high  commission  before 
governors  and  a  king,  making  them  to  tremble  with  doubt  and  awe ; 
and,  finally,  bearing,  in  bonds  and  through  perils,  the  name  of  Jesus 


WS  PLAN  AND  SCOPE.  19 

to  the  capital  of  the  world,  he  sounded  the  call  of  the  gospel  at  the 
gates  of  Caesar.  The  Galilean  apostles  were  indued  with  no 
natural  advantages  for  communicating  freely  with  foreigners; 
their  language,  habits,  customs,  and  modes  of  instruction,  were  all 
hindrances  in  the  way  of  a  rapid  and  successful  progress  in  such 
a  labor ;  and  they  with  great  wilhngness  gave  up  this  vast  field  to 
the  Hellenist  preachers,  while  they  occupied  themselves,  for 
the  most  part,  in  the  conversion  of  the  dwellers  of  Palestine 
and  the  East.  For  all  the  subtleties  and  mysticisms  of  these 
Orientals,  they  were  abundantly  provided ;  the  whole  training 
which  they  had  received,  under  the  personal  instructions  of  their 
teacher,  had  fitted  them  mainly  for  this  very  warfare  ;  and  they 
had  seen  him,  times  without  number,  sweep  away  all  these  refuges 
of  lies.  But,  with  the  polished  and  truly  learned  philosophers  of 
Athens,  or  the  majestic  lords  of  Rome,  they  would  have  felt  the 
want  of  that  minute  knowledge  of  the  characters  and  manners  of 
both  Greeks  and  Romans,  with  which  Paul  was  so  familiar,  by  the 
circumstances  of  his  birth  and  education  in  a  city  highly  favored 
by  Roman  laws  and  Grecian  philosophy.  Thus  was  it  wisely 
ordained,  for  the  complete  foundation  and  rapid  extension  of  the 
gospel  cause,  that  for  each  great  field  of  labor  there  should  be  a 
distinct  set  of  men,  each  peculiarly  well  fitted  for  their  own  depart- 
ment of  the  mighty  work.  And  by  such  divinely  sagacious 
appointments,  the  certain  and  resistless  advance  of  the  faith  of 
Christ  was  so  secured,  and  so  wonderfully  extended  beyond  the 
deepest  knowledge,  and  above  the  brightest  hopes  of  its  chief 
apostles,  that  at  this  distant  day,  in  this  distant  land,  far  beyond 
the  view  even  of  the  prophetic  eye  of  that  age,  millions  of  a  race 
unknown  to  them,  place  their  names  above  all  others,  but  one,  on 
earth  and  in  heaven  ;  and  to  spread  the  knowledge  of  the  minute 
details  of  their  toils  and  triumphs,  the  laborious  investigator  must 
now  search  the  recorded  learning  of  eighteen  hundred  years,  to  do 
justice  to  the  story  of  their  lives. 

With  such  limitations  and  expansions  of  the  term,  then,  this 
book  attempts  to  give  the  history  of  the  lives  of  the  apostles.  Of 
some  who  are  thus  designated,  little  else  than  the  names  being 
known, — they  can  have  no  claim  for  a  large  space  on  these  pages  ; 
while  to  a  few,  whose  actions  determined  the  destiny  of  millions, 
and  mainly  effected  the  establishment  of  the  Christian  faith,  the 
far  greater  part  of  the  work  will  be  given. 


20  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 


THE  WORLD  IN  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE. 

ROMAN   CONQUEST. 

A  VIEW  OF  THE  WORLD,  as  it  was  at  the  time  when  the  apos- 
tles began  the  work  of  spreading  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ, 
may  be  convenient  to  remind  some  readers,  and  necessary  to  in- 
form others,  in  what  way  its  political  organization  operated  to  aid 
or  hinder  the  advance  of  the  faith.  The  peculiarities  of  the  go- 
vernment of  the  regions  of  civilization  were  closely  involved  in 
the  progress  of  this  religious  revolution,  and  may  be  considered  as 
having  been,  on  the  whole,  most  desirably  disposed  for  the  triumph- 
ant establishment  of  the  dominion  of  Christ. 

From  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic  to  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates, 
the  sway  of  the  Roman  Caesar  was  acknowledged  by  the  millions 
of  Western  and  Southern  Europe,  Northern  Africa  and  South- 
western Asia.  The  strong  grasp  of  warlike  power  was  a  bond 
which  held  together  in  peace  many  nations,  who,  but  for  that  con- 
stramt,  would,  as  their  previous  and  subsequent  history  shows,  have 
been  arrayed  against  each  other,  in  contests,  destructive  alike  of 
the  happiness  of  the  contending  parties  and  the  comfort  of  their 
neighbors.  The  mighty  force  of  Roman  genius  had  overcome 
the  thousand  barriers  which  nature  and  art  had  reared  between 
the  different  nations  of  the  three  continents  in  which  it  ruled,  and 
the  passage  from  one  end  of  that  vast  empire  to  the  other,  was 
without  any  hindrance  to  those  who  traveled  on  errands  of  peace. 
Bloody  wars,  long  distracting  the  tribes  of  Gaul,  Germany,  and 
Britain,  had  rendered  those  grand  sections  of  Europe  impassable, 
and  shut  up  each  little  tribe  within  a  narrow  boundary,  which 
could  never  be  crossed  but  with  fire  and  sword.  The  deadly  and 
furious  contests  dmong  the  nations  of  Southwestern  Asia  and 
Southeastern  Europe,  had  long  discouraged  the  philosophical  and 
commercial  enterprise,  once  of  old  so  rife  and  free  among  them, 
and  offered  a  serious  hindrance  to  the  traveler,  whether  journey- 
ing for  information  or  trade  ;  thus  greatly  checking  the  spread  of 
knowledge,  and  limiting  each  nation,  in  a  great  measure,  to  its 
own  resources  in  science  and  art.  Roman  conquest,  burying  in 
one  wide  tomb  all  the  jealousies  and  strifes  of  aspiring  national 
ambition,  thus  put  an  end  at  once  to  all  these  causes  of  separation : 
it  brought  long-divided  nations  into  close  union  and  acquaintance, 


THE  APOSTOLIC  WORLD.  21 

and  produced  a  more  extensive  and  equal  diffusion  of  knowledge, 
as  well  as  greater  facilities  for  commercial  intercourse,  than  had 
ever  been  enjoyed  before.  The  rapid  result  of  the  coiiquerors' 
policy  was  the  consolidation  of  the  various  nations  of  that  vast  em- 
pire into  one  people, — peaceful,  prosperous,  and  for  the  most  part 
protected  in  their  personal  and  domestic  rights.  The  savage  was 
tamed,  the  wanderers  were  reclaimed  from  the  forest,  which  fell 
before  the  march  of  civilization, — or  from  the  desert,  which  soon 
rejoiced  and  blossomed  under  the  mighty  beneficence  of  Roman 
power. 

The  fierce  Gaul  forsook  his  savage  hut  and  dress  together, 
robing  himself  in  the  graceful  toga  of  the  Roman  citizen,  or  the 
light  tunic  of  the  colonial  cultivator,  and  reared  his  solid  and  lofty 
dwelling  in  clustering  cities  or  flourishing  villages,  whose  deep 
foundations  yet  endure,  in  testimony  of  the  nature  of  Roman  con- 
quest and  civilization.  Under  his  Roman  rulers  and  patrons,  he 
raised  piles  of  art,  unequaled  in  grandeur,  beauty,  and  durability, 
by  any  similar  works  in  the  world.  Aqueducts  and  theatres,  still 
only  in  incipient  ruin,  proclaim,  in  their  slow  decay,  the  greatness 
of  those  who  reai'ed  them  in  a  land  so  lately  savage.  .^ 

T 

The  Pont  du  Gard,  at  Nismes,  and  the  amphitheatres,  temples,  arches,  gates,  baths, 
bridges,  and  mausolea,  which  still  adorn  that  city,  and  Aries,  Vienne,  Rheims,  Be- 
sancon,  Autun,  and  Metz,  are  the  instances  to  which  I  direct  those  whose  knowledge 
of  antiquity  is  not  sufficient  to  suggest  these  splendid  remains.  Almost  any  well 
written  book  of  travels  in  France  will  give  the  striking  details  of  their  present  con- 
dition. Malte-Brun  also  slightly  alludes  to  them,  and  may  be  consulted  by  those  who 
wish  to  learn  more  of  the  proofs  of  my  assertion  than  this  brief  notice  can  give. 

The  warlike  Numidian  and  the  wild  Mauritanian,  under  the 
same  iron  instruction,  had  long  ago  learned  to  robe  their  primitive 
half-nakedness  in  the  decent  garments  of  civilized  man.  Even 
tthe  distant  Getulian  found  the  high  range  of  Atlas  no  sure  barrier 
against  the  wave  of  triumphant  arms  and  arts,  which  rolled  resist- 
lessly  over  him,  and  spent  itself  only  on  the  pathless  sands  of  wide 
Sahara.  So  far  did  that  all-subduing  genius  spread  its  work,  and 
so  deeply  did  it  make  its  marks,  beyond  the  most  distant  and  im- 
pervious boundary  of  modern  civilization,  that  the  latest  march  of 
discovery  has  found  far  earlier  adventurers  before  it,  even  in  the 
Great  Desert ;  and  within  a  dozen  years,  European  travelers  have 
brought  to  our  Imowledge  walls  and  inscriptions,  which,  after 
mouldering  unknown  in  the  dry,  lonely  waste,  for  ages,  at  last  met 
the  astonished  eyes  of  these  gazers,  with  the  still  striking  witness 
of  Roman  power. 


22  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

The  travels  of  Denham  and  Clapperton  across  the  desert,  from  Tripoli  to  Bor- 
nou, — of  Ritchie  and  Lyon,  to  Fezzan, — of  Hornemann,  and  others,  will  abundantly 
illustrate  this  passage. 

Eg5T)t,  already  twice  classic,  and  renowned  through  two  mighty 
and  distant  series  of  ages,  renewed  her  fading  glories  under  new 
conquerors,  no  less  worthy  to  possess  and  adorn  the  land  of  the 
Pharaohs,  than  were  the  Ptolemies.  In  that  ancient  home  of  art, 
the  new  conquerors  achieved  works,  inferior  indeed  to  the  still 
lasting  monuments  of  earlier  greatness,  but  no  less  effectual  in 
securing  the  ornament  and  defence  of  the  land.  With  a  warlike; 
genius  far  surpassing  the  most  triumphant  energy  of  former  rulers, 
the  legionaries  of  Rome  made  the  valley  of  the  Nile,  from  its  moutli 
to  the  eighth  cataract,  safe  and  wealthy.  The  desert  wanderers, 
whose  hordes  had  once  overwhelmed  the  throne  of  the  Pharaohs, 
and  baffled  the  revenge  of  the  Macedonian  monarchs,  were  now 
crushed,  curbed,  or  driven  into  the  wilds  ;  while  the  peaceful  tiller 
of  the  ground,  secure  against  their  lawless  attacks,  brought  his 
rich  harvests  to  a  fair  and  certain  market,  through  the  ports  and 
million  ships  of  the  Mediterranean,  to  the  gate  of  his  noble  con- 
querors, within  the  capital  of  the  world. 

The  conquest  of  Nubia  and  Meroe  by  Caius  Petronius,  in  the  reign  of  Augustus, 
is  the  principal  of  those  triumphs  to  which  this  paragraph  refers  ;  and  the  numerous 
defeats  of  the  Nomadic  hordes  of  the  deserts  on  both  sides  of  the  Nile  are  attested 
in  the  incidental  notices  of  that  country's  history.  (Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  vi.  29.) — It  was 
imder  R-oman  sway,  that  Eg)'pt  first  acquired  the  name  of  the  "granary  of  the 
■world."  A  trifling  illustration  of  this  exportation  may  be  noticed  in  Acts  xxvii.  G, 
38 ;  xxviii.  11.  The  ships  in  which  Paul  made  his  voyage  to  Rome  were  grain-ships 
from  Egypt  to  Italy.— Strab,  Geog.  xvii. 

The  grinding  tyranny  of  the  barbarian  despots  of  Pontus,  Arme- 
nia, and  Syria,  had,  one  after  another,  been  swept  away  before  the 
republican  hosts  of  Sylla,  Lucullus,  and  Pompey  ;  and  the  remorse- 
less, stupid  selfishness  that  has  always  characterized  oriental  despot- 
ism, even  to  this  day,  had  been  followed  by  the  mild  and  generous 
exercise  of  that  almost  onmipotent  sway,  which  the  condition  of 
the  people,  in  most  cases,  showed  to  have  been  administered,  in 
the  main,  for  the  good  of  its  subjects. 

The  case  of  Verres  will  perhaps  rise  to  the  minds  of  some  of  my  readers,  as  op- 
posed to  this  favo.^able  view  of  Roman  government;  but  the  whole  account  of  this 
and  similar  tyranny  shows  that  such  cases  were  looked  on  as  most  remarkable  enor- 
mities, and  they  are  recorded  and  noticed  in  such  terms  of  abhorrence,  as  to  justify 
US  in  quoting  with  peculiar  force,  the  maxim,  "  Exceptio  probat  regulam." 

On  the  farthest  eastern  boundary  of  the  empire,  the  Parthian, 
fighting  as  he  fled,  held  out  against  the  advance  of  the  western 
conquerors,  in  a  harassing  and  harassed  independence.  Here 
the  flight  of  Roman  victory  was  first  stayed,  and  here  the  con- 


THE  APOSTOLIC  WORLD.  23 

querors  of  Crassus  long  "  rode  unpunished,"  in  spite  of  the  strains  of 
prophetic  adulation  with  which  Horace  soothed  the  baffled  ambition 
of  the  imperial  Augustus.  The  momentary  eastern  conquests  of 
Trajan  were  no  real  extension  of  the  empire ;  and  the  primeval 
seats  of  power, — Assyria  and  Chaldea,  were  held  under  Parthian 
and  Persian  sway  till  long  after  the  fall  of  Rome  ;  while  still  farther 
east,  the  Indian  and  the  Tibetan  dwelt  through  countless  ages,  safe 
from  western  conquest,  without  so  much  as  a  dream  about  the  im- 
perial sway  to  which  the  servile  prophecies  of  Roman  poets  had 
devoted  them.  Central  and  Southern  Arabia,  then,  as  ever,  own- 
ing no  foreign  lord,  bounded  on  the  south  the  oriental  dominions 
of  Rome.  On  the  north,  the  ever  indomitable  Scythian  held  un- 
disturbed possession  of  the  wild  wastes  where  the  hosts  of  the  first 
Darius  had  been  baffled  ;  but  such  regions,  offering  no  mducement 
for  civilizing  enterprise,  never  invited  the  notice  of  that  overwhelm- 
ing genius  which  instinctively  directed  its  energies  only  to  coun- 
tries where  natural  capabilities  for  civilization  were  obvious.  Thus 
while  the  Parthian,  the  Arab,  and  the  Scythian  escaped  con- 
quest, by  the  nature  of  their  respective  countries,  the  no  less  war- 
like and  resolute  Dacian,  German,  and  Celt  were  made  to  yield  the 
dominion  of  their  more  hopeful  soil.  The  mountains  and  forests 
of  central  Europe,  and  of  North-Britain,  too,  were  indeed  still 
manfully  defended  by  their  savage  oAvners  ;  nor  was  it  until  they 
met  the  iron  hosts  of  Germanicus,  Trajan,  and  Agricola,  that  they, 
in  their  turn,  fell  under  the  last  triumphs  of  the  Roman  eagle. 
But  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  the  empire,  and  even  of  provinces 
near  the  scene,  were  not  moved  by  these  disturbances.  And  thus, 
in  a  longitudinal  line  of  four  thousand  miles,  and  within  a  circuit 
of  ten  thousand,  the  energies  of  Roman  genius  had  hushed  all 
wars,  and  stilled  the  nations  into  a  long  unbroken  peace,  which 
secured  the  universal  good.  So  nearly  true  was  the  lyric  descrip- 
tion, given  by  Milton,  of  the  universal  peace  which  attended  the 
coming  of  the  Messiah : 

"  No  war  or  battle  sound 
Was  heard  the  world  around  ; 
The  idle  spear  and  shield  were  high  uphung; 
The  hooked  chariot  stood, 
Unstained  with  hostile  blood, 
The  trumpet  spake  not  to  the  armed  throng ; 
And  kings  sat  still,  with  awful  eye. 
As  if  they  surely  knew  their  sovran  lord  was  by." 

The  efforts  of  the  conquerors  did  not  cease  with  the  mere  mili- 
tary subjugation  of  a  country,  but  were  extended  far  beyond  the 


24  LIVES  OF  THE   APOSTLES. 

extinction  of  the  hostile  force.  The  Roman  soldier  was  not  a 
mere  fighter ;  nor  were  his  labors,  out  of  the  conflict,  confined  to 
the  erection  of  military  works  only.  The  stern  discipline,  which 
made  his  arras  triumphant  in  the  day  of  battle,  had  also  taught 
him  cheerfully  to  exchange  those  triumphant  arms  for  the  tools  of 
peaceful  labor,  that  he  might  insure  the  solid  permanency  of  his 
conquests,  by  the  perfection  of  such  works  as  would  make  tran- 
quillity desirable  to  the  conquered,  and  soothe  them  to  repose  under 
a  dominion  which  so  effectually  secured  their  good.  Roads,  that 
have  made  Roman  ways  proverbial,  and  which  the  perfection  of 
modern  art  has  never  equaled,  reached  from  the  capital  to  the  far- 
thest bounds  of  the  empire.  Seas,  long  dangerous  and  almost  im- 
passable for  the  trader  and  enterprising  voyager,  were  swept  ot 
every  piratical  vessel ;  and  the  most  distant  channels  of  the  Aegean 
and  Levant,  where  the  corsair  long  ruled  triumphant,  both  before 
and  since,  became  as  safe  as  the  porches  of  the  Capitol.  Regions, 
to  which  nature  had  furnished  the  indispensable  gift  of  water,  nei- 
ther in  abundance  nor  purity,  were  soon  blessed  with  artificial 
rivers,  flowing  over  mighty  arches,  that  will  crumble  only  with 
the  pyramids.  In  the  dry  places  of  Africa  and  Asia,  as  well  as 
in  distant  Gaul,  mighty  aqueducts  and  gushing  fountains  refreshed 
the  feverish  traveler,  and  gave  reality  to  the  poetical  prophecy, 
that  "  In  the  wilderness  shall  waters  break  out,  and  streams  in  the 
desert." 

Roads. — I  was  at  first  disposed  to  make  some  few  exceptions  to  this  sweeping  com- 
mendation of  the  excellence  of  Roman  roads,  by  referring  simply  to  my  general 
impressions  of  the  comparative  perfection  of  these  and  modern  works  of  the  same 
character ;  but  on  revising  the  facts  by  an  examination  of  authorities,  I  have  been 
led  to  strike  out  the  exceptions.  Napoleon's  great  road  over  the  Simplon,  the  great 
northern  road  from  London  to  Edinburgh,  and  some  similar  works  in  Austria, 
seemed,  before  comparison,  in  extent,  durability,  and  in  their  triumphs  over  nature, 
to  equal,  if  not  surpass,  the  famed  Roman  ways;  but  a  reference  to  the  minute  de- 
scriptions of  these  mighty  works,  sets  the  ancient  far  above  the  modern  art.  The 
Via  Appia,  "  regin-a  viaruni,"  {Papinius  Statins  Surrent.  Pollii,)  stretching  three 
hundred  and  seventy  miles  from  Rome  to  the  bounds  of  Italy,  built  of  squared 
stone,  as  hard  as  flints,  and  brought  from  a  great  distance,  so  laid  together  that  for 
miles  they  seemed  but  a  single  stone,  and  so  solidly  fixed,  that  at  this  day,  the  road 
is  as  entire  in  many  places  as  when  first  made.— the  Via  Flaminia,  built  in  the  same 
solid  manner,— the"  Via  Aemilia,  five  hundred  and  twenty-seven  miles  long,— the  Via 
Portuensis,  with  its  enormous  double  cause-way,— the  vaulted  roads  of  Puzzuoli 
and  Baiae,  hewn  half  a  league  through  the  solid  rock, — and  the  thousand  remains  of 
similar  and  contemporaneous  works  in  various  parts  of  the  M^orld,  where  some  are  in 
use  even  to  this  day,  as  far  better  than  any  modern  highway, — all  these  are  enough 
to  show  the  inquirer,  that  the  commendation  given  to  these  works  in  the  text,  is  not 
overwrought  nor  unmerited.  The  minute  details  of  the  construction  of  these  extraor- 
dinary works,  with  many  other  interesting  particulars,  may  be  much  more  fully 
learned  in  Rees's  Cyclopaedia,  Articles  Way,  Via,  Road,  Ajypian,  &c. 

Aquediicts. — The  common  authorities  on  this  subject,  refer  to  none  of  these  mighty 
Roman  works,  except  those  around  the  city  of  Rome  itself  Those  of  Nismes  and 
Metz,  in  Gaul,  and  that  of  Segorv^ia,  in  Spain,  are  sometimes  mentioned ;  but  the 


THE  APOSTOLIC  WORLD.  25 

reader  would  be  led  to  suppose,  that  other  portions  of  the  Roman  empire  were  not 
blessed  with  these  noble  works.  Rees's  Cyclopaedia  is  very  lull  on  this  head,  in  re- 
spect to  the  aqueducts  of  the  great  city  itself,  but  conveys  the  impression  that  they 
were  not  known  in  many  distant  parts  of  the  empire.  Montfaucon  gives  no  more 
satisfactory  information  on  the  subject.  But  a  reference  to  books  of  travels  or  topog- 
raphy, which  describe  the  remains  of  Roman  art  in  its  ancient  provinces  in  Africa 
and  Asia,  will  at  once  give  a  vivid  impression  of  the  extent  and  frequency  of  these 
works.  Shaw's  travels  in  northern  Africa,  give  accounts  of  aqueducts,  cisterns, 
fountains,  and  reservoirs,  along  through  all  the  ancient  Roman  dominions  in  that 
region.  The  Modern  Traveler  (by  Conder)  will  give  abundant  accounts  of  the  re- 
mains of  these  works,  iu  this  and  various  other  countries  alluded  to  in  the  text ;  and 
some  of  them,  still  so  perfect,  as  to  serve  the  common  uses  of  the  inhabitants  to  this 
day.  In  Palestine,  Syria,  Asia  Minor,  and  even  in  Greece  and  Egypt,  to  this  day 
the  monuments  of  Roman  dominion  vindicate  the  glory  of  their  authors,  by  the  re- 
markable convcnictice  and  utilitnj,  as  well  as  solidity  and  finish,  which  distinguish  all 
these  remains  of  Roman  art. 

CAESAR,  Christ's  forerunner. 

All  these  mighty  influences,  working  for  the  peace  and  comfort 
of  mankind,  and  so  favorable  to  the  spread  of  religious  knowledge, 
had  been  further  secured  by  the  triumphant  and  firm  establish- 
ment of  the  throne  of  the  Caesars.  Under  the  alternating  sway  of  the 
aristocracy  and  democracy  of  Rome,  conquest  had  indeed  steadily 
stretched  east,  west,  north,  and  south,  alike  over  barbarian  and 
Greek,  through  the  wilderness  and  the  city.  A  long  line  of  illus- 
trious consuls,  such  as  Marcellus,  the  Scipios,  Aemilius,  Marius, 
Sylla,  Lucullus,  and  Pompey,  had,  during  the  last  two  centuries  of 
the  republic,  added  triumph  to  triumph  in  bright  succession, 
thronging  the  streets  of  the  seven-hilled  city  with  captive  kings, 
and  more  than  quadrupling  her  dominion.  But  while  the  cor- 
ruption of  conquest  was  fast  preparing  the  dissipated  people  to 
make  a  willing  exchange  of  their  political  privileges,  for  "  bread 
and  amusements/'  the  more  enhghtened  of  the  citizens  were 
getting  tired  of  the  distracting  and  often  bloody  changes  of  popular 
favoritism,  and  were  ready  to  receive  as  a  welcome  deliverer,  any 
man  who  could  give  them  the  calm  repose  of  a  despotism,  in  place 
of  the  remorseless  and  ferocious  tyranny  of  a  brutal  mob.  In  this 
turn  of  the  world's  destiny,  there  arose  one  in  all  points  equal  to 
the  task  of  sealing  both  justice  and  peace  to  the  vanquished  nations, 
by  wringing  from  the  hands  of  a  haughty  people,  the  same  political 
power  which  they  had  caused  so  many  to  give  up  to  their  un- 
sparmg  gripe.  He  was  one  who,  while,  to  conmaon  eyes,  he  seemed 
devoting  the  flower  of  his  youth  and  the  strength  of  his  manhood 
to  idleness  and  debauchery,  was  learning  such  wisdom  as  could 
never  have  been  learned  in  the  lessons  of  the  sage, — wisdom  in  the 
characters,  the  capabilities,  the  corruption,  and  venality  of  his  pie- 


26  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

beian  sovrans.  And  yet  he  was  not  one  who  scorned  the  instruc- 
tions of  the  learned,  nor  turned  away  from  the  records  of  others' 
Imowledge.  In  the  schools  of  Rhodes,  he  sat,  a  patient  student  of 
the  art  and  science  of  the  orator,  and  searched  deeply  into  the 
stored  treasures  of  Grecian  philosophy.  Resplendent  in  arms  as 
in  arts,  he  devoted  to  swift  and  deserved  destruction  the  pirates  of 
the  Aegean,  while  yet  only  a  raw  student ;  and  with  the  same 
energy  and  rapidity,  in  Rome,  attained  the  peaceful  triumphs  of  the 
eloquence  which  had  so  long  been  his  study.  The  flight  of  years 
passed  over  him,  alike  victorious  in  the  factious  strife  of  the  capital, 
and  in  the  deadly  struggle  with  the  Celtic  savages  of  Northwestern 
Europe.  Ruling  long-conquered  Spain  in  peace,  and  subjugating 
still  barbarous  Gaul,  he  showed  the  same  ascendant  genius  which 
made  the  greatest  minds  of  Rome  his  willing  and  despised  tools, 
and  crushed  them  when  they  at  last  dreamed  of  independence  or 
resistance.  In  the  art  military,  supreme  and  unconquered,  whether 
met  by  the  desperate  savage  of  the  forest  or  desert,  or  by  the  veteran 
legions  of  republican  Rome, — in  the  arts  of  intrigue,  more  than  a 
match  for  the  subtlest  deceivers  of  a  jealous  democracy, — as  an 
orator,  winning  the  hearts  and  turning  the  thoughts  of  those  who 
were  the  hearers  of  Cicero, — as  a  writer,  unmatched  even  in  that 
Ciceronian  age,  for  strength  and  flowing  ease,  though  writing  in  a 
camp,  amid  the  fatigues  of  a  savage  warfare, — in  all  the  accom- 
plishments that  adorn  and  soften,  and  in  all  the  manly  exercises 
that  ennoble  and  strengthen,  alike  complete, — in  battle,  in  storm, 
on  the  ocean  and  on  land,  in  the  collected  fury  of  the  charge,  and 
the  sudden  shock  of  the  surprise,  always  dauntless  and  cool,  show- 
ing a  courage  never  shaken,  though  so  often  tried, — to  his  friends 
kind  and  generous, — to  his  vanquished  foes,  without  exception, 
merciful  and  forgiving, — beloved  by  the  former,  respected  by  the 
latter,  and  adored  by  the  people, — a  scholar,  an  astronomer,  a  poet, 
a  wit,  a  gallant,  an  orator,  a  statesman,  a  warrior,  a  governor,  a 
monarch, — his  vast  and  various  attainments,  so  wonderful  in  that 
wonderful  age,  have  secured  to  him,  from  the  great  of  his  own  and 
all  following  times,  the  undeniable  name  of  the  most  perfect 
CHARACTER  OF  ALL  ANTiciuiTY,  Sucli  a  man  was  CAIUS 
JULIUS  CAESAR,  He  saved  the  people  from  themselves ;  he 
freed  them  from  their  own  tyranny,  and  ended  for  ever,  in  Rome, 
the  power  of  the  populace  to  meddle  with  the  disposal  of  the  great 
interests  of  the  consolidated  nations  of  the  empire.  It  was  nece«- 
sary  that  it  should  be  so.     The  empire  was  too  vast  for  an  ignorant 


THE  APOSTOLIC  WORLD.  27 

and  stupid  democracy  to  govern.  The  safety  and  comfort  of  the 
world  required  a  better  rule ;  and  never  was  any  man,  in  the 
course  of  Providence,  more  wonderfully  prepared  as  the  instrument 
of  a  mighty  work,  than  was  Julius  Caesar,  as  the  founder  of  a 
throne  Avhich  was  to  be  coeval  with  the  political  dominion  of 
Rome.  For  the  accomplishment  of  this  wonderful  purpose,  every 
one  of  his  countless  excellences  seems  to  have  done  something  ; 
and  nothing  less  than  he,  could  have  thus  achieved  a  task,  which 
prepared  the  way  for  the  advance  of  a  power,  that  was  to  outlast 
his  throne  and  the  Eternal  city.  Under  the  controlling  influence  of 
his  genius,  the  world  was  so  calmed,  subjugated,  and  arranged, 
that  the  gates  of  all  nations  were  opened  for  the  peaceful  entrance 
of  the  preachers  of  the  gospel.  So  solidly  did  he  lay  the  founda- 
tion of  his  dominion,  that  even  his  own  murder,  by  the  objects  of 
his  undeserved  clemency,  made  not  the  slightest  change  in  the  fate 
of  Rome  ;  for  the  paltry  intrigues  and  fights  of  a  few  years  ended 
in  placing  the  power  which  Caesar  had  won,  in  the  hands  of  his 
heir  and  namesake,  whose  most  glorious  triumphs  were  but 
straws  on  the  mighty  stream  of  events,  which  Julius  had  set  in 
motion. 

Caesar. — Those  who  are  accustomed  merely  to  the  common  cant  of  many  would- 
be  philanthropists,  about  the  destruction  of  the  liberties  of  Rome,  and  the  bloody- 
minded  atrocity  of  their  destroyer,  will  doubtless  feel  shocked  at  the  favorable  view 
taken  of  his  character  above.  The  truth  is,  there  was  no  liberty  in  Rome  for  Caesar 
to  destroy:  the  question  of  political  freedom  having  been  long  before  settled  in  the 
triumphant  ascendency  of  faction,  the  only  choice  was  between  one  tyrant  and  ten 
thousand.  No  one  can  question  that  Caesar  was  the  fair  choice  of  the  great  mass  of 
the  people.  They  were  always  on  his  side,  in  opposition  to  the  aristocracy,  who 
sought  his  ruin  because  they  considered  him  dangerous  to  their  privileges,  and  their 
liberty  (to  tyrannize;)  and  their  fears  were  grounded  on  the  very  circumstance  that 
the  vast  majority  of  the  people  were  for  him.  This  was  the  condition  of  parties  until 
Caesar's  death,  and  long  afier,  to  the  time  of  the  final  triumph  of  Octavius.  Not  one 
of  Caesar's  friends  among  the  people  ever  became  his  enemy,  or  considered  him  as 
having  betrayed  their  affection  by  his  a.ssumptions  of  power.  Those  who  murdered 
him,  and  plunged  the  world  from  a  happy,  universal  peace,  into  the  devastating  hor- 
rors of  a  wide-spread  and  protracted  civil  war,  were  not  the  patriotic  avengers  of  an 
oppressed  people ;  they  were  the  jealous  supporters  of  a  haughty  aristocracy,  who 
saw  their  powers  and  dignity  diminished,  in  being  shared  with  numbers  of  the  lower 
orders,  added  to  the  senate  by  Caesar  :  and  his  steady  determination  to  humble  them, 
they  saw  in  his  refusal  to  pay  them  homage  by  rising,  when  the  hereditary  aris- 
tocracy of  Rome  took  their  seats  in  the  senate.  It  was  to  redeem  the  failing  powers  of 
their  piiv;leged  order,  that  these  aristocratic  assassins  murdered  the  man  whose 
mercy  had  triumphed  over  his  prudence,  in  sparing  the  forfeited  lives  of  those  heredi- 
tar}',  dangerous  foes  of  popular  rights.  Nor  could  they  for  a  moment  blind  the 
people  to  the  nature  and  object  of  their  action ;  for  as  soon  as  the  murder  had  been 
committed,  the  universal  cry  for  justice,  which  rose  at  once  from  the  whole  mass  of 
the  people,  indignant  at  the  butchery  of  their  friend,  drove  the  gang  of  conspirators 
from  Pcome  and  from  Italy,  which  they  were  never  permitted  again  to  enter.  Those 
who  thronged  to  the  standard  of  the  heir  and  friend  of  Caesar,  were  the  hosts  of 
the  democracy,  that  never  rested  till  they  had  crushed  and  exterminated  the  miserable 
faetion  of  aristocrats,  who  had  hoped  to  triumph  over  the  mass  of  the  people,  by  the 


28  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

death  of  the  people's  great  friend.  Now  if  the  people  of  Rome  chose  to  give  up  their 
■whole  power,  and  the  disposal  of  their  political  affairs,  into  the  hands  of  a  great,  a 
talented,  a  generous,  and  heroic  man,  like  Caesar,  who  had  so  effectually  vindicated 
and  secured  their  freedom  against  the  claims  of  a  domineering  aristocracy,  and  if 
they  afterward  remained  so  well  satisfied  with  the  use  which  he  made  of  this  power, 
as  never  to  make  the  slightest  effort,  nor  on  any  occasion  to  express  the  least  wish, 
to  resume  it,  I  would  like  to  know  who  had  any  business  to  hinder  the  sovran  people 
from  so  doing,  or  what  blame  can  in  any  way  be  laid  to  Caesar's  charge,  for  accept- 
ing, and  for  nobly  and  generously  using  the  power  so  freely  and  heartily  given  up 
to  him. 

The  protracted  detail  of  his  mental  and  physical  greatness,  given  in  the  sketch  of 
his  character  above,  would  need  for  its  full  defence  and  illustration,  the  mention  of 
such  numerous  particulars,  that  I  must  be  content  with  challenging  any  doubter,  to 
a  reference  to  the  record  of  the  actions  of  his  life  ;  and  such  a  reference  will  abun- 
dantly confirm  every  particular  of  the  description.  The  steady  and  unanimous  de- 
cision of  the  learned  and  the  truly  great  of  different  ages,  since  his  time,  is  enough 
to  show  his  solid  claims  to  the  highest  praise  here  given.  Passing  over  the  glory  so 
uniformly  yielded  to  him  by  the  learned  and  eloquent  of  ancient  days,  we  have  among 
moderns  the  disinterested  opinions  of  such  men  as  the  immortal  Lord  Verulam,  from 
whom  came  the  sentence  given  above,  pronouncing  him  "  the  most  complete  character 
of  all  antiquity ;"  a  sentiment  which,  probably,  no  man  of  minute  historical  know- 
ledge ever  read  without  a  hearty  acquiescence.  This  opinion  has  been  quoted  with 
approbation  by  our  own  greatest  statesman,  Alexanoei  ilamilton,  than  whom  none 
knew  belter  how  to  appreciate  real  greatness.  Lord  Byron  (Note  47  on  Canto  IV. 
of  Childe  Harold)  also  quotes  this  sentence  approvingly,  and  in  the  saine  passage 
gives  a  most  interesting  view  of  Caesar's  versatile  genius  and  varied  accomplish- 
ments, entering  more  fully  into  some  particulars  than  that  here  given.  The  sentence 
of  the  Roman  historian,  Suetonius,  {Jure  caesus  existimetur,)  seems  to  me,  to  refer 
not  to  the  moral  fitness  or  actual  right  of  his  murder,  but  to  the  common  laio  or  an- 
cient usage  of  Rome,  by  which  any  person  of  great  influence,  who  was  considered 
powerful  enough  to  be  dangerous  to  the  ascendency  of  the  patrician  rank,  or  to  the 
established  order  of  things  in  any  way,  might  be  killed  by  any  self-constituted  execu- 
tioner, even  though  the  person  thus  murdered  on  bare  suspicion  of  a  liability  to  be- 
come dangerous,  should  really  be  innocent  of  the  charge  of  aspiring  to  supreme 
power.  ("  Melium  jwre  caesum  pronuntiavit,  e^ittTO  si  regni  crimine  insons  fuerit." 
Liv.  lib.  iv.  cap.  48.)  The  idea  that  such  an  abominable  outrage  on  the  claim  of  an 
innocent  man  to  his  own  life,  could  ever  be  seriously  defended  as  morally  rig/it,  is  too 
palpably  preposterous  to  bear  a  consideration.  Such  a  principle  of  policy  must  have 
originated  in  a  republicanism,  somewhat  similar  to  that  which  tolerates  those  expres- 
sions of  public  opinion,  which  have  lately  become  famous  under  the  name  of  Lynch 
law.  It  was  a  principle  which  in  Rome  enabled  the  patrician  order  to  secure  the  de- 
struction of  any  popular  man  of  genius  and  intelligence,  who,  being  able,  might 
become  willing  to  effect  a  revolution  which  would  humble  the  power  of  the  patrician 
aristocracy.  The  murder  of  the  Gracchi,  also,  may  be  taken  as  a  fair  specimen  of 
the  Lynch-law  way  in  which  the  aristocracy  were  disposed  to  check  the  spirit  of 
reform. 

The  work  of  Caesar,  then,  was  twofold,  like  the  tyranny  which  he  was  to  subvert; 
and  well  did  he  achieve  both  objects  of  his  mighty  efforts.  Having  first  brought 
down  the  pride  and  the  power  of  an  overbearing  aristocracy,  he  next,  by  the  force 
of  the  same  dominant  genius,  wrested  the  ill-wielded  dominion  from  the  unsteady 
hands  of  the  fickle  democracy,  making  them  willingly  subservient  to  the  great  pur- 
pose of  their  own  subjugation,  and  acquiescent  in  the  generous  sway  of  one,  whom  a 
sort  of  political  instinct  taught  them  to  fix  on,  as  the  man  destined  to  rule  them. 

Thus  were  the  complicated  and  contradictory  principles  of  Roman  government 
exchanged  for  the  simplicity  of  monarchical  rule;  an  exchange  most  desirable  for 
the  peace  and  security  of  the  subjects  of  the  government.  The  empire  was  no  longer 
shaken  with  the  constant  vacillations  of  .supremacy  from  the  aristocracy  to  the  de. 
raocracy,  and  from  the  democracy  to  the  demagogues,  alternately  their  tyrants  and 
their  slaves.  The  solitary  tyranny  of  an  emperor  was  occeisionally  found  terrible 
in  some  of  its  details;  but  the  worst  of  the.se  could  never  outgo  the  republican  cruel- 
ties of  Marius  and  Sylla ;  and  there  was,  at  least,  this  one  advantage  on  the  side  of 
those  suffering  under  the  monarchical  tyranny,  which  would  not  be  available  in  the 
case  of  the  victims  of  mob-despotism :— this  was— the  ease  with  which  a  single  stroke 


THE  APOSTOLIC  WORLD.  29 

with  a  -well-aimed  dagger  conld  remove  the  evil  at  once,  and  secure  some  cnance  of 
a  change  for  the  better,  as  was  the  case  with  Caligula,  Nero,  and  Domitian;  and 
though  the  advantages  of  the  change  -were  much  more  manifest  in  the  two  latter 
cases  than  in  the  former,  yet,  even  in  that,  the  relief  experienced  softened  the 
cnme.  But  a  whole  tyrannical  populace  could  not  be  so  easily  and  summarily  disposed 
of;  and  those  who  suffered  by  such  despotism,  could  only  wait  till  the  horrid  butch- 
eries of  civil  strife,  or  the  wasting  carnage  of  foreign  warfare,  had  used  up  the  ener- 
gies and  the  superfluous  blood  of  the  populace,  and  swept  the  flower  of  the  demo- 
cracy, by  legions,  to  a  wide  and  quiet  grave.  The  remedy  of  the  evil  was  therefore 
much  slower,  and  more  undesirable  in  its  operation,  in  this  case  than  in  the  other; 
■while  the  evil  itself  was  actually  more  widely  injurious.  For,  on  the  one  hand, 
what  imperial  cyrant  ever  sacrificed  so  many  victims  in  Rome,  or  produced  such 
wide-wasting  ruin,  as  either  of  those  republican  chiefs,  Marius  and  Syllal  And  on 
the  other  hand,  when,  in  the  most  glorious  and  peaceful  days  of  the  aristocratic  or 
democratic  sway,  did  military  glory,  literature,  science,  art,  commerce,  and  the 
whole  common  weal,  so  flourish  and  advance,  as  under  the  imperial  Augustus,  the 
sage  Vespasian  and  the  amiable  Titus,  the  heroic  Trajan,  the  polished  Adrian,  or 
the  wise  and  philosophic  Antonines  ]  Never  did  Rome  wear  the  aspect  of  a  truly 
majestic  cit)',  till  the  imperial  pride  of  her  long  line  of  Caesars  had  filled  her  with 
the  temples,  amphitheatres,  circuses,  aqueducts,  baths,  triumphal  columns  and  arches, 
which  to  this  day  perpetuate  the  solid  glory  of  the  founders,  and  make  her  the  won- 
der of  the  world, — while  not  oue  surviving  great  work  of  taste  claims  a  republican 
for  its  author. 

To  such  a  glory  did  the  Caesars  raise  her,  and  from  such  a  splendor  did  she  fade, 
as  now. 

I  "  Such  is  the  moral  of  all  human  tales ; 
V    'Tis  but  the  same  rehearsal  of  the  past, — 

First  freedom,  and  then  glory; — when  that  fails, 
Wealth,  vice,  corruption, — barbarism  at  last; 
i  And  history,  with  all  her  volumes  vast, 
[  Hath  but  one  page." 

An  allusion  to  such  a  man,  in  such  a  book  as  this,  could  not  be 
justified,  but  on  this  satisfactory  ground  ; — that  the  changes  which 
he  wrought  in  the  Roman  government,  and  the  conquests  by 
which  he  spread  and  secured  the  influence  of  Roman  civilization, 
seem  to  have  done  more  than  any  other  political  action  could  do, 
to  effect  the  general  diffusion,  and  the  perpetuity  of  the  Christian 
faith,  A  glance  at  these  great  events,  in  this  light,  will  show  to 
us  the  first  imperial  Caesar,  as  Christ's  most  mighty  precursor,  un- 
wittingly preparing  the  way  for  the  advance  of  the  Messiah, — a 
bloody  and  all-crushmg  warrior,  opening  the  path  for  the  equally 
resistless  triumphs  of  the  Prince  of  Peace.  Even  this  striking 
characteristic  of  cool  and  unscrupulous  ambition,  became  a  most 
efficient  means  for  the  production  of  this  strange  result.  This 
same  moral  obtuseness,  too,  about  the  right  of  conquest,  so  hein- 
ous in  the  light  of  modern  ethics,  but  so  blameless  and  even 
praise-worthy  in  the  eyes  of  the  good  and  great  of  Caesar's  days, 
shows  us  how  low  was  the  world's  standard  of  right  befoie  the 
coming  of  Christ ;  and  yet  this  insensibility  became,  in  the  hands  of 
the  God  who  causes  the  wrath  of  man  to  praise  him,  a  doubly  pow- 
erful means  of  spreading  that  faith  whose  essence  is  love  to  man. 


^. 


30  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

Look  over  the  world,  then,  as  it  was  before  the  Roman  con- 
quest, and  see  the  diflicultics,  both  physical  and  moral,  that  would 
liaA'e  attended  the  universal  diffusion  of  a  new  and  peaceful  reli- 
gious faith.  Barbarous  nations,  all  over  the  three  continents, 
warring  with  each  other,  and  with  the  failing  outworks  of  civil- 
ization,— besotted  tyranny,  wearing  out  the  energies  of  its  subjects, 
by  selfish,  ruinous,  and  all-grasping  folly, — sea  and  land  swarming, 
with  marauders,  and  every  wheel  of  science  and  commerce  roll- 
ing backward  or  breaking  down.  Such  was  the  seemingly  resist- 
less course  of  events,  when  the  star  of  Roman  fortune  rose  in  the 
ascendant,  under  whose  influence,  at  once  destructive  and  benign, 
the  advancing  hosts  of  barbarity  were  checked  and  overthrown, 
and  their  triumphs  stayed  for  five  hundred  years ;  the  elegance 
of  Grecian  refinement  was  transplanted  from  the  degraded  land 
of  its  birth,  to  Italian  soil,  and  the  most  ancient  tracks  of  com- 
merce, as  well  as  many  new  ones,  were  made  as  safe  as  they  are 
at  this  peaceful  day.  The  mighty  Caesar,  last  of  all,  casting 
down  all  thrones  but  his,  and  laying  the  deep  basis  of  its  lasting 
dominion  in  the  solid  good  of  millions,  filled  up  the  valleys,  leveled 
the  mountains,  and  smoothed  the  plains,  for  the  march  of  that 
monarch,  whose  kingdom  is  without  end. 

ROMAN  AND  CHRISTIAN  TRIUMPHS. 

The  connexion  of  such  a  political  change  with  the  success  of 
the  Christian  enterprise,  and  with  the  perfect  development  and 
triumph  of  our  peaceful  faith,  depends  on  the  simple  truth,  that 
Cliristianity  always  flourishes  best  in  the  most  highly  civilized 
communities,  and  can  never  be  so  developed  as  to  do  full  justice 
to  its  capabilities,  in  any  state  of  society,  short  of  the  highest 
point  of  civilization.  It  never  has  been  received  and  held  incor- 
rupt, by  mere  savages  or  wanderers  ;  and  it  never  can  be.  Thus 
and  therefore  it  was,  that  wherever  Roman  conquest  spread,  and 
secured  the  lasting  triumphs  of  civilization,  thither  Christianity 
followed,  and  flourished  as  on  a  congenial  soil, — till  at  last  not  one 
land  was  left  in  the  whole  empire,  where  the  eagle  and  the  dove 
did  not  spread  their  wings  in  harmonious  triumph.  In  all  these 
lands,  where  Roman  civilization  prepared  the  way,  Christian 
churches  rose,  and  gathered  within  them  the  noble  and  the  re- 
fined, as  well  as  the  humble  and  the  poor.  Spain,  Gaul,  Britain, 
and  Africa,  as  well  as  the  ancient  homes  of  knowledge,  Egypt, 
Greece,  and  Asia,  are  instances  of  this  kind.     And  in  every  one 


THE  APOSTOLIC   WORLD.  31 

of  these,  the  reign  of  the  true  faith  became  coeval  with  civihza- 
tion, — yielding  in  some  instances,  it  is  true,  on  the  advance  of 
modern  barbarism,  but  only  when  the  Arabian  prophet  made  them 
bow  before  his  sword.  Yet  while  within  the  pale  of  Roman  con- 
quest, Christi?jiity  supplanted  polytheism,  beyond  that  wide  circle, 
heathenism  remained  long  undisturbed,  till  the  victorious  march 
of  the  barbarian  conquerors  over  the  empire  of  the  Caesars,  se- 
cured the  extension  of  the  gospel  to  them  also, — the  vanquished, 
in  one  sense,  triumphing  in  turn  over  the  victors,  by  making  them 
the  submissive  subjects  of  Roman  civihzation,  language,  and  reli- 
gion ; — so  that  for  the  first  five  hundred  years  of  the  Christian, 
era,  the  dominion  of  the  Caesars  was  the  most  efficient  earthly  in- 
strument for  the  extension  of  the  faith.  The  persecutions  which 
the  followers  of  the  new  faith  occasionally  suffered,  were  the  result 
of  aberrations  from  the  general  principles  of  tolerance  which  char- 
acterized the  religious  policy  of  the  empire ;  and  after  a  few  such 
acts  of  insane  cruelty,  the  natural  course  of  reaction  brought  the 
persecuted  religion  into  fast  increasing  and  finally  universal  favor. 
If  the  religion,  thus  widely  and  lastingly  diffused,  was  corrupted 
from  the  simplicity  of  the  truth  as  it  was  in  Jesus,  this  corruption 
is  to  be  charged,  not  against  the  Romans,  but  against  those  un- 
worthy successors  of  the  apostles  and  ancient  fathers,  who  sought 
to  make  the  severe  beauty  of  the  naked  truth  more  acceptable  to 
tlie  heathenish  fancies  of  the  people,  by  robing  it  in  the  borrowed 
finery  of  mythology.  Yet,  though  thus  humiliated  in  its  triumph, 
the  victory  of  Christianity  over  that  complex  and  dazzling  religion, 
was  most  complete.  The  faith  to  which  Italians  and  Greeks  had 
been  devoted  for  ages, — which  had  drawn  its  first  and  noblest 
principles  from  the  mysterious  sources  of  the  antique  Etruscan, 
Egyptian,  and  Phoenician,  and  had  enriched  its  dark  and  bound- 
less plan  with  all  that  the  varied  superstitions  of  eveiy  conquered 
people  could  furnish, — the  faith  which  had  rooted  itself  so  deeply 
in  the  poetry,  the  patriotism,  and  the  language  of  the  Roman,  and 
had  so  twined  itself  with  every  scene  of  his  nation's  glory,  from 
the  days  of  Romulus, — now  gave  way  before  the  simple  word  of 
the  carpenter  of  Nazareth,  and  was  so  torn  up  and  swept  away 
from  its  strongholds,  that  the  very  places  which  through  twenty 
generations  its  triumphs  had  hallowed,  were  now  turned  into 
shrines  for  the  worship  of  the  God  of  despised  Judah.  So  utterly 
was  the  Olympian  Jove  unseated,  and  cast  down  firom  his  long- 
dreaded  throne,  that  his  name  passed  away  for  ever  from  the  wor- 


32  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

ship  of  mankind,  and  has  never  been  recalled,  but  with  contempt. 
He,  and  all  his  motley  train  of  gods  and  goddesses,  are  remembered 
no  more  with  reverence ;  but  vanishing  from  even  the  knowledge 
of  the  mass  of  the  people,  are 

"  Gone  glimmering  through  the  dream  of  things  that  were," — 
"  A  school-boy's  tale." 

Every  ancient  device  for  the  perpetuation  of  the  long-established 
faith  disappeared  in  the  advancing  light  of  the  gospel.  Temples, 
statues,  oracles,  festivals,  and  all  the  solemn  paraphernalia  of  su- 
perstition, were  swept  to  oblivion ;  or,  changing  their  names  only, 
were  made  the  instruments  of  recommending  the  new  faith  to  the 
eyes  of  the  common  people.  But,  however  tlie  pliant  spirit  of  the 
degenerate  successors  of  the  early  fathers  might  bend  to  the  vul- 
gar superstitions  of  the  day,  the  establishment  of  the  Christian 
religion,  upon  the  ruins  of  Roman  lieathenism,  was  effected  with 
a  completeness  that  left  not  the  shadow  of  a  name,  nor  the 
vestige  of  a  form,  to  keep  alive  in  the  minds  of  the  people  the 
memory  of  the  ancient  religion.  The  words  applied  by  our  great 
poet  to  the  time  of  Christ's  birth,  have  something  more  than  poet- 
ical force,  as  a  description  of  the  absolute  extermination  of  these 
superstitions,  both  public  and  domestic,  on  the  final  triumph  of 
Christianity. 

"  The  oracles  are  dumb; 

No  voice  or  hideous  hum 

Rolls  through  the  arched  roof  in  words  deceiving. 

Apollo  from  his  shrine 

Can  no  more  divine, 

With  hollow  shriek  the  steep  of  Delphos  leaving. 

No  nightly  trance  or  breathed  spell 

Inspires  the  pale-eyed  priest  from  the  prophetic  cell." 
*  *  * 

"  In  consecrated  earth 

And  on  the  holy  hearth, 

The  Lars  and  Lemures  moan  with  midnight  plaint ; 

In  urns  and  altars  round, 

A  drear  and  dying  sound 

Affrights  the  Flamens  at  their  service  quaint ; 

And  the  chill  marble  seems  to  sweat, 

While  each  peculiar  power  foregoes  his  wonted  seat." 

Thus  were  the  mighty  labors  of  human  ambition  made  sub- 
servient to  the  still  greater  achievments  of  divine  benevolence ; 
thus  did  the  unholy  triumphs  of  the  hosts  of  heathenism  become, 
in  the  hands  of  the  All-wise,  the  surest  means  of  spreading  the 
holy  and  peace-making  truths  of  Christianity  to  the  erids  of  the 
earth, — otherwise  scarcely  approachable  without  a  miracle.  The 
dominion  which  thus  grew  upon  and  over  the  vast  empire  of  Rome, 


THE  APOSTOLIC  WORLD.  33 

tfiough  growing  with  her  growth  and  strengthening  with  her 
trength,  sunk  not  with  her  weakness, — but,  stretching  abroad 
Ir  "sh  brandies,  whose  leaves  were  for  the  heahng  of  nations  then 
unknown,  showed  its  divine  origin  by  its  immortahty ;  while, 
alas  !  its  human  modifications  betrayed  themselves  in  its  diminished 
grace  and  ill-preserved  symmetry.  Yet  in  spite  of  these,  rather 
than  by  means  of  them,  it  rose  still  mightier  above  the  ruins  of 
the  empire  under  whose  shadow  it  had  grown,  till,  at  last,  sup- 
planting Roman  and  Goth  alike,  it  fixed  its  roots  on  the  seven 
hills  of  the  Eternal  city ;  where,  thenceforth,  for  hundreds  of 
years,  the  head  of  Christendom,  ruling  with  a  power  more  abso- 
lute than  her  imperial  sway,  saw  more  than  the  Roman  world 
beneath  him.  Even  to  this  day,  vast  and  countless  "regions, 
Caesar  never  knew,"  own  him  of  Rome  as  "  the  Centre  of  unity  j" 
and  lands 

"  farther  west 
Than  the  Greek's  islands  of  the  blest," 

and  farther  east  than  the  long-unpassed  bounds  of  Roman  con- 
quest, turn,  with  an  adoration  and  awe  immeasurably  greater  than 
the  most  exalted  of  the  apotheosized  Caesars  ever  received,  to  him 
who  claims  the  name  of  the  successor  of  the  poor  fisherman  of 
Galilee. 

CANAAN    IN  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE. 

The  land  of  Israel  was  the  true  country  of  all  the  apostles ;  for 
thence  all  Jews,  throughout  the  world,  had  originally  sprung  ;  and 
however  changed  in  language  and  manners  by  gentile  intercourse, 
they  still  sent  back  their  hearts  to  that,  as  their  father  land, — 
deeming  themselves  but  strangers  and  pilgrims  in  all  other  places 
where  they  might  dwell  or  wander.  A  view  of  the  condition  of 
Palestine  in  the  apostolic  age  will,  therefore,  be  appropriate  and 
interesting,  as  an  illustration  of  many  of  the  most  important  inci- 
dents in  apostolic  history,  which  were  either  wholly  caused,  or 
greatly  affected,  by  the  moral,  religious,  social,  and  political  pecu- 
liarities of  the  country  where  the  gospel  work  began, — peculiarities 
not  less  striking,  nor  less  remarkably  connected  with  the  success 
of  that  work,  than  were  those  of  the  Roman  world,  as  just  sur- 
veyed. 

Palestine,  though  made  the  subject  of  Roman  conquest  as  early 
as  any  of  the  countries  around  it,  yet  did  not  so  wholly  lose  its 
national   individuality  as  many  that  were  conquered  before  ana 
5 


34  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

after  it.  The  leading  incidents  in  its  previous  history  were  so 
peculiarly  connected  with  this  circumstance,  that  a  reference  to 
them  will  help  to  show  how  a  country,  so  limited  in  extent,  and 
so  feeble  in  political  influence,  should  have  been  thus  eminently 
favored  above  the  great  Syrian  and  Egyptian  kingdoms.  From 
the  time  when  the  records  of  the  Old  Testament  close,  for  three 
hundred  years,  the  land  of  Israel  was  the  unresisting  prey  of  the 
different  conquerors,  in  whose  path  it  lay,  without  an  effort  to 
vindicate  its  nationality,  or  to  influence  the  fortune  of  those  who 
contended  for  the  possession  of  it.  Alexander,  and  his  successors 
in  the  empire  of  the  East,  Seleucus  and  Ptolemy,  marched  over  it 
repeatedly,  bringing  it  in  this  quiet  manner,  by  turns,  under  the 
rising  dominion  of  each  new  conqueror.  Lying  in  the  only  direct 
land-route  between  Syria  and  Egypt,  it  was,  for  a  century  and  a 
half,  the  chief  scene  of  the  bloody  wars  between  the  Seleucid  and 
the  Ptolemaic  Idngs,  without  being  itself  actively  involved  in  these 
contests.  Both  sets  of  its  Macedonian  conquerors,  wisely  regard- 
ing the  peculiarities  of  the  Jews,  for  a  long  time  abstained  from 
provoking  them  by  any  interference  with  that  strange  religion 
which  so  wonderfully  distinguished  them  from  all  other  nations 
of  the  world ;  and  the  second  Ptolemy  even  became  a  patron  of 
their  faith  and  their  sacred  literature.  Thus  left  to  the  undis- 
turbed, and  even  promoted,  enjoyment  of  that  worship,  which  was 
the  beginning,  the  end,  and  the  essence  of  their  national  being,  the 
Jews  passed  quietly  from  one  foreign  sway  to  another,  as  the 
fortune  of  war  directed.  The  latent  energies  of  the  Hebrew 
character  were,  however,  at  last  roused  into  tremendous  and  irre- 
sistible action,  by  the  folly  of  one  of  its  Syrian  conquerors,  who 
forgot  the  prudence  of  his  predecessors  so  far  as  to  attempt  the 
introduction  of  Grecian  idolatry  in  the  place  of  the  pure  worship 
of  the  God  of  Abraham.  The  innovation  almost  immediately  set 
the  whole  land  in  a  blaze  of  rebellion,  and  the  indignant  spirit  of 
Jewish  patriotism,  not  yet  wholly  disembodied,  though  so  long 
slumbering,  broke  forth  first  in  the  persons  of  the  Maccabean 
brothers,  who,  after  leading  the  hosts  of  Judah  to  conquest,  and 
establishing  the  independence  of  their  nation  against  both  Syrians 
and  Egyptians,  received  in  succession  the  highest  military,  civil, 
and  religious  dominion,  as  the  just  reward  of  their  heroism.  The 
grateful  people,  after  their  fall  in  the  battles  of  their  national 
freedom,  yielded  the  heritage  of  that  nobly-earned  doininion  to 
the  undeserving  and  degenerate  descendents  of  the  second  of  the 


THE  APOSTOLIC  WORLD.  35 

brothers :  but  the  inheritance  of  a  power  now  made  both  regal 
and  sacerdotal,  was  not  accompanied  and  sustained  by  the  virtue 
of  the  founders  of  the  hne.  The  Asamonean  kings  were  a  race 
of  assassins  and  tyrants ;  and  to  such  a  state  did  they  bring  the 
country  by  their  family  quarrels,  and  the  wars  that  rose  out  of 
them,  that  their  sway  became  a  greater  curse  to  the  Jews  than 
any  foreign  yoke  that  had  left  them  the  exercise  of  their  religion. 
While  the  momentarily  renewed  glories  of  Judah  were  falling 
thus  to  decay  and  disgrace,  under  the  degenerate  Asamoneans,  the 
eastward  course  of  Roman  conquest  was  sweeping  through  Asia, 
and  had  already  subjugated  all  the  Hellenic  kingdoms  north  of 
Palestine.  Pompey,  on  completing  the  conquest  of  Armenia,  next 
turned  his  eyes  soirthward,  to  the  little  kingdom  which  lay  in  his 
route  to  Egypt ;  and  before  he  could  execute  or  contrive  a  scheme 
for  securing  so  easy  a  triumph,  the  dissensions  of  two  rival  princes 
summoned  him  as  the  arbiter  of  their  quarrel  for  the  throne ;  and 
in  conformity  with  the  ever-active  Roman  policy  of  fostering 
internal  strife  in  foreign  nations, — a  policy  which  won  them 
almost  as  many  kingdoms  as  did  their  warlike  genius, — Pompey 
instantly  seized  the  fortunate  occasion  to  enter  Palestine  with  an 
army,  to  support  his  arbitration,  and  from  that  moment  the  country 
became  an  inseparable  appendage  of  the  Roman  empire.  The 
quarrel  was  decided  by  depriving  both  the  brothers  of  the  royal 
power,  and,  thenceforth,  the  contests  among  the  princes  consisted 
in  intrigues  for  a  tributary  throne.  The  feeble  and  unfortunate 
Asamoneans,  were,  however,  soon  surpassed  in  this  base  contest, 
by  a  new  set  of  competitors,  from  the  house  of  Antipater,  a  Jew 
of  obscure  family,  but  of  aspiring  genius,  whose  ambitious  intrigues 
prepared  the  way  for  the  final  triumph  of  his  son  Herod,  over 
the  last  of  the  descendents  of  the  Maccahees.  In  the  successive 
contests  between  Pompey,  Caesar,  Cassius,  Antony,  and  Octavius, 
the  aspiring  Herod,  by  a  wonderful  combination  of  art,  boldness, 
cruelty,  and  good  fortune,  managed  to  keep  such  a  hold  on  the 
supreme  regard  of  each  of  these  various  arbiters  of  his  destiny, 
that,  through  all  the  bloody  changes  which  distracted  every  part 
of  the  Roman  world,  his  power  and  honors  steadily  accumulated 
over  all  obstacles,  till,  at  last,  the  triumphant  establishment  of 
Au2Tistus  became  coincident  with  the  equally  solid  confirmation 
of  Herod  as  the  absolute  sovran  of  all  Palestine,  over  which  he 
thenceforth  reigned  to  his  death,  with  only  a  nominal  subjection  to 
the  empire  of  Rome, — a  connexion,  by  which  he  insured  the 


3G  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

perfect  security  of  his  throne,  without,  in  the  slightest  degree,  im- 
pairing his  real  power.  This  was  the  gi*eat  Herod,  who  ruled 
Judea  at  the  time  of  the  birth  of  Christ,  and  this  was  the  pecuhar 
political  character  of  that  country, — between  a  province  and  a 
free  state.  The  death  of  the  great  Herod  did  not  at  first  mate- 
rially change  the  peculiar  relation  which  his  dominions  bore  to 
the  great  centre  of  empire.  The  authority  of  the  Caesar  was 
only  invoked  and  exerted,  to  sanction  the  disposition  which  he 
made  of  his  kingdom  in  his  will ;  but  though  the  apportionment 
of  the  different  sections  among  his  favored  sons,  left  all  parts  of 
Palestine  the  character  of  kingdoms,  and  not  of  provinces,  still 
the  independence  and  power  of  the  whole  was  somewhat  affected 
by  this  division.  The  dominions  of  the  great  Herod  included  all 
the  region  between  the  sea  and  Desert  Arabia,  limited  north  by 
Syria  proper,  and  south  by  Rocky  Arabia, — being  in  length  one 
hundred  and  fifty  miles,  and  in  breadth  seventy.  By  his  testa- 
mentary apportionment,  three  grand  divisions  were  made  of  this 
territory ; — the  southern  section,  consisting  of  Judea  proper,  Sa- 
maria, and  Idumea,  was  given  to  Archelaus,  his  oldest  surviving 
son,  with  the  title  of  king ;  the  northeastern  section,  consisting 
of  all  east  of  Lake  Gennesaret  and  the  Jordan  north  of  it,  (Gau- 
lanitis,  Batanea,  Iturea,  Trachonitis,  and  Panias,)  was  given  to 
Philip,  his  next  son,  with  the  title  of  tetrarch ;  and  the  remaining 
section, — consisting  of  all  Galilee  proper,  and  of  Peraea,  or  the 
region  which  lay  east  of  the  Jordan,  from  its  mouth  to  lake  Gen- 
nesaret,— was  given  to  Antipas,  his  youngest  son,  with  the  title  of 
tetrarch.  This  political  division  of  the  geography  of  Palestine 
deserves  particular  attention  from  the  reader,  connected  as  it  is 
with  many  important  points  in  the  gospel  narrative.  The  only 
essential  change  made  in  it,  during  the  life  of  Jesus,  was  in  the 
southern  section,  which,  on  the  deserved  expulsion  of  the  feeble 
Archelaus,  after  ten  years'  reign,  was  converted  into  a  Roman 
province ; — the  holiest  portion  of  Palestine  thus  losing  first  the 
forms  of  an  independency,  and  submitting  to  the  sway  of  an  em- 
peror's procurator.  Later  political  changes  in  this  and  the  other 
sections,  will  be  particularly  noticed  in  those  parts  of  the  apostolic 
narrative  with  which  they  are  connected. 

The   religious   condition   of  Palestine,   in    the   apostolic   age,  ■ 
equally  deserves  notice,  involved  as  it  was  in  the  whole  scheme, 
scope,  and  history  of  the  apostolic  work.     All  the  opposition  which 
the  gospel  first  met,  arose  from  causes  connected  with  the  previous 


THE  APOSTOLIC  WORLD.  37 

State  of  sects  and  opinions  among  those  to  whom  it  weis  first 
preached;  for  though  the  worldly  ambition  and  the  political 
jealousy  of  those  who  were  then  great  in  Israel,  was  the  instant 
motive  of  this  opposition,  the  origin  of  these  dark  feelings  was  in 
the  peculiar  religious  government  of  the  Jewish  nation,  making  the 
jealous  few  the  sole  depositaries  of  spiritual  power. 

For  five  hundred  years,  the  voice  of  inspiration  had  been  silent. 
The  harp  of  prophecy  slept  with  Malachi,  at  the  rearing  of  the 
second  temple ;  and  thenceforth  the  people  of  God's  peculiar  care 
were  left  to  the  teachings  of  the  written  word  only,  as  set  forth 
by  the  interpretations  of  human  wisdom  and  learning.  Soon  the 
spirits  of  improving  and  refining  generations  began  to  rise,  in 
longings  after  more  systematic  and  complex  doctrines  than  the 
simpler  minds  of  the  immediate  hearers  of  the  prophets  had  aspired 
to  find  in  the  bare  and  honest  testimony  of  original  inspiration. 
The  ages  of  inspiration  were  not  the  ages  of  remarkable  intel- 
lectual refinement ;  the  Israelites  were,  from  the  conquest  of 
Canaan  to  the  Chaldean  captivity,  in  a  state  of  semi-barbarism ; — 
the  great  mass  of  the  people  being  wrapped  in  the  enjoyments  of 
a  mere  animal  existence,  while  here  and  there  rose  from  among 
them,  teachers,  of  an  order  so  much  above  the  genius  of  the 
nation  and  the  age,  that  the  heavenly  source  of  their  inspiration 
was  most  effectually  proved,  in  their  exaltation  above  the  bar- 
barism of  their  times.  Still,  the  teachings  of  the  prophets  were 
of  necessity  accommodated  to  the  rude  character  of  their  hearers, 
as  far  as  the  motives  to  the  obedience  of  the  truth  were  concerned. 
Their  warnings,  their  denunciations,  their  promises,  and  their 
blessings,  all  referred  to  the  circumstances  of  the  present  life ;  and 
no  joy  or  pain  beyond  the  grave  was  imaged  to  the  mind  of  the 
Israelite  by  his  inspired  teachers,  in  enjoining  the  practice  of 
virtue,  the  preservation  of  a  religion  pure  from  the  pollutions  of 
idolatry,  or  the  observance  of  the  law  of  God,  as  revealed  by 
Moses.  The  progress  of  refinement,  in  the  course  of  succeeding 
ages,  brought  the  Jewish  nation  into  an  intellectual  elevation  so 
far  above  their  previous  condition,  that  their  improved  moral  per- 
ceptions soon  moved  them  with  an  instinctive  sense  of  the  incom- 
pleteness of  the  revelation  of  the  truth  by  the  holy  men  who  had 
spoken  of  old  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Spirit.  The 
Chaldean,  the  Persian,  and  the  Macedonian  dominion  over  Pales- 
tine, all  tended  to  this  result.  The  influence  of  oriental  and  of 
Grecian  philosophy  thus  made  itself  manifest  in  the  modifications 


38  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

of  ancient  Jewish  faith,  and  in  the  large  additions  which  were  soon 
made  to  ancient  opinions.  Under  the  operation  of  these  causes 
arose  the  first  systematic  and  comprehensive  view  of  the  truths 
of  rehgion, — in  short,  the  first  Jewish  theology.  The  original 
teachings  of  inspiration  had  presented  themselves  in  bursts  of 
divine  truth,  as  the  spirit  gave  utterance  on  occasions  of  particular 
urgency;  and  the  volume  of  the  word  of  God,  therefore,  appeared 
in  the  form  of  a  historical  series  of  individual  revelations,  each 
accommodated  to  the  special  emergency  that  called  it  forth, — no 
one  in  particular  pretending  to  give  a  complete  system  of  religion, 
and  the  whole  equally  far  from  presenting  a  regularly  arranged 
view  of  the  truths  actually  revealed.  The  first  theological  efforts 
of  the  Jewish  teachers  seem  to  have  consisted  in  a  formal  deduc- 
tion of  the  substance  and  the  results  of  the  whole  course  of  the 
records  of  inspiration.  But  with  these  first  occasions  of  the 
application  of  merely  human  wisdom,  to  the  modification  even  of 
the  forms  of  divine  things,  arose  the  first  essential  difference  in 
creeds  and  in  systems  of  religion ;  and  differences  soon  originated 
among  the  intelligent  and  discerning,  on  these  matters,  which  soon 
led  to  the  distinct  formation  and  permanent  foundation  of  religious 
SECTS.  A  brief  view  of  the  essential  peculiarities  of  each  of 
those  denominations  which  divided  the  intelligent  portion  of  the 
Jewish  nation,  in  the  apostolic  age,  will  here,  also,  be  of  advantage 
to  the  reader. 

The  Pharisees  were  the  sect  which  had  the  predominance  in 
numbers,  in  wealth,  in  learning,  and  in  popular  favor.  Deriving 
their  name  from  a  Hebrew  word,  which  means  "  separate,"  their 
grand  distinctive  characteristic  was  a  complete  withdrawal  of 
themselves  from  the  pollutions  of  worldly  intercourse  with  those 
who  disregarded  the  law  of  Moses ;  and  they  were  devoted,  by 
profession  at  least,  to  the  minute  observance  of  the  Levitical  ritual, 
as  well  as  to  the  practice  of  those  virtues  enjoined  in  all  parts  of 
the  Hebrew  scriptures.  They  were  furthermore  characterized  by 
a  profound  reverence  for  the  traditions  of  the  Hebrew  Fathers,  re- 
ceiving their  interpretations  of  the  law,  the  prophets,  and  the 
devotional  and  historical  scriptures,  as  authority  decisive  above 
appeal,  and  beyond  all  that  the  wisdom  of  more  modern  theologians 
could  attain.  They  also  professed  to  abstain  from  luxurious  en- 
joyments, and  to  follow  an  entirely  virtuous  course  of  life.  As  to 
theological  views,  they  were  predestinarians,  though  not  fatalists, 
— believing  that  the  eternal  decrees  of  God,  and  the  free  agency 


THE  APOSTOLIC  WORLD.  39 

of  man,  were  so  arranged  and  harmonized,  that  every  human 
being  was  left  to  his  own  choice  between  right  and  wrong.  They 
beheved  also  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  in  a  future  state, 
differing  according  to  its  moral  deserts  in  this  life, — the  wicked 
being  condemned  to  eternal  imprisonment  in  hell,  while  the  good 
were  rewarded  by  the  liberty  of  returning  to  life,  at  pleasure. 
These  doctrines  were,  throughout,  so  acceptable  to  the  people, 
that,  in  the  apostolic  age,  the  Pharisees  were  supreme  in  public 
favor,  and  by  popular  consent  were  made  the  guardians  of  the 
purity  of  the  national  religion,  the  directors  of  the  ritual  worship, 
and  the  authorized  interpreters  of  the  law.  Such  were  their  high 
professions  of  doctrinal  orthodoxy,  and  devotional  purity ;  but, 
alas !  that  in  all  ages,  and  in  all  similar  circumstances,  ultra-reli- 
gionists should  be  the  same  !  These  solemn  pretensions,  so  im- 
posing to  the  public  eye,  were  but  a  hypocritical  covering  of  the 
most  narrow-minded  bigotry  and  sectarianism,  "  compassing  sea 
and  land  to  make  one  proselyte," — of  the  most  complete  devotion 
to  wealth,  "  devouring  widows'  houses,  and  for  an  atoning  pretext, 
making  long  prayers,  and  giving  alms  in  the  synagogues,  and  in 
the  corners  of  the  streets," — of  the  most  heartless  and  chilling 
formality,  "  paying  tithe  of  mint,  anise,  and  cummin," — observing 
all  the  external  requisitions  of  the  written  law,  and  of  conventional 
religious  usage,  but  "  omitting  the  weightier  matters  of  the  law, 
judgment,  mercy,  and  faith,"  All  these,  and  numerous  other 
equally  bitter  testimonies,  are  borne  against  them  by  the  indignant 
denunciations  of  him  whose  "  word  was  truth ;"  and  who  can 
doubt  the  justice  of  the  description  ?  The  picture  drawn  of  the 
real  practices  of  this  sect  in  the  gospel  history,  contrasted  with 
the  favorable  representation  of  their  creed  and  professions  given 
by  the  Jewish  historian,  is  so  often  justified  by  parallel  instances 
of  human  depravity  perverting  the  purity  of  religious  truth,  as  to 
find  a  faithful  comment  in  the  observation  of  every  discerning 
reader.  The  Pharisees  were  men  whose  glory  was — the  most 
perfect  orthodoxy  in  doctrine,  the  most  ancient  authority  in  theo- 
logical views,  the  most  devout  and  painful  observance  of  rituals 
of  public  and  private  worship,  the  most  regular  and  set  obedience 
to  the  scriptural  injunctions  of  charity  and  alms-giving ;  they  shut 
up  the  kingdom  of  heaven  against  all  who  did  not  conform  to 
their  ideal  standard  of  doctrinal  correctness,  though,  themselves 
excluded  by  the  same  test ;  they  hung  their  hopes  for  life  and  for 
death,  for  time  and  for  eternity,  on  forms  and  creeds,  on  doctrines 
6 


40  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

and  observances,  on  blamelessness  of  faith,  and  on  conformity  to 
the  very  letter  of  the  divine  law ;  the  voice  of  an  admiring  reli- 
gious public  uttered  the  loud  approval  of  their  perfection ;  and  yet 
the  sentence  of  the  Supreme  Judge  of  all  the  world  denounced 
against  them  the  assurance  of  a  damnation  as  pre-eminent  as 
their  professions. 

The  Sadducees  were  most  prominently  characterized  by  their 
negative  peculiarities  of  belief.  They  rejected  all  the  traditions 
which  the  Pharisees  had  added  to  the  Old  Testament,  and  by 
which  they  had,  in  too  many  instances,  "  made  the  law  of  no 
effect."  They  denied  even  the  more  noble  doctrines  inculcated 
by  the  Pharisaic  teachers, — the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  the  exist- 
ence of  the  soul  after  death,  the  future  retribution  of  the  deeds  of 
this  life,  the  reality  of  spiritual  beings,  whether  angels  or  demons, 
the  predestination  of  events,  and  the  providence  of  God.  All 
these  they  rejected  as  mere  human  inventions,  and  as  unau- 
thorized intermixtures  of  foreign  doctrines,  unknown  to  the 
inspired  writers.  The  law  of  Moses  and  the  prophetic  scriptures 
were  all  that  they  received  as  the  true  word  of  God ;  and  these 
they  maintained  to  be  complete  in  doctrine  and  in  moral  precept, 
containing  the  whole  duty  of  man.  Their  grand  aim  was  the 
observance  of  a  blameless  morality,  rather  than  the  attainment  of 
a  complex  system  of  theological  belief;  and  the  name  of  the  sect, 
derived  from  a  Hebrew  word,  which  means  "  just,"  or  "  right- 
eous," was  a  fair  expression  of  the  sort  of  excellence  which  they 
professed  to  seek, — a  moral  rather  than  a  theological  perfection. 
In  the  pursuit  of  the  truth,  they  were  characterized  by  great 
freedom  of  investigation,  and  a  total  disregard  of  dogmatic  au- 
thorities, whether  ancient  or  modern ;  and  they  are  mentioned  as' 
manifesting  an  equal  freedom  of  discussion  among  themselves, 
*'  accounting  it  noble  to  dispute  even  the  teachers  of  the  doctrines 
of  their  sect."  This  skeptical  character  acquired  them  such  a 
reputation  for  contempt  of  popular  notions,  and  predominant 
systems  of  belief,  that  the  general  voice  of  the  Jewish  world  was 
against  them ;  and  the  select  few,  all  of  high  rank  and  aristocratic 
families,  who  held  this  odious  faith,  were  obliged  by  the  force  of 
public  opinion  to  conform,  in  externals,  to  the  Pharisaic  doctrine, 
keeping  their  peculiarities  within  the  limits  of  their  own  schools. 
They  had,  however,  much  power  in  the  great  national  council  of 
religion,  and,  for  a  long  period,  the  highest  sacerdotal  offices 
almost  entirely  devolved  on  members  of  their  sect.     This  power 


THE  APOSTOIilC  WORLD.  41 

in  the  administration  of  law,  they  were  very  strict  and  harsh  in 
using,  being  much  more  disposed  to  cruel  and  bloody  measures 
than  were  the  Pharisees,  who  were,  on  the  contrary,  distinguished 
for  their  comparative  leniency  in  judicial  proceedings,  and  for 
their  general  abhorrence  of  blood  and  capital  punishments. 

The  root  of  the  name  Pharisee  is  the  Hebrew  word  <£'-ib  (pharash,) — "  separated." 
The  name  Sadducee  is  considered  to  be  most  justly  derived  from  piif  {Isaddik,) — 
"  rig/Uctms"  though  some  of  the  later  Pharisaical  Rabbins  deny  the  rival  sect  so 
lionorable  an  etymon,  and  pretend  to  derive  the  word  from  the  name  of  the  supposed 
founder,  Sadoc ; — an  assertion  without  proof  or  reason. 

The  authorities  of  this  account  of  these  two  sects  are  the  statements  of  Josephus, 
in  different  parts  of  his  works,  where  he  gives  incidental  notices  of  both  Pharisees 
and  Sadducees.    (Ant.  XIII.  v.  9,  and  x.  6.  XVIII.  i.  3,  4.— War,  II.  ix.  14.) 

These  two  great  sects  were  all  that  came  distinctly  in  the  way 
of  Jesus  Christ  and  his  apostles,  in  their  evangelizing  work.  Othei 
sects  did,  however,  exist  at  that  time ;  but  so  limited  in  numbers, 
permanency,  and  locality,  that  they  receive  only  an  incidental 
mention  in  the  gospel  and  apostolic  history,  or  are  entirely  unno- 
ticed. The  EssENEs,  the  third  great  sect,  were  a  very  peculiar 
people,  living  in  a  sort  of  monastic  condition,  and  constituting 
isolated  communities, — characterized  by  singularities  of  conduct 
also,  as  remarkable  as  their  mode  of  life.  They  believed  in  the 
immortality  of  the  soul,  and  the  certain,  immutable  predestination 
of  all  events,  the  eternal  punishment  of  the  wicked,  and  the 
eternal  happiness  of  the  righteous.  They  were  extremely  ascetic 
in  their  habits  and  observances,  devoting  themselves  wholly  to  the 
attainment  of  moral  perfection,  and  to  the  cultivation  of  the  fa- 
culties of  the  soul  at  the  expense  of  bodily  enjoyments.  Cut  off 
as  they  were  from  all  direct  connexion  with  the  world,  they  are 
no  where  mentioned  in  gospel  history  as  involved  in  the  opposi- 
tion to  Jesus  which  arose  from  the  other  sects.  The  Herodians 
were  another  class  of  men,  of  very  opposite  character,  distinguished 
by  nothing  but  a  base  conformity  to  the  Greek  and  Roman  fashions 
and  customs,  which  had  been  introduced  and  encouraged  among 
the  Jews  by  the  great  Herod,  who  was  desirous  to  polish  the 
nation,  by  the  influence  of  heathen  refinements.  This  sect  are 
only  incidentally  noticed  in  the  gospel  history,  in  a  trifling  way, 
suited  to  their  insignificant  character.  Judas,  the  Gaulanite, 
on  the  other  hand,  stirred  up  some  spirits  of  a  ruder  order,  to  a 
bold  and  furious  resistence  of  all  foreign  influence  and  domination. 
This  zealot  sect  was,  of  course,  very  brief  in  its  continuance. 
Arising  at  the  time  when  Judea  was  taken  from  Archelaus,  and 
first  reduced  to  the  condition  of  a  Roman  province,  they  refused 


42  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

to  pay  taxes  to  a  Roman  officer,  and  resisted  by  arms ;  but  the 
very  first  movement  of  a  Roman  legion  was  sufficient  to  scatter 
the  rebelhous  host,  and  leave  them  hardly  a  name. 

Thus  had  the  chosen  people  of  God,  during  the  long  with- 
drawal of  the  personal  teachings  of  inspiration,  been  left  to  the 
various  devices  by  which  human  wisdom  sought  to  supply  that 
new  light,  which  their  increasing  refinement  and  progressive  in- 
tellectual exaltation  led  them  to  seek.  The  incompleteness  of  the 
ancient  revelation  was  instinctively  felt ;  but  how  far  were  their 
noblest  efforts  from  that  heavenly  truth,  the  conception  of  which 
could  never  have  entered  into  the  heart  of  man,  and  which  could 
be  made  known  only  from  the  divine  source  of  original  inspiration ! 
The  scheme  of  redemption  required  a  means  of  communication 
worthy  of  the  character  of  the  work,  and  therefore  the  Son  of 
God  was  sent  to  proclaim  the  mighty  truth,  not  merely  in  words, 
but  by  achieving  in  his  own  person  the  glorious  work.  The 
freshness  and  simplicity  of  the  doctrine  which  he  taught,  though 
most  effectually  vindicating  the  purity  and  divinity  of  its  origin, 
was  yet  so  repulsive  to  the  proud  sectaries,  that  they  refused  to 
own  the  authority  of  one  whose  teachings  aimed  at  the  overthrow 
of  all  the  elaborate  systems  which  the  wisdom  of  ages  had  reared  ; 
and,  therefore,  the  Redeemer  turned  away  from  those  who  aspired 
to  a  knowledge  of  the  depths  of  divine  mysteries, — from  the  high, 
the  powerful,  the  wealthy,  and  the  learned, — and  sought  for  the 
instruments  of  the  world's  regeneration,  in  those  whose  simple  and 
"unsophisticated  minds  were  best  prepared  by  humility  and  honesty, 
for  the  reception  of  truths  so  humiliating  to  pride,  yet  so  exalting 
to  the  spirit  of  the  meek  and  lowly.  From  such  he  chose  the 
companions  of  his  travels,  of  his  labors,  his  watchings,  his  suf- 
ferings, and  his  perils, — the  witnesses  of  the  most  wonderful  and 
mysterious  manifestations  of  his  glory, — the  especial  objects  of  his 
instructions  and  prayers.  Thus  prepared,  they  were  sent  forth 
to  fight  the  battles  of  a  glorious  freedom, — to  lead  the  hosts  of  a 
pure  faith  against  the  intrenched  defenders  of  ancient  error,  of 
superstitious  fear,  and  wearisome  observances.  The  unsophisti- 
cated mind  of  the  rudely  energetic  Galilean  could  best  appreciate 
the  simple  yet  perfect  beauty  of  the  revelation,  which  so  well  at- 
tained and  supplied  the  truth  for  which  the  minds  of  ages  had 
vainly  toiled  ;  and  therefore  of  such  was  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 


THE   GALILEAN   APOSTLES. 


SIMON   CEPHAS, 

COMMONLY  CALLED  SIMON  PETER. 


HIS  APOSTOLIC  RANK. 


The  order  in  which  the  names  of  the  apostles  are  arranged  in 
this  book,  can  make  httle  difference  in  the  interest  which  their 
history  will  excite  in  the  reader's  mind,  nor  can  such  an  arrange- 
ment, of  itself,  do  much  to  affect  his  opinion  of  their  comparative 
merits ;  yet,  to  their  biographer,  it  becomes  a  matter  of  some  im- 
portance, as  well  as  interest,  to  show  not  only  authority,  but 
reason,  for  the  order  in  which  he  ranks  them. 
(  SuiScient  authority  for  placing  Simon  Cephas  first,  is  found  in 
the  three  lists  of  the  apostles  given  respectively  by  Matthew,  Mark, 
and  Luke,  which,  though  differing  as  to  their  arrangement  in  some 
particulars,  entirely  agree  in  giving  to  this  apostle  the  precedence 
of  all.^  But  it  would  by  no  means  become  the  earnest  and  faithful 
searcHer  into  sacred  history,  to  rest  satisfied  with  a  bare  reference 
to  the  unerring  word,  on  a  point  of  so  much  interest.  So  far 
from  it,  the  strictest  reverence  for  the  sacred  record  both  allows 
and  urges  the  inquiry,  as  to  what  were  the  circumstances  of  Peter's 
life  and  character,  that  led  the  three  evangelists  thus  unanimously 
and  decidedly  to  place  him  at  the  head  of  the  sacred  band,  on  all 
whom,  in  common,  rested  the  commissioned  power  of  doing  the 
marvelous  works  of  Jesus,  and  spreading  his  gospel  in  all  the 
world.  Was  this  preference  the  result  of  mere  incidental  circum- 
stances, such  as  age  and  prior  calling  ?  Or,  does  it  mark  a  pre- 
eminence of  character  and  qualifications,  entitling  him  to  lead  and 
rule  the  apostolic  company  in  the  name  of  Christ,  as  the  com- 
missioned chief  of  the  faithful  ? 

The  reason  of  this  preference,  as  far  as  connected  with  his 
character,  will  of  course  be  best  shown  in  the  incidents  of  his  life 
and  conduct,  as  detailed  in  this  narrative.  But  even  here,  much 
may  be  brought  forward  to  throw  light  on  the  ground  of  Peter's 


44  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

rank  as  first  of  the  apostles.  It  is  no  more  than  fair  to  remark, 
however,  that  some  points  of  this  inquiry  have  been  very  deeply, 
and  at  the  same  time,  very  unnecessarily  involved  in  the  disputes 
between  Protestants  and  Papists,  respecting  the  original  supremacy 
of  the  church  of  Rome,  as  supposed  to  have  been  founded  or  ruled 
by  this  chief  apostle. 

One  supposition  which  has  been  made  to  account  for  Peter's 
priority  of  station  on  the  apostolic  list,  is — that  he  was  by  birth 
the  oldest  of  the  twelve.  This  assertion,  however  boldly  made 
by  some,  rests  entirely  on  conjecture,  as  we  have  no  certain  in- 
formation on  this  point,  either  from  the  New  Testament  or  any 
ancient  writer  of  indisputable  credit.  Those  of  the  early  Christian 
writers  who  allude  to  this  matter,  are  quite  contradictory  in  their 
statements,  some  supposing  Peter  to  be  the  oldest  of  the  apostles, 
and  some  supposing  Andrew  to  be  older  than  his  brother ; — a  dis- 
crepancy that  may  well  entitle  us  to  conclude  that  they  had  no 
certain  information  about  the  matter.  The  weight  of  testimony, 
however,  seems  rather  against  the  assertion  that  Peter  was  the 
oldest,  inasmuch  as  the  earliest  writer  who  alludes  at  all  to  the 
subject,  very  decidedly  pronounces  Andrew  to  have  been  the  older 
brother.  Enough,  then,  is  known,  to  prevent  our  relying  on  his 
seniority  as  the  true  ground  of  his  precedence. 

The  oldest  Christian  writer,  who  refers  in  any  way  to  the  comparative  age  of  Peter, 
is  Epiphanius,  bishop  of  Cyprus,  as  early  as  A.  D.  368.  In  his  great  work  against 
heresies,  (II.  i.  heresy  51,)  in  narrating  the  call  of  'Andrew  and  Peter,'  he  says, 
"  The  meeting  (with  Jesus)  happened  first  to  Andrew,  Peter  being  less  than  him 
in  age."  {inKpoTcpov  ovtos  tcj  xp^'^V  ^''^  hXiKiai.')  "  But  afterwards,  when  their  com- 
plete forsaking  of  all  earthly  things  is  mentioned,  Peter  takes  precedence,  since  God, 
who  sees  the  turn  of  all  characters,  and  knows  who  is  fit  for  the  highest  places,  chose 
Peter  as  the  chief  leader  {apxiydv)  of  his  disciples."  This,  certainly,  is  a  very  distinct 
assertion  of  Peter's  juniority,  and  is  plainly  meant  to  give  the  idea  that  Peter's  high 
rank  among  the  apostles  was  due  to  a  superiority  of  talent,  which  put  him  above 
those  who  were  older. 

In  favor  of  the  assertion  that  Peter  was  older  than  Andrew,  the  earliest  authority 
that  has  ever  been  cited,  is  John  Chrysostom,  bishop  of  Constantinople,  about  A.  D, 
400.  This  Father,  in  his  homily  on  Matthew  xvii.  27,  (Hom.  59,)  says  that  Peter 
was  a  "  first-bom  son,"  (vpojTdroKo;.)  In  this  passage,  he  is  speaking  of  the  tribute 
paid  by  Jesus  and  Peter  for  the  expenses  of  the  temple.  He  supposes  that  this  tribute 
was  the  redemption  money  due  from  the  first-born  sons  of  the  Jews,  for  their  exemp- 
tion from  the  duties  of  the  priesthood.  But  the  account  of  this  tax,  in  Numbers  iii. 
44 — 51,  shows  that  this  was  a  tax  of /I'e  shekels  apiece,  while  that  spoken  of  by 
Matthew,  is  called  the  didrachmon,  a  Greek  coin,  equivalent  to  a  ^//-shekel.  Now 
the  half-shekel  tax  was  that  paid  by  every  Jew  above  the  age  of  twenty  years,  for  the 
expenses  of  the  temple  service,  as  is  fully  described  in  Eiiodus  xxx.  12—16;  xxxviii. 
26.  Josephus  also  mentions  this  half-shekel  tax,  as  due  from  every  Jew,  for  the 
service  of  the  temple.  (See  Hammond  on  Matt.  xvii.  24.)  Chrj'sostom  is  therefore 
wholly  in  the  wrong,  about  the  nature  of  the  tax  paid  by  Jesus  and  Peter,  (verse  27, 
"  give  it  for  me  and  thee ;")  and  the  reason  which  he  gives  for  the  payment,  (namely, 
that  they  were  both  first-born  sons,)  being  disproved,  his  belief  of  Peter's  seniority 
is  shown  to  be  based  on  an  error,  and  therefore  entitled  to  no  credit  whatever;  more 
Particularly,  when  opposed  to  the  older  authority  of  Epiphanius. 


SIMON  PETER.  45 

Lardner,  in  support  of  the  opinion  that  Peter  was  the  oldest,  quotes  also  Cassian 
and  Bede ;  but  it  is  most  manifest  that  a  bare  assertion  of  two  writers,  who  lived,  one 
of  them  424,  and  the  other  700  years  after  Christ, — an  assertion  unsupported  by  any 
proof  whatever, — cannot  be  received  as  evidence  in  the  case.  The  most  natural  con- 
jecture of  any  one  who  was  accounting  for  the  eminence  of  Peter,  would  be  that  he 
was  older  than  the  brother  of  whom  he  takes  precedence  so  uniformly ;  and  it  is  no 
more  than  just  to  conclude,  therefore,  that  the  ground  of  this  notion  was  but  a  mere 
guess.  But  in  the  case  of  Epiphanius,  besides  the  respect  due  to  the  early  authority, 
it  is  important  to  observe,  that  he  could  have  no  motive  for  inventing  the  notion  of 
Andrew's  seniority,  since  the  imiform  prominence  of  Peter  would  most  naturally 
suggest  the  idea  that  he  was  the  oldest.  It  is  fair  to  conclude,  then,  that  an  opinion, 
so  unlikely  to  be  adopted  without  special  proof,  must  have  had  the  authority  of 
uniform  early  tradition ;  for  Epiphanius  mentions  it  as  if  it  were  a  universally  ad- 
mitted fact ;  nor  does  he  seem  to  me  to  have  invented  the  notion  of  Andrew's  seniority, 
to  accoimt  for  his  being  first  known  to  Jesus,  though  he  mentions  these  two  circum- 
stances in  their  natural  connexion. 

Lardner,  moreover,  informs  us,  that  Jerome  maintains  the  opinion,  that  Peter  was 
preferred  before  the  other  apostles  on  account  of  his  age.  But  a  reference  to  the 
original  passage,  shows  that  the  comparison  was  only  between  Peter  and  John,  and 
not  between  Peter  and  the  rest  of  the  apostles.  Speaking  of  Peter  as  the  constituted 
head  of  the  church,  he  says,  that  was  done  to  avoid  dissensions  {ut  schisvialis  tollatur 
occasio.)    The  question  might  then  arise,  why  was  not  John  chosen  first,  being  so 

Sure  and  free  from  connexions  that  might  interfere  with  apostolic  duties  1  (Cur  non 
ohannes  electus  est  virgo  1  Aetati  delatum  est,  quia  Petrus  senior-  erat ;  ne  adhuc 
adolescens  ac  pene  puer  progressae  aetatis  hominibus  praeferretur.)  "  It  was  out  of 
regard  to  age,  because  Peter  was  older  (than  John ;)  nor  could  one  who  was  yet 
immature,  and  little  more  than  a  boy,  be  preferred  to  a  man  of  mature  age."  The 
passage  evidently  does  not  touch  the  question  of  Peter's  being  the  oldest  of  all,  nor 
.loes  it  contradict,  in  any  way,  the  opinion  that  Andrew  was  older ;  as  all  which 
Jerome  says  is,  merely,  that  Peter  was  older  than  John, — an  opinion  unquestionably 
accordant  with  the  general  voice  of  all  ancient  Christian  tradition. 

Priority  of  calling  has  also  been  offered  as  the  reason  of  this 
apparent  superiority ;  but  the  minute  record  given  by  the  evan- 
gelist John,  makes  it  undeniable  that  Andrew  became  acquainted 
with  Jesus  before  Peter,  and  that  the  eminent  disciple  was  after- 
wards first  made  known  to  Jesus  by  means  of  his  less  highly 
honored  brother. 

The  only  reasonable  supposition  left,  then,  is,  that  there  was 
an  intentional  preference  of  Simon  Cephas,  on  the  score  of  emi- 
nence for  genius,  zeal,  knowledge,  prudence,  or  some  other  quality 
which  fitted  him  for  taking  the  lead  of  the  chief  ministers  of  the 
Messiah.  The  word  "Jirst,''^  which  accompanies  his  name  in 
l^atthew's  hst,  certainly  appears  to  have  some  force  above  the 
mere  tautological  expression  of  a  fact  so  very  self-evident  from 
the  collocation,  as  that  he  was  first  on  the  list.  The  Bible  shows 
not  an  instance  of  a  list  begun  in  that  way,  with  this  emphatic 
word  so  vainly  and  unmeaningly  applied.  The  analogies  of  ex- 
pression in  all  languages,  ancient  and  modern,  would  be  very  apt 
to  lead  a  common  reader  to  think  that  the  numeral  adjective  thus 
prefixed,  was  meant  to  give  the  idea  that  Simon  Peter  was  put 
first  for  some  better  reason  than  mere  accident.  Any  person,  in 
giving  a  list  of  twelve  eminent  men,  all  devoted  to  a  common 


40  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

pursuit,  and  laboring  in  one  great  cause,  whose  progress  he  was 
attempting  to  record,  would,  in  arranging  them,  if  he  disregarded 
the  circumstance  of  seniority,  very  naturally  give  them  place  ac- 
cording to  their  importance  in  reference  to  the  great  subject  before 
him.  If,  as  in  the  present  case,  three  different  persons  should,  in 
the  course  of  such  a  work,  make  out  such  a  list,  an  individual 
difference  of  opinion  about  a  matter  of  mere  personal  preference, 
like  this,  might  produce  variations  in  the  minor  particulars ;  but 
where  all  three  united  in  giving  to  one  and  the  same  person,  the 
first  and  most  honorable  place,  the  ordinary  presumption  would 
unavoidably  be,  that  the  prior  rank  of  the  person  thus  distinguished, 
was  considered,  by  them  at  least,  at  the  time  when  they  wrote,  as 
decidedly  and  indisputably  established.  The  determination  of  a 
point  so  trifling,  being  without  any  influence  on  matters  of  faith 
and  doctrine,  each  evangelist  might,  without  detriment  to  the 
sanctity  and  authority  of  the  record  which  he  bears,  be  left  to 
follow  his  own  private  opinion  as  to  the  most  proper  principle  of 
arrangement  to  be  followed  in  enumerating  the  apostles.  Thus 
while  it  is  noticeable  that  the  whole  twelve  were  disposed  in  six 
pairs,  by  each  of  the  evangelists,  yet  the  order  and  succession  ol 
these  is  somewhat  changed,  by  different  circumstances  directing 
the  choice  of  each  writer.  Matthew  modestly  puts  himself  after 
Thomas,  with  whom  he  seems,  by  all  the  gospel  lists,  to  have 
some  close  connexion ;  but  Mark  and  Luke  combine  to  give  Mat- 
thew the  precedence,  and  invert  the  order  by  which,  through 
unobtrusiveness,  he  had,  as  it  would  seem,  robbed  true  merit  of  its 
due  superiority.  And  yet  these  points  of  precedence  were  so  little 
looked  to,  that  in  the  first  chapter  of  Acts,  Luke  makes  a  new 
arrangement  of  these  names,  advancing  Thomas  to  the  precedence, 
not  only  of  Matthew,  but  of  Bartholomew,  who,  in  all  other  places 
where  their  names  are  given,  is  mentioned  before  him.  So  also 
Matthew  prefers  to  mention  the  brothers  together,  and  gives 
Andrew  a  place  immediately  after  Peter ;  although,  in  so  many 
places  after,  he  speaks  of  Peter,  James,  and  John  together,  as  most 
highly  distinguished  by  Christ,  and  favored  by  opportunities  of 
beholding  him  and  his  works,  on  occasions  when  other  eyes  were 
shut  out.  Mark,  on  the  contrary,  gives  these  names  with  more 
strict  reference  to  distinction  of  rank,  and  mentions  the  favored 
trio  together,  first  of  all, — making  the  affinities  of  birth  of  less 
consequence  than  the  share  of  favor  enjoyed  by  each  with  the 
Messiah.     Luke,  in  his  gospel,  follows  Matthew's  arrangement  of 


SIMON  PETER.  47 

the  brothers,  but  in  the  first  chapter  of  Acts  puts  the  three  great 
apostles  first,  separating-  Andrew  from  his  brother,  and  mentioning 
him  after  the  sons  of  Zebedee.  These  changes  of  arrangement, 
while  they  show  of  how  little  vital  importance  the  order  of  names 
was  considered,  yet,  by  the  uniform  preservation  of  Peter  in  the 
first  rank,  prove  that  the  exalted  pre-eminence  of  Peter  was  so 
universally  known  and  acknowledged,  that,  whatever  diiference  of 
opinion  writers  might  entertain  respecting  more  obscure  persons, 
— as  to  him,  no  inversion  of  order  could  be  permitted. 

How  far  Peter  was  by  this  pre-eminence  endowed  with  any 
SUPREMACY  over  the  other  apostles,  may  of  course  be  best  shown 
in  those  places  of  his  history  which  appear  either  to  maintain  or 
question  this  position. 

That  Simon  Cephas,  or  Peter,  then,  was  the  first  or  chief  of 
the  apostles,  appears  from  the  uniform  precedence  with  which  his 
name  is  honored  on  all  occasions  in  the  Scriptures,  where  the 
order  in  which  names  are  mentioned  could  be  made  to  depend  on 
rank, — from  the  universal  testimony  of  the  Fathers, — and  from  the 
general  impressions  entertained  on  this  point  throughout  the 
Christian  world,  in  all  ages  since  his  time. 

HIS  BIRTH.  / 

From  two  separate  passages  in  the  gospels,  we  learn  that  the 
name  of  the  father  of  Simon  Peter  was  Jonah,  but  beyond  this 
we  have  no  direct  information  as  to  his  family.  From  the  terms 
in  which  Peter  is  frequently  mentioned  along  with  the  other  apos- 
tles, it  may  be  justly  inferred,  however,  that  he  was  fi'om  the 
lowest  order  of  society, — which  also  appears  from  the  business  to 
which  he  devoted  his  life,  before  he  received  the  summons  that 
sent  him  forth  to  the  world,  on  a  far  higher  errand.  Of  such  a 
humble  family,  he  was  born  at  Bethsaida,  in  Galilee,  on  or  near 
the  shore  of  the  sea  of  Galilee,  otherwise  called  lake  Tiberias,  or 
Gennesaret.  Upon  this  lake  he  seems  to  have  followed  his  labo- 
rious and  dangerous  livelihood,  which  very  probably,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  hereditary  succession  of  trades,  common  among 
the  Jews,  was  the  occupation  of  his  father  and  ancestors  before 
him.  Of  the  time  of  his  birth,  no  certain  information  can  be  had, 
as  those  who  were  able  to  inform  us,  were  not  disposed  to  set  so 
high  a  value  upon  ages  and  dates,  as  the  writers  and  readers  of 
later  times.  The  most  reasonable  conjecture  as  to  his  age,  is,  that 
he  was  about  the  same  age  with  Jesus  Christ ;  which  rests  on  the 
7 


48  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

circumstances  of  his  being  married  at  the  period  when  he  was 
called  by  Christ, — his  being  made  the  object  of  such  high  confi- 
dence and  honor  by  his  Master, — and  the  eminent  standing  which 
he  seems  to  have  maintained,  from  the  first,  among  the  apostles. 
Still  there  is  nothing  in  all  these  circumstances,  that  is  irrecon- 
cilable with  the  supposition  that  he  was  younger  than  Christ ;  and 
if  any  reader  prefers  to  suppose  the  period  of  his  birth  so  much 
later,  there  is  no  important  point  in  his  history  or  character  that 
will  be  affected  by  such  a  change  of  dates. 

Bethsaida. — The  name  of  this  place  occurs  in  several  passages  of  gospel  history, 
as  connected  with  the  scenes  of  the  life  of  Jesus.  (Matt.  xi.  21 ;  Mark  vi.  45,  viii. 
22 — 26;  Luke  xi.  10,  x.  13;  John  i.  45,  xii.  21.)  The  name  likewise  occurs  in  the 
writings  of  Josephus,  who  describes  Bethsaida,  and  mentions  some  circumstances  of 
its  history.  The  common  impression  among  the  New  Testament  commentators  has 
been,  that  the  Bethsaida  which  is  so  often  mentioned  in  the  gospels,  was  on  the  western 
shore  of  lake  Gennesaret,  near  the  other  cities  which  were  the  scenes  of  important 
events  in  the  life  of  Jesus.  Yet  Josephus  distinctly  implies  that  Bethsaida  was 
situated  on  the  eastern  shore  of  the  lake,  as  he  says  that  it  was  built  by  Philip  the 
tetrarch,  in  Lower  Gaulanitis,  (Jewish  War,  book  II.  chapter  ix.  section  1,)  which 
was  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Jordarx  and  the  lake,  though  not  in  Peraea,  as  Light- 
foot  rather  hastily  assumes  ;  for  Peraea,  though  by  its  derivation  (from  nipav,  peran, 
"  beyond,")  meaning  simply  "  what  was  beyond"  the  river,  yet  was,  in  the  geography 
of  Palestine,  applied  to  only  that  portion  of  the  country  east  of  Jordan,  which  extends 
from  Moab  on  the  south,  northward,  to  Pella,  on  the  Jabbok.  (Josephus,  Jewish 
War,  book  III.  chap.  iii.  sect.  3.)  Another  point  in  which  the  account  given  by  Jose- 
phus differs  from  that  in  the  gospels,  is — that  while  Josephus  places  Bethsaida  in 
Gaulanitis,  John  (xii.  21)  speaks  of  it  distinctly  as  a  city  of  Galilee,  and  Peter,  as 
well  as  others  born  in  Bethsaida,  is  called  a  Galilean.  These  two  apparent  disagree- 
ments have  led  many  eminent  writers  to  conclude  that  there  were  on  and  near  the 
lake,  two  wholly  different  places  bearing  the  name  of  Bethsaida.  Schleusner,  Bretsch- 
neider,  Fischer,  Pococke,  Reland,  Michaelis,  Kuinoel,  Piosenmiiller,  Fritzsche,  and 
others,  have  maintained  this  opinion.  But  Lightfoot,  Cave,  Calmet,  Baillet,  Mac- 
knight,  Wells,  and  others,  have  decided  that  these  differences  can  be  perfectly  recon- 
ciled, and  all  the  circumstances  related  in  the  gospels  made  to  agree  with  Josephus's 
account  of  the  situation  of  Bethsaida. 

The  first  passage  in  which  Josephus  mentions  this  place,  is  in  his  Jewish  Anti- 
quities, (XVIII.  ii.  1.)  "  And  he,  (Philip,)  having  granted  to  the  village  of  Beth- 
saida, near  the  lake  of  Gennesaret,  the  rank  of  a  city,  by  increasing  its  population, 
and  giving  it  importance  in  other  ways,  called  it  by  "the  name  of  Julia,  the  daughter 
of  Caesar,"  (Augustus.)  In  his  History  of  the  Jewish  War,  (II.  ix.  1,)  he  also  alludes 
to  it  in  a  similar  connexion.  Speaking,  as  in  the  former  passage,  of  the  cities  built 
by  Herod  and  Philip  in  their  tetrarchies,  he  says,  "  The  latter  built  Julias,  in  Lower 
Gaulanitis."  In  the  same  history,  (III.  ix.  7,)  describing  the  course  of  tlie  Jordan, 
he  alludes  to  this  city.  "  Passing  on  (from  lake  Semechonitis)  one  hundred  and 
twenty  furlongs  farther,  to  the  city  Julias,  it  flows  through  the  middle  of  Lake  Gen- 
nesar."  In  this  passage  I  translate  the  preposition  //c™  (mcla)  by  the  English  "  to," 
though  Hudson,  Havercamp,  and  Oberthiir  express  it  in  Latin  by  "post,"  and  Mac- 
kiiight  by  the  English  "  behind."  Whiston  translates  it  still  more  freely,  "  by  Beth- 
saida." (III.  X.  7,  of  his  division,  which  differs  from  lliat  of  Hudson,  which  is 
generally  followed  in  these  references  in  this  book.)  Lightfoot  very  freely  renders 
it  "  ante ;"  but  with  all  these  great  authorities  against  me,  I  have  the  .satisfaction  of 
finding  my  translation  supported  by  the  antique  English  version  of  the  quaint  Thomas 
Lodge,  who  distinctly  expresses  the  preposition  in  this  passage  by  "  utito."  This 
translation  of  the  word  is  in  strict  accorrfance  with  the  rule  that  this  Greek  preposi- 
tion, when  it  comes  before  the  accusative  after  a  verb  of  motion,  has  the  force  of 
"  to"  or  " against."  (See  Jones's  Lexicon,  sub  voc.  fttru ;  also  Hederici  Lex.)  But 
in  such  connexions,  it  never  has  the  meaning  of  ^'behind,"  given  to  it  by  Mac - 
knight;  nor  of  "post,"  in  Latin,  as  in  Hudson  and  Havercamp;  still  less  of  "  ante,'"* 


SIMON  PETER.  49 

as  Lightfoot  very  qneerly  expresses  it.  The  passage,  then,  simply  means,  that  the 
Jordan,  after  passing  out  of  lake  Semechonitis,  flows  one  hundred  and  twenty  fur- 
iongs  lo  the  city  of  Julias  or  Bethsaida,  (not  bekitid  it,  nor  before  it,)  and  there  enters 

ke  Genuesar ;  the  whole  expressing  as  clearly  as  may  be,  that  Julias  stood  on  the 
rr-er  just  where  it  widens  into  the  lake.  That  Julias  stood  on  the  Jordan,  and  not 
on  the  lake,  though  near  it,  is  made  further  manifest,  by  a  remark  made  by  Josephus, 
in  his  memoirs  of  his  omti  life.  He,  when  holding  a  military  command  in  the 
region  around  the  lake,  during  the  war  against  the  Romans,  on  one  occasion  .sent 
against  the  enemy  a  detachment  of  soldiers,  who  "  encamped  near  the  river  Jordan, 
about  a  furlong  from  Julias,"    (Life  of  Josephus,  sect.  72.) 

It  should  be  remarked,  moreover,  that,  at  the  same  time  when  Philip  enlarged 
Bethsaida,  in  this  manner,  and  gave  it  the  name  of  Julia,  the  daughter  of  Augustus 
Caesar,  his  brother  Herod  Antipas,  tetrarch  of  Galilee  and  Peraea,  with  a  similar 
ambition  to  exalt  his  owti  glory,  and  secure  the  favor  of  the  imperial  family,  rebuilt 
a  city  in  his  dominions,  named  Betharamphtha,  to  which  he  gave  the  name  Julias 
also  ;  but  in  honor,  not  of  the  daughter,  but  of  the  wife  of  Augustus,  who  bore  the 
family  name,  Julia,  which  passed  from  her  to  her  daughter.  This  multiplication  of 
namesake  towns,  has  only  created  new  confusion  for  us  ;  for  the  learned  Lightfoot, 
in  his  Chorographic  century  on  Matthew,  has  unfortimalely  taken  this  for  the  Julias 
which  stood  on  the  Jordan,  at  its  entrance  into  the  lake,  and  accordingly  applies  to 
Julias-Betharamphtha,  the  last  two  quotations  from  Josephus,  given  above,  which  I 
have  applied  to  Julias-Bethsaida.  But  it  would  seem  as  if  this  most  profound  Biblical 
scholar  was  certainly  in  the  wrong  here ;  since  Julias-Betharamphtha  must  have  been 
built  by  Herod  Antipas  within  his  own  dominions,  tliat  is,  in  Galilee  proper,  or 
Peraea  proper,  as  already  bounded  ^  and  Josephus  expressly  says  that  this  Julias  was 
in  Peraea;  yet  Lightfoot,  in  his  rude  little  wood-cut  map,  (Horae  Heb.  et  Talm.  in 
Mar.,  Decas  Chorog.  cap.  v.)  has  put  this  in  Gaulanitis,  far  north  of  its  true  place,  at 
the  influx  of  the  Jordan  into  the  lake,  ("  ad  ipsissimum  influxum  Jordanis  in  lacitm 
Oennesariticum,")  and  Julias-Bethsaida,  also  in  Gaulanitis,  some  miles  lower  down, 
at  the  south-east  corner  of  the  lak^e,  a  position  adopted  by  no  other  writer  that  I 
know  of.  This  peculiarity  in  Lightfoot's  views,  I  have  thus  stated  at  length,  that 
those  who  may  refer  to  his  Horae  for  more  light,  might  not  suppose  a  confusion  in 
my  statement,  which  does  not  exist;  for  since  the  Julias-Betharamphtha  of  Herod 
jcould  not  have  been  in  Gaulanitis,  tout  in  Peraea,  the  Julias  at  the  influx  of  the  Jordan 
into  the  lake,  must  have  been  the  Bethsaida  embellished  by  Philip,  tetrarch  of  Iturea 
and  Trachonitis,  (Luke  iii.  1,)  which  included  Gaulanitis,  Batanea,  &c.  east  of  Jor- 
dan and  the  lake,  and  north  of  Peraea  proper.  The  substance  of  Josephus's  informa- 
tion on  this  point,  is,  therefore,  that  Bethsaida  stood  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Jordan, 
just  where  it  enters  lake  Gennesar,  or  Gennesaret,  (otherwise  called  lake  Tiberias 
and  the  sea  of  Galilee,) — that  it  stood  in  the  province  of  Gaulanitis,  within  the  do- 
minions of  Philip,  son  of  Herod  the  Great,  and  tetrarch  of  all  that  portion  of  Pales- 
line,  which  lies  north  of  Peraea,  on  the  east  of  Jordan  and  the  lake,  as  well  as  of 
the  region  north  of  Galilee,  (his  tetrarehy  forming  a  sort  of  crescent,) — that  this 
prince,  having  enlarged  and  embellished  Bethsaida,  raised  it  from  a  village  to  the 
rank  of  a  city,  by  the  name  of  Julias,  in  honor  of  Julia,  daughter  of  Augustus  Caesar. 
This  was  done  during  the  reign  of  Augustus,  (Josephus,  in  Jew.  Ant.  XVIII.  ii.  1,) 
and  of  course  long  before  Jesus  Christ  began  his  labors,  though  after  his  birth,  because 
it  was  after  the  death  of  Herod  the  Great. 

The  question  now  is — whether  the  Bethsaida  mentioned  by  the  evangelists  is  by 
ihem  so  described  as  to  be  in  any  way  inconsistent  with  the  account  given  by  Jose- 
phus, of  the  place  to  which  he  gives  that  name.  The  first  difficulty  which  has  pre- 
sented itself  to  the  critical  commentators,  on  this  point,  is  the  fact,  that  the  Bethsaida 
of  the  gospels  is  declared  in  them  to  have  been  a  city  of  Galilee,  (John  xii.  21,)  and 
those  who  were  born  and  brought  up  in  it  are  called  Galileans,  (Mark  xiv.  70,  Lulre 
xxii.  59,  Acts  i.  7,  ii.  7.)  Yet  Josephus  expressly  tells  us,  that  Bethsaida  was  in 
Gaulanitis,  which  was  not  in  Galilee,  as  he  bounds  it,  but  was  bej'ond  its  eastern 
boundar}',  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  river  and  lake.  (Ant.  XVIII.  ii.  1 : — War,  III. 
iii.  L)  This  is  therefore  considered  by  many,  as  a  diversity  between  the  two  accounts, 
which  must  make  it  impossible  to  apply  them  both  to  the  same  place.  But  there  is  no 
necessity  for  such  a  conclusion.  The  different  application  of  the  term  Galilee,  in  the 
two  books,  must  be  noticed,  in  order  to  avoid  confusion.  Josephus  is  very  exact  in  the 
use  of  names  of  places  and  regions,  defining  geographical  positions  and  boundaries 
with  a  particularity  truly  admirable.  Thus,  in  mentioning  the  political  divisions  '^'^ 
Palestine,  he  gives  the  precise  limits  of  each,  and  uses  their  names,  not  in  the  loose, 


50  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

popular  way,  but,  generally,  in  his  own  accurate  sense.  But  the  gospel  writers  are 
characterized  by  no  such  minute  pariicularity,  in  tlie  use  of  names,  which  they  gene- 
rally apply  in  the  popular,  rather  than  the  exact  sense.  Thus,  in  this  case,  they  use 
the  term  Galilee,  in  what  seems  to  have  been  its  common  meaning  in  Judea,  as  a  name 
for  all  the  region  north  ul'  Samaria  and  Peraea,  on  both  sides  of  the  Jordan,  including, 
of  course,  Gaulaniiis  and  all  the  dominions  of  Philip.  The  dill'ereuce  between  them 
and  Josephus,  on  this  point,  is  very  satisfactorily  shown  in  another  passage.  In  Acts 
V.  37,  Gamaliel,  speaking  of  several  persons  who  had  at  different  times  disturbed 
the  peace  of  the  nation,  mentions  one  Judas,  the  Galilean,  as  a  famous  rebel.  Now  this 
same  person  is  very  particularly  described  by  Josephus,  (in  his  Jewish  Antiquities, 
XVIII.  i.  1  and  6.  Hudson,  Oberthiir,  and  Wliislon:  also,  in  his  Jewish  War,  II.  viii. 
1,)  in  such  a  manner,  as  to  show  his  identity  with  the  person  mentioned  by  Gamalitl. 
Now  Josephus  calls  him  in  the  two  last  quoted  passages, — "  Judas  the  Galilean;'^  but, 
in  Uie  first,  mentions  him  distinctly  as  "  Judas  the  Gaulanite,"  and,  particularizing  the 
place  of  his  birth,  declares  him  to  have  been  from  the  city  of  Gamala,  in  Gaulanitis, 
which  was  east  of  Jordan  and  the  lake.  This  shows  that  Josephus,  as  well  as  the  New 
Testament  writers,  applied  the  name  Galilee  to  the  region  on  both  sides  of  the  lake. 
The  people  of  southern  Palestine  called  the  whole  northern  section  Galilee,  and  all 
its  inhabitants,  Galileans,  without  attending  to  the  nicer  political  and  geographical 
distinctions;  just  as  the  inhabitants  of  the  southern  section  of  the  United  States,  high 
and  low,  call  every  stranger  a  Yankee,  who  is  from  any  part  of  the  country  north  of 
Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  though  well-informed  people  perfectly  well  know,  that  the 
classic  and  not  despicable  name  of  Yankee  belongs  fairly  and  truly  to  the  ingenious 
sons  of  New  England  alone,  who  have  made  their  long-established  sectional  title  so 
synonymous  with  acuteness  and  energy,  that  whenever  an  enterprising  northerner 
pushes  his  way  southward,  he  shares  in  the  honors  of  this  gentle  appellative.  Just 
in  the  same  vague  and  careless  way,  did  the  Jews  apply  the  name  Galilean  to  all  the 
energetic  active  northerners,  who  made  themselves  known  in  Jerusalem,  either  by 
their  presence  or  their  fame  ;  and  thus  both  Judas  of  Gaulanitis,  and  those  apostles 
who  were  from  the  eastern  side  of  the  river,  were  called  Galileans,  as  well  as  those 
on  the  west,  in  Galilee  proper.  Besides,  in  the  case  of  Bethsaida,  which  was  imme- 
diately on  the  line  between  Galilee  and  Gaulanitis,  it  was  still  more  natural  to  refer 
it  to  the  larger  section  on  the  west,  with  many  of  whose  cities  it  was  closely  con- 
nected. Moreover,  that  the  Jews  considered  Galilee  as  extending  beyond  Jordan, 
seems  clear  from  Isaiah  ix.  1,  where  the  prophet  plainl)'  speaks  of  "  Galilee  of  the 
nations,  as  being  by  the  side  of  the  sea,  beyond  Jordan."  This  was  the  ancient  Jev/ish 
idea  of  the  coimtry  designated  by  this  name,  and  the  limitation  of  it  to  the  west  ol 
Jordan,  was  a  mere  late  term  introduced  by  the  Romans,  and  apparently  never  used 
by  the  Jews  of  the  gospel  times,  except  when  speaking  of  the  political  divisions  of 
Palestine.  The  name  Gaulanitis,  which  is  the  proper  term  for  the  province  in 
which  Bethsaida  was,  never  occurs  in  the  Bible.  (Ivuinoel,  Rosenmiiller,  &c.  give 
a  different  view,  however,  of  "  beyond  Jordan,"  on  Matt.  iv.  15.) 

But  a  still  more  important  difficulty  has  been  suggested,  in  reference  to  the  identity 
of  the  place  described  by  Josephus,  with  that  mentioned  in  the  gospels.  This  is,  the 
fact,  that  in  the  gospels  it  is  .spoken  of  in  such  a  connexion,  as  would  seem  to  require 
its  location  on  the  western  side.  A  common,  but  very  idle  argument,  in  favor  of  this 
supposition,  i?,  that  Bethsaida  is  mentioned  frequently  along  with  Capernaum  and 
other  cities  of  Galilee  proper,  in  such  immediate  connexion  as  to  make  it  probable 
that  it  was  on  the  same  side  of  the  river  and  lake  with  them.  But  places  separated 
merely  by  a  river,  or  at  most  by  a  narrow  lake,  whose  greatest  breadth  was  only  five 
miles,  could  not  be  considered  distant  from  each  other,  and  would  very  naturally  be 
spoken  of  as  near  neighbors.  The  most  weighty  argument,  however,  rests  on  a 
passage  in  Mark  vi.  45,  where  it  is  said  that  Jesus  constrained  his  disciples  to  "  get 
into  a  vessel,  to  go  before  him  to  the  other  side  unto  Bethsaida,"  after  the  five  thou- 
sand had  been  fed.  Now  the  parallel  passage  in  John  vi.  17,  says  that  they,  following 
this  direction,  "  went  ov'er  the  sea  towards  Capernaum,"  and  that  when  they  reached 
the  shore,  "  they  came  into  the  land  of  Gerinesaret,"  both  which  are  imderstood  to  be 
on  the  western  side.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  we  are  distinctly  told  by  Luke,  (ix.  10,) 
that  the  five  thousand  were  fed  in  "  a  desert  place,  belongiiig  to  (or  near)  the  city 
which  is  called  Bethsaida."  On  connecting  these  two  pa.ssages,  therefore,  (in  John 
and  Mark,)  according  to  the  common  version,  the  disciples  sailed  from  Bethsaida  on 
one  side,  to  Bethsaida  on  the  other,  a  construction  which  has  been  actually  adopted 
by  those  who  maintain  the  existence  of  two  cities  of  the  same  name  on  different  sides 
of  the  lake.    But  what  common  reader  is  willing  to  believe  that  in  this  passage,  Luke 


SIMON  PETER.  51 

refers  to  a  place  totally  different  from  the  one  meant  in  all  other  passages  where  the 
name  occurs,  and  more  particularly  in  the  very  next  chapter,  (x.  13,)  where  he  speaks 
of  the  Bethsaida  which  had  been  frequented  before  by  Jesus,  without  a  word  of  ex- 
planation to  show  that  it  was  a  different  place  1  But  in  the  expression,  "  to  go  before 
him  to  the  other  side,  to  Bethsaida,"  the  word  "  to,"  may  be  shown,  by  a  reference, 
to  the  Greek",  to  convey  an  erroneous  idea  of  the  situation  of  the  places.  The  preposi- 
tion npdi,  {pros,)  may  have,  not  merely  the  sense  of  to,  with  the  idea  of  motion  to- 
wards a  place,  but  in  some  passages  even  of  Mark's  gospel,  may  be  most  justly  trans- 
lated "  near,"  or  '^before,"  (as  in  ii.  2,  "  not  even  about"  or  before  "  the  door,"  and  in 
xi.  4,  "  tied  by"  or  before  "  the  door.")  This  is  the  meaning  which  seems  to  be  jus- 
tified by  the  collocation  here,  and  the  meaning  in  which  I  am  happy  to  find  myself 
supported  by  the  acute  and  accurate  Wahl,  in  his  Clavis  Nov.  Test,  under  npos,  which 
he  translates  in  this  passage  by  the  Latin  juxla,  prope  ad ;  and  the  German  bey,  that 
is,  "  by,"  "  hear  to,"  a  meaning  supported  by  the  passage  in  Herodotus,  to  which  he 
refers,  as  well  as  by  those  from  Mark  himself,  which  are  given  above,  from  Schleus- 
ner's  references  imder  this  word,  (definition  7.)  Scott,  in  order  to  reconcile  the 
dilficulties  which  he  saw  in  the  common  version,  has,  in  his  marginal  references, 
suggested  the  meaning  of  "  over  against,"  a  rendering,  which  undoubtedly  expresses 
correctly  the  relations  of  objects  in  this  place,  and  one,  perhaps,  not  wholly  incon- 
sistent with  Schleusner's  7th  definition,  which  is  in  Latin,  ante,  or  "before;"  since 
what  was  before  Bethsaida,  as  one  looked  from  that  place  across  the  river,  was  cer- 
tainly opposite  to  that  city.  I  had  thought  of  this  meaning  as  a  desirable  one  in  this 
passage,  but  had  rejected  it,  before  I  saw  it  in  Scott,  for  the  reason,  that  this  exact 
meaning  is  not  in  any  lexicon,  nor  was  there  any  other  passage  in  Greek,  in  which 
this  could  be  distinctly  recognized  as  the  proper  one.  The  propriety  of  the  term, 
however,  is  also  noticed,  in  the  note  on  this  passage  in  the  great  French  Bible,  with 
notes  by  Calmet  and  others.  (Sainte  Bible  en  Latin  et  Francois  avec  des  notes, 
&c.  Vol.  xiv.  p.  2G3,  note.)  It  is  there  expressed  by  "  I'autre  cote  du  lac,  nis-a-vis 
Bethsaida:  c.  a.  d.  sur  le  bord  occidental  oppose  a  la  ville  Bethsaide  que  etait  sur  le 
bord  oriental ;"  a  meaning  undoubtedly  geographically  correct,  but  not  grammatically 
exact,  and  I  therefore  prefer  to  take  "  near,"  as  the  sense  which  both  reconciles  the 
geographical  difliculties,  and  accords  with  the  established  principles  of  lexicog- 
raphy. 

Atier  all,  the  sense  "  to  "  is  not  needed  in  this  passage,  to  direct  the  action  of  the 
verb  of  motion  {irpoayeiv,  proagein,  "  go  before")  to  its  proper  object,  since  that  is  pre- 
viously done  by  the  former  preposition  and  substantive,  in  to  moav,  (eis  to  pcran.) 
That  is,  when  we  read  "  Jesus  constrained  his  disciples  to  go  before  him,"  and  the 
question  arises  in  regard  to  the  object  towards  which  the  action  is  directed,  "  Whither 
did  he  constrain  them  to  go  before  him  1"  the  answer  is  in  the  words  immediately 
succeeding,  tij  to  irkpav,  "  to  the  other  side,"  and  in  these  words  the  action  is  com- 
plete; but  the  mere  general  direction,  "  to  the  other  side,"  was  too  vague  of  itself, 
and  required  some  limitation  to  avoid  error ;  for  the  place  to  which  they  commonly 
directed  their  course  westward,  over  the  lake,  was  Capernaum,  the  home  of  Jesus, 
and  thither  they  might,  on  this  occasion,  be  naturally  expected  to  go,  as  we  should 
have  concluded  they  did,  if  nothing  farther  was  said ;  therelore,  to  fix  the  point  of 
their  destination,  we  are  told,  in  answer  to  the  query,  "  To  what  part  of  the  western 
shore  were  they  directed  to  go  1" — "  To  that  part  which  was  near  or  opposite  to  Beth- 
saida." The  objection  which  may  arise,  that  a  place  on  the  western  side  could  not 
be  very  near  to  Bethsaida  on  the  east,  is  answered  by  the  fact  that  this  city  was  sepa- 
rated from  the  western  shore,  not  by  the  whole  breadth  of  the  lake,  but  simply  by  the 
little  stream  of  Jordan,  here  not  more  than  twenty  yards  wide,  so  that  a  place  on  the 
opposite  side  might  still  be  very  near  the  city.  And  this  is  what  proves  the  topogra- 
phical justness  of  the  term,  "  over  against,"  given  by  Scott,  and  the  French  commen- 
tator;  since  a  place  not  directly  across  or  opposite,  but  down  the  western  shore,  in  a 
southwesterly  direction,  as  Capernaum  was,  would  not  be  very  near  Bethsaida,  nor 
much  less  than  five  miles  off.  Thus  is  shown  a  beautiful  mutual  illustration  of  the 
literal  and  liberal  translations  of  the  word. 

Macknight  ably  answers  another  argument,  which  has  been  offered  to  defend  the 
location  of  Bethsaida  on  the  western  shore,  founded  on  John  vi.  23.  "  There  came 
other  boats  from  Tiberias,  nigh  unto  the  place  where  they  did  cat  bread,"  as  if  Tibe- 
rias had  been  near  the  desert  of  Bethsaida,  and  consequently  near  Bethsaida  itself. 
"  But,"  as  Macknight  remarks,  "  the  original,  rightly  pointed,  imports  only,  that  boats 
from  Tiberias  came  into  some  creek  or  bay,  nigh  unto  the  place  where  tjiey  did  eat 
bread."    Bee  ides,  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  object  of  those  who  carne  in  the 


52  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

boats,  was  to  find  Jesus,  whom  they  expected  to  find  "  nigh  the  place  where  they  ate 
bread,"  as  the  context  shows ;  so  that  these  words  refer  to  their  destination,  and  not  to 
the  place  from  wliich  they  came.  Tiberias  was  down  the  lake,  at  the  southwestern 
corner  of  it,  and  I  know  of  no  geogra])her  who  has  put  Bethsaida  more  than  half-way 
down,  even  on  the  western  shore.  I'he  difference,  therefore,  between  the  distance 
to  Bethsaida  on  the  west  and  to  Bethsaida  on  the  east,  could  not  be  at  most  above  a 
mile  or  two,  a  matter  not  to  be  appreciated  in  a  voyage  of  sixteen  miles,  from  Tibe- 
rias, which  cannot  be  said  to  be  near  Bethsaida,  in  any  position  of  the  latter  that  has 
ever  been  thought  of.  The  objection,  of  course,  is  not  offered  at  all  by  those  who 
suppose  two  Beihsaidas  mentioned  in  the  gospels,  and  grant  that  the  passage  in  Luke 
ix.  10,  refers  to  the  eastern  one,  where  tliey  suppose  the  place  of  eating  bread  to  have 
been ;  but  others,  who  have  imagined  only  one  Bethsaida,  and  that  on  the  western 
side,  liave  proposed  this  argument;  and  to  sucli  the  reply  is  directed. 

For  all  these  reasons,  topographical,  historical,  and  grammatical,  the  conclusion  ot' 
the  whole  matter  is — that  there  was  but  one  Bethsaida,  the  same  place  being  meant 
by  that  name  in  all  passages  in  the  gospels  and  in  Josephus — that  this  place  stood 
within  the  verge  of  Lower  Gaulanitis,  on  the  east  bank  of  Jordan,  just  where  it  passes 
into  the  lake — that  it  was  in  the  dominions  of  Philip  the  tetrarch,  at  the  time  when  it 
is  mentioned  in  the  gospels,  and  afterwards  was  included  in  tlie  kingdom  of  Agrippa 
— that  its  original  Hebrew  name  (from  hid  beth,  "  honse,"  and  ms,  tsedah,  '^hunting 
orfis/iing,"  "  a  house  of  fishing,"  no  doubt  so  called  from  the  common  pursuit  of  its 
inhabitants')  was  changed  by  Philip  into  Julias,  by  which  name  it  was  known  to 
Greeks  and  Romans.  By  this  view,  we  avoid  the  undesirable  notion,  that  there  are 
two  totally  different  places  thus  named  in  two  succeeding  chapters  of  the  same  gospel, 
without  a  word  of  explanation  to  inform  us  of  the  difference,  as  is  usual  in  ca.ses  of 
local  synonyms  in  the  New  Testament ;  and  that  Josephus  describes  a  place  of  this 
name,  without  the  slightest  hint  of  the  remarkable  fact,  that  there  was  another  place 
of  the  same  name,  not  half  a  mile  off,  directly  across  the  Jordan,  in  full  view  of  it. 

The  discussion  of  the  point  has  been  necessarily  protracted  to  a  somewhat  tedious 
length ;  but  if  fewer  words  would  have  expressed  the  truth  and  the  reasons  for  it,  it 
should  have  been  briefer ;  and  probably  there  is  no  reader  who  has  endeavored  to 
satisfy  himself  on  the  position  of  Bethsaida,  in  his  own  Biblical  studies,  that  will  not 
feel  some  gratitude  for  what  light  this  note  may  give,  on  a  point  where  all  common 
aids  and  authorities  are  in  such  monstrous  confusion.  For  the  various  opinions  and 
statements  on  this  difficult  point,  see  Schleusner's,  Bretschneider's  and  Wahl's  Lexi- 
cons, Lightfoot's  Chorographic  century  and  decade,  Wetstein's  New  Testament 
commentary  on  Matt.  iv.  12,  Kuinoel,  Rosenmiiller,  Fritzsche,  Macknight,  &c.  On 
the  passages  where  the  name  occurs,  also  the  French  Commentary  above  quoted, — 
more  especially  in  Vol.  III.  Remarques  sur  le  carte  geog.  sect.  7,  p.  357.  Paulus's 
"  Commentar  ueber  das  Neue  Testament,"  (2d  edition,  Vol.  II.  pp.  336—342.  "  To- 
pographische  Erlauterungen.") 

Lake  Gennesareth.  This  body  of  water,  bearing  in  the  gospels  the  various  names 
of  "  the  sea  of  Tiberias,"  and  "  the  sea  of  Galilee,"  as  well  as  "  the  lake  of  Gennesa- 
rel,"  is  formed  like  one  or  two  other  .smaller  ones  north  of  it,  by  a  widening  of  the 
Jordan,  which  flows  in  at  the  northern  end,  and  passing  through  the  middle,  goes  out 
at  the  southern  end.  On  the  western  side,  it  was  bounded  by  Galilee  proper,  and  on 
the  east  was  the  lower  division  of  that  portion  of  Iturea,  which  was  called  Gaulani- 
tis by  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  from  the  ancient  city  of  Grolan,  (Deut.  iv.  43 ;  Josh. 
XX.  8,  &c.)  which  stood  within  its  limits.  Pliny  (book  I.  chap.  15)  w^ell  describes 
the  situation  and  character  of  the  lake.  "  Where  the  shape  of  the  valley  first  allows 
it,  the  Jordan  pours  itself  into  a  lake  which  is  most  commonly  called  Genesara,  six- 
teen (Roman)  miles  long,  and  six  broad.  It  is  surrounded  by  pleasant  toM'^ns ;  on  the 
east,  it  has  Julias  (Bethsaida)  and  Hippns  ;  on  the  south,  Tarichea,  b}--  which  name 
some  call  the  lake  also;  on  the  west,  Tiberias  with  its  warm  springs."  Josephus  also 
gives  a  very  clear  and  ample  description.  (Jewish  War,  III.  x.  7.)  "Lake  Gen- 
ncsar  takes  its  name  from  the  country  adjoining  it.  It  is  forty  furlongs  (about  five 
or  six  miles)  in  width,  and  one  hundred  and  forty  (seventeen  or  eighteen  miles)  in 
length ;  yet  the  water  is  sweet,  and  very  desirable  to  drink ;  for  it  has  its  fountain  clear 
from  swampy  thickness,  and  is  therefore  quite  pure,  being  bounded  on  all  sides  by  a 
beach  and  a  sandy  shore.  It  is  moreover  of  a  pleasant  temperature  to  drink,  being 
warmer  than  that  of  a  river  or  a  spring,  on  the  one  hand,  but  colder  than  that  which 
stands  alwaj-'s  expanded  over  a  lake.  In  coldness,  indeed,  it  is  not  inferior  to  snow, 
when  it  has  been  exposed  to  the  air  all  night,  as  is  the  custom  with  the  people  of  that 
region.    In  it  there  are  some  kinds  of  fish,  different  both  in  appearance  and  taste. 


SIMON  PETER.  »  53 

from  those  in  other  places.  The  Jordan  cuts  through  the  middle  of  it."  He  then 
gives  a  description  of  the  course  of  the  Jordan,  ending  with  the  remark  quoted  in 
the  former  note,  that  it  enters  the  lake  at  the  city  of  Julias.  He  then  describes,  in 
glowing  terms,  the  richness  and  beauty  of  the  coimtrj-'  around,  from  which  the  lake 
takes  its  name, — a  description  too  long  lo  be  given  here ;  but  the  studious  reader  may 
find  it  in  section  eighth  of  the  book  and  chapter  above  referred  to.  The  Rabbinical 
writers,  too,  often  refer  to  the  pre-eminent  beauty  and  fertility  of  this  delightful 
region,  as  is  .shown  in  several  passages  quoted  by  Lightfoot  in  his  Centuria  Choro- 
graphica,  cap.  79.  The  derivation  of  the  name  there  given  from  the  Rabbins,  is 
D'-io  >;j,  giime  sarim,  "  the  gardens  of  the  princes."  Thence  the  name  Genttesar. 
They  say  it  was  within  the  lands  of  the  tribe  of  Naphtali ;  it  must  therefore  have 
been  on  the  western  side  of  the  lake,  which  appears  also  from  the  fact  that  it  was 
near  Tiberias,  as  w^e  are  told  on  the  same  authority.  It  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Old 
Testament  raider  this  name,  but  the  Rabbins  assure  us,  that  the  place  called  Ciwiie- 
reth,  in  Joshua  xix.  35,  Chinnerolh  in  xi.  2,  is  the  same  ;  and  this  lake  is  mentioned 
in  xiii.  27,  imder  the  name  of  "  the  sea  of  Chinnereth," — "  the  sea  of  Chinneroth," 
in  xii.  3,  &c.  This  old  name  may  be  very  jirstly  considered  the  true  source  of  the 
later  one,  the  change  from  Kinnereth  or  Khinnereth,  to  Gennesareth  or  Ghennesa- 
reth,  being  much  slighter  and  more  natural  than  many  other  variations  which  can 
be  proved  to  have  taken  place  in  popular  Tocal  usage.  The  fantastical  Rabbinical 
eiymology  may  therefore  be  rejected. 

The  best  description  of  the  scenery,  and  present  aspect  of  the  lake,  which  I  can 
find,  is  the  following,  from  Conder's  Modern  Traveler,  Vol.  I.  (Palestine)  a  work 
made  up  with  great  care  from  the  observations  of  a  great  number  of  intelligent  tra- 
velers. 

"  The  moimtains  on  the  east  of  Lake  Tiberias,  come  close  to  its  shore,  and  the 
country  on  that  side  has  not  a  very  agreeable  aspect ;  on  the  west,  it  has  the  plain  of 
Tiberias,  the  high  ground  of  the  plain  of  Hutin,  or  Hottein,  the  plain  of  Gennesaret, 
and  the  foot  of  those  hills  by  which  you  ascend  to  the  high  mountain  of  Saphet.  To 
the  north  and  south  it  has  a  plain  country,  or  valley.  There  is  a  current  throughout 
the  whole  breadth  of  the  lake,  even  to  the  shore  •,  and  the  passage  of  the  Jordan 
through  it,  is  discernible  by  the  smoothness  of  the  surface  in  that  part."  Various 
travelers  have  given  a  very  difierent  accoimt  of  its  general  aspect.  According  to 
Captain  Mangles,  the  land  about  it  has  no  striking  features,  and  the  scenery  is  alto- 
gether devoid  of  character.  "  It  appeared,"  he  says,  "  to  particular  disadvantage  to 
us,  after  those  beautiful  lakes  we  had  seen  in  Switzerland ;  but  it  becomes  a  very  inte- 
resting object,  when  )'^ou  consider  the  frequent  allusions  to  it  in  the  gospel  narrative." 
Dr.  Clarke,  on  the  contrary,  speaks  of  the  uncommon  grandeur  of  this  memorable 
scenery.  "  Th**  lake  of  Gennesaret,"  he  says,  "  is  surrounded  by  objects  well  calcu- 
lated to  highter  liie  solemn  impression,"  made  by  such  recollections,  and  "  affords 
one  of  the  most  striking  prospects  in  the  Holy  Land.  Speaking  of  it  comparatively, 
it  may  be  described  as  longer  and  finer  than  any  of  our  Cumberland  and  Westmore- 
land lakes,  although  perhaps  inferior  to  Loch  Lomond.  It  does  not  possess  the 
vastness  of  the  Lake  of  Geneva,  although  it  much  resembles  it  in  certain  points  of 
view.  In  picturesque  beauty,  it  comes  nearest  to  the  Lake  of  Locarno,  in  Italy, 
although  it  is  destitute  of  any  thing  similar  to  the  islands  by  which  that  majestic 
piece  of  water  is  adorned.  It  is  inferior  in  magnitude,  and  in  the  hight  of  its  sur- 
rounding mountains,  to  the  Lake  Asphaltites."  Mr.  Buckingham  may  perhaps  be 
considered  as  having  given  the  most  accurate  account,  and  one  which  reconciles,  in 
some  degree,  the  difierent  statements  above  cited,  when,  speaking  of  the  lake  as  seen 
from  Tel  Hoom,  he  says,  "  that  its  appearance  is  grand,  but  that  the  barren  aspect  of 
the  mountains  on  each  side,  and  the  total  absence  of  wood,  give  a  cast  of  dullness  to 
the  picture ;  this  is  increased  to  melancholy,  by  the  dead  calm  of  its  waters,  and  the 
silence  which  reigns  throughout  its  whole  extent,  where  not  a  boat  or  vessel  of  any 
kind  is  to  be  fomid." 

The  question  of  Peter's  being  the  oldest  son  of  his  father  has 
been  already  alluded  to,  and  decided  by  the  most  ancient  authority, 
in  favor  of  the  opinion  that  he  was  younger  than  Andrew.  There 
surely  is  nothing  unparalleled  or  remarkable  in  the  fact,  that  the 
younger  brother  should  so  transcend  the  older  in  ability  and  emi- 


54  •  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

nence ;  since  Scripture  history  furnishes  us  with  similar  instances 
in  Jacob,  Judah  and  Joseph,  Moses,  David,  and  many  others 
throughout  the  history  of  the  Jews,  ahhough  that  nation  generally 
regarded  the  rights  of  primogeniture  with  high  reverence. 

HIS  INTRODUCTION  TO  JESUS. 

The  earliest  passage  in  the  life  of  Peter,  of  which  any  record 
can  be  found,  is  given  in  the  first  chapter  of  John's  gospel.  In 
this,  it  appears  that  Peter  and  Andrew  were  at  Bethabara,  a  place 
on  the  eastern  bank  of  the  Jordan,  probably  many  miles  south 
of  their  home  at  Bethsaida,  and  that  they  had  probably  left  their 
business  for  a  time,  and  gone  thither,  for  the  sake  of  hearing  and 
seeing  John  the  Baptist,  who  was  then  preaching  at  that  place, 
and  baptizing  the  penitent  in  the  Jordan.  This  great  forerunner 
of  the  Messiah,  had  already,  by  his  strange  habits  of  life,  by  his 
fiery  eloquence,  by  his  violent  and  fearless  zeal  in  denouncing  the 
spirit  of  the  times,  attracted  the  attention  of  the  people,  of  all 
classes,  in  various  and  distant  parts  of  Palestine ;  and  not  merely 
of  the  vulgar  and  unenlightened  portion  of  society,  who  are  so 
much  more  susceptible  to  false  impressions  in  such  cases,  but  even 
of  the  well-taught  followers  of  the  two  great  learned  sects  of  the 
Jewish  faith,  whose  members  flocked  to  hear  his  bold  and  bitter 
condemnation  of  their  precepts  and  practices.  So  widely  had  his 
fame  spread,  and  so  important  were  the  results  of  his  doctrine  con- 
sidered, that  a  deputation  of  priests  and  Levites  was  sent  to  him, 
from  Jerusalem,  (probably  from  the  Sanhedrim,  or  grand  civil  and 
religious  council,)  to  inquire  into  his  character  and  pretensions. 
No  doubt  a  particular  interest  was  felt  in  this  inquiry,  from  the 
fact  that  there  was  a  general  expectation  abroad  at  that  time,  that 
the  long-desired  restorer  of  Israel  was  soon  to  appear ;  or  as  ex- 
pressed by  Luke,  there  were  many  "  who  waited  for  the  consolation 
of  Israel,"  and  "who  in  Jerusalem  looked  for  redemption."  Luke 
also  expressly  tells  us,  that  the  expectations  of  the  multitude  were 
strongly  excited,  and  that  "  all  men  mused  in  their  hearts  whether 
he  were  the  Christ  or  not."  In  the  midst  of  this  general  notion, 
so  flattering,  and  so  tempting  to  an  ambitious  man,  John  vindi- 
cated his  honesty  and  sincerity,  by  distinctly  declaring  to  the 
multitude,  as  well  as  to  the  deputation,  that  he  was  not  the  Christ, 
and  claimed  for  himself  only  the  comparatively  humble  name  and 
honors  of  the  preparer  of  the  way  for  the  true  king  of  Israel. 
This  distinct  disavowal,  accompanied  by  the  solpmr  declaration, 


SIMON  PETER.  55 

that  the  true  Messiah  stood  at  that  moment  among  them,  though 
unknown  in  his  real  character,  must  have  aggravated  pubhc  cu- 
riosity to  the  highest  pitch,  and  caused  the  people  to  await,  with 
the  most  intense  anxiety,  the  nomination  of  this  mysterious  king, 
which  John  might  be  expected  to  make.     We  need  not  wonder, 
then,  at  the  alacrity  and  determination  with  which  the  two  dis- 
ciples of  John,  who  heard  this  announcement,  followed  the  foot- 
steps of  Jesus,  with  the  object  of  finding  the  dwelling  place  of  the 
Messiah,  or  at  the  deep  reverence  with  which  they  accosted  him, 
Sfivinsr  him  at  once  the  highest  term  of  honor  which  a  Jew  could 
confer  on  the  wise  and  good, — "Rabbi,"  or  Teacher  !     Nor  is  it 
surprising  that  Andrew,  after  the  first  day's  conversation  with 
Jesus,  should  instantly  seek  out  his  beloved  and  zealous  brother, 
and  tell  him  the  joyful  and  exciting  news,  that  they  had  found  the 
Messiah.     The  mention  of  this  fact  was  enough  for  Simon,  and 
he  sutfered  himself  to  be  brought  at  once  to  Jesus.     The  salutation 
with  which  the  Redeemer  greeted  the  man  who  was  to  be  the 
leader  of  his  consecrated  host,  was  strikingly  prophetical  and  full 
of  meaning.     His  first  words  were  the  annunciation  of  his  indi- 
vidual and  family  name,  and  the  application  of  a  new  one,  by 
which  he  was  afterwards  to  be  distinguished  from  the  many  who 
bore  his  common  name.     All  these  names  have  been  supposed  to 
imply  a  deeply  curious   and  interesting  meaning.     Translating 
them  from  their  supposed  original  Aramaic  forms,  the  salutation 
will  be,  "  Thou  art  a  hearer,  the  son  of  divine  grace — thou  shalt 
be  called  a  rock^     The  first  of  these  names  {hearer)   was   a 
common  title  in  use  among  the  Jews,  to  distinguish  those  who  had 
just  ofiered  themselves  to  the  learned,  as  desiring  wisdom  in  the 
law ;  and  the  second  was  applied  to  those  who,  having  past  the 
first  probationary  stage  of  instruction,  were  ranked  as  the  approved 
and  improving  disciples  of  the  law,  under  the   hopeful  title  of 
the  "  sons  of  divine  grace."     The  third,  which  became  afterwards 
the  distinctive  individual  name   of  this  apostle,  was  given,  no 
doubt,  in  reference  to  the  peculiar  excellences  of  his  natural 
genius,  which  seems  to  be  thereby  characterized  as  firm,  unim- 
pressible  by  difficulty,  and  afibrding  fit  materials  for  the  foundation 
of  a  mighty  and  lasting  superstructure. 

The  name  Simon,  v\"^v,  was  a  common  abridgment  of  Simeon,  siyntr,  -which  means 
a  hearer,  and  was  a  term  applied  technically  as  here  mentioned.  (For  proofs  and 
illustrations,  see  Poole's  Sj'iiopsis  and  Lightfoot.)  The  technical  meaning  of  the 
name  Jonah,  given  in  the  text,  is  that  given  by  Grotius  and  Drusius ;  but  Lightfoot 
rejects  this  interpretation,  because  the  name  Jonah  is  not  fairly  derived  from  Njnii, 


LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


(which  is  the  name  corresponding  to  John,)  but  is  the  same  with  that  of  the  old 
prophet  so  named,  and  he  is  probably  right  in  therefore  rejecting  this  Avhimsical  ety- 
mology and  definition. 

The  dale  of  the  introduction  of  Peter  to  Jesus,  is  very  variously  given  by  the  differ- 
ent Christian  Chronologies.    Baronius  (Ann.  Ecc.  Vol.  I.  p.  94)  fixes  it,  in  connexion 


Baillet  (Vies  de  Saints,  Vol.  II.,  29  Juin,  col.  341)  makes  it  A.  D.  30.    Cave  (Hist. 
Lit.  Vol.  I.  p.  2)  gives  the  same  date. 

With  this  important  event  of  the  introduction  of  Simon  to 
Jesus,  and  the  application  of  his  new  and  characteristic  name, 
the  Hfe  of  Peter,  as  a  follower  of  Christ,  may  be  fairly  said  to 
have  begun,  and  from  this  arises  a  simple  division  of  the  subject, 
into  the  two  great  natural  portions  of  his  life  :  first,  —  his  state  of 
pupilage  and  instruction  under  the  prayerful,  personal  care  of  his 
devoted  Master,  during  his  earthly  stay;  and  second, — his  labors 
in  the  cause  of  his  murdered  and  risen  Lord,  as  his  preacher  and 
successor.  These  two  portions  of  his  life  may  be  properly  de- 
nominated his  DisciPLESHip  and  his  apcstleship  ;  or  perhaps 
still  better,  Peter  the  learner,  and  Peter  the  teacher. 


Peter's  discipleship.  67 


I.  PETER'S  DISCIPLESHIP; 

OR, 

PETER  THE  LEARNER  AND  FOLLOWER. 

Soon  after  calling  Peter  and  several  of  his  destined  associates, 
Jesus  left  the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  where  he  had  first  appeared  in 
the  character  of  a  teacher,  and  next  went  forth  westward  into 
Gahlee,  in  company  with  several  of  his  newly-chosen  disciples, — 
now  numbering  at  least  six,— and  on  the  third  day  from  leaving 
the  scene  of  baptism,  is  mentioned  to  have  been  present  at  a  wed- 
ding in  Cana,  a  city  of  Galilee  proper,  somewhat  nearer  to  the 
Mediterranean  sea  than  to  lake  Gennesaret.  Of  the  miracles  there 
performed,  Peter,  as  well  as  the  other  disciples,  was  a  believing 
and  adoring  witness.  This  first  manifestation  of  his  great  teacher's 
glory  sealed  his  faith  in  him  as  the  destined  restorer  of  Israel ;  he 
"  believed  in  him,"  but  not  in  the  pure,  patient  spirit,  which  was 
the  essential  of  a  true  faith  in  Christ.  It  was  but  the  wondering, 
awed  belief  in  a  superior  power ;  and  though  his  eye  was  struck 
and  dazzled  into  reverence,  by  this  supernatural  display,  his  heart 
was  still  hardened  and  hardening  in  the  vain  hope  of  an  earthly 
Messiah's  triumphs ;  and  nothing  but  the  careful  instructions  of 
that  great  teacher,  through  the  journeys,  and  toils,  and  sorrows 
of  years,  could  purify  the  spirit  of  Peter  for  the  service  to  which 
he  had  been  summoned,  and  which  he  had  accepted  with  so  little 
notion  of  its  nature. 

After  this  little  excursion  through  western  Galilee,  Jesus  re- 
turned to  the  cities  of  the  lake,  with  his  disciples  and  brethren, 
and  made  his  abode  for  a  time  in  Capernaum,  on  the  northeastern 
shore  of  Gennesaret.  Having  received  this  preliminary  initiation 
into  the  faith  and  discipleship  of  Jesus,  Peter  seems  to  have  re- 
turned to  his  usual  business,  toiling  for  his  support,  without  any 
idea  whatever  of  the  manner  in  which  his  destiny  was  connected 
with  the  wonderful  being  to  whom  he  had  been  thus  introduced. 
We  may  justly  suppose,  indeed,  that,  being  convinced  by  the  testi- 
mony of  John,  his  first  religious  teacher  and  his  baptizer,  and  by 
personal  conversation  with  Jesus,  of  his  being  the  Messiah,  he 


58  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

afterwards  often  came  to  him,  (as  his  home  was  near  the  Savior's,) 
and  heard  him,  and  saw  some  of  the  miracles  done  by  him. 
Among  the  disciples  of  Jesus,  Simon  and  his  brother  were  evi- 
dently numbered,  from  the  time  when  they  received  their  first 
introduction  to  him,  and  were  admitted  to  the  honors  of  an  inti- 
mate acquaintance.  Still  the  two  brothers  had  plainly  received 
no  appointment  which  produced  any  essential  change  in  their 
general  habits  and  plans  of  life ;  for  they  still  followed  their  pre- 
vious calling,  quietly  and  unpretendingly,  without  seeming  to 
suppose,  that  the  new  honors  attained  by  them  had  in  any  way 
exempted  them  from  the  necessity  of  earning  their  daily  bread  by 
the  sweat  of  their  brow.  To  this  they  devoted  themselves,  labor- 
ing along  the  same  sea  of  Galilee,  whose  waters  and  shores  were 
the  witnesses  of  so  many  remarkable  scenes  in  the  life  of  Christ. 
Yet  their  business  was  not  of  such  a  character  as  to  prevent  their 
enjoying  occasional  interviews  with  their  divine  master,  whose 
residence  by  the  lake,  and  walks  along  its  shores,  must  have 
afforded  frequent  opportunities  for  cultivating  or  renewing  an 
acquaintance  with  those  engaged  on  its  waters.  There  is  nothing 
in  the  gospel  story  inconsistent  with  the  belief,  that  Jesus  met  his 
disciples,  who  were  thus  occupied,  on  more  occasions  than  one ; 
and  had  it  been  the  Bible  plan  to  record  all  the  most  interesting 
details  of  his  earthly  life,  many  instructive  accounts  might,  no 
doubt,  have  been  given  of  the  interviews  enjoyed  by  him  and  his 
destined  messengers  of  grace  to  the  world.  But  the  multiplication 
of  such  narratives,  however  interesting  the  idea  of  them  may  now 
seem,  would  have  added  no  essential  doctrine  to  our  knowledge, 
even  if  they  had  been  so  multiplied  that,  in  the  hyperbolical 
language  of  John,  the  whole  world  could  not  contain  them ;  and 
the  necessary  result  of  such  an  increased  number  of  records, 
would  have  been  a  diminished  valuation  of  each.  As  it  is,  the 
scripture  historical  canon  secures  our  high  regard  and  diligent  at- 
tention, and  careful  examination  of  it,  by  the  very  circumstance  of 
its  brevity,  and  the  wide  chasms  of  the  narrative ; — like  the  mys- 
terious volumes  of  the  Cumaean  Sybil,  the  value  of  the  few,  is  no 
less  than  that  of  the  many,  the  price  of  each  increasing  in  pro- 
portion as  the  number  of  the  whole  diminishes.  Thus  in  regard 
to  this  interesting  interval  of  Peter's  life,  we  are  left  to  the  indul- 
gence of  reasonable  conjecture,  such  as  has  been  here  mentioned. 


Peter's  discipleship.  59 


HIS  CALL. 


The  next  direct  account  given  in  the  Bible,  of  any  event  imme- 
diately concerning  him,  is  found  in  all  the  three  first  gospels.  It 
is  thought  by  some,  that  his  father  Jonah  was  now  dead ;  for  there 
is  no  mention  of  him,  as  of  Zebedee,  when  his  two  sons  were 
called.  This,  however,  is  only  a  mere  conjecture,  and  has  no 
more  certainty  than  that  he  had  found  it  convenient  to  make  his 
home  elsewhere,  or  was  now  so  old  as  to  be  prevented  from  sharing 
in  this  laborious  and  perilous  occupation,  or  that  he  had  always 
obtained  his  livelihood  in  some  other  way ;  though  the  last  suppo- 
sition is  much  less  accordant  with  the  well-known  hereditary  suc- 
cession of  trades,  which  was  sanctioned  by  almost  universal  custom 
throughout  their  nation.  However,  it  appears  that  if  still  alive, 
their  connexion  with  him  was  not  such  as  to  hinder  them  a 
moment  in  renouncing  at  once  all  their  former  engagements  and 
responsibilities,  at  the  summons  of  Christ.  Jesus  was  at  this  time 
residing  at  Capernaum,  which  is  said  by  Matthew  to  be  by  the 
sea-coast^ — better  translated  "  shore  of  the  lake ;"  for  it  is  not  on  the 
coast  of  the  Mediterranean,  as  our  modern  use  of  these  terms 
would  lead  us  to  suppose,  but  on  the  shore  of  the  small  inland 
lake  Tiberias,  or  sea  of  Galilee,  as  it  was  called  by  the  Jews, 
who,  with  their  limited  notions  of  geography,  did  not  draw  the 
nice  distinctions  between  large  and  small  bodies  of  water,  which 
the  more  extended  knowledge  of  some  other  nations  of  antiquity 
taught  them  to  make.  Capernaum  was  but  a  few  miles  from 
Bethsaida,  on  the  other  side  of  the  lake,  and  its  nearness  would 
often  bring  Jesus,  in  his  walks,  to  the  places  where  these  fisher- 
men were  occupied,  in  whichever  of  the  two  cities  they  at  that 
time  resided.  On  oi]U3  of  these  walks,  he  seems  to  have  given  the 
final  summons  which  called  the  four  first  of  the  twelve  from  their 
humble  labors  to  the  high  commission  of  converting  the  world. 

CaperTMum. — Though  no  one  has  ever  supposed  that  there  were  two  places  bearing 
this  name,  yet  about  its  locality,  as  about  many  other  points  of  sacred  topography, 
we  find  that  "  doctors  disagree,"  though  in  this  case  without  any  good  reason;  for  the 
scriptural  accounts,  though  so  seldom  minute  on  the  situations  of  places,  here  give 
us  all  the  particulars  of  its  position,  as  fully  as  is  desirable  or  possible.  Matthew 
(iv.  13)  tells  us,  that  Capernaum  was  upon  "  the  shore  of  the  lake,  on  the  boundaries 
of  Zebulon  and  Naphtali."  A  reference  to  the  history  of  the  division  of  territory 
among  these  tribes,  (Joshua  xix.)  shows  that  their  possessions  did  not  reach  the  other 
side  of  the  water,  but  were  bounded  on  the  east  by  Jordan  and  the  lake,  as  is  fully 
represented  in  all  the  maps  of  Palestine.  Thus,  it  is  made  manifest,  that  Capernaum 
must  have  stood  on  the  western  shore  of  the  lake,  where  the  lands  of  Zebulon  and 
Naphtali  bordered  on  each  other.  Though  this  boundary  line  cannot  be  very  accu- 
rately determined,  we  can  still  obtain  such  an  approximation,  as  will  enable  us  to  fix 


60  LIVES   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  position  of  Capernaum  on  the  northern  end  of  the  western  side  of  the  lake,  where 
most  of  the  maps  agree  in  placing  it;  yet  some  have  very" strangely  put  it  on  the 
eastern  side.  The  maps  in  the  French  Bible,  before  quoted,  have  set  it  down  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Jordan,  in  the  exact  i)lace  where  Joscphus  has  so  particularly  described 
Bethsaida  as  placed.  Lightfoot  has  placed  it  on  the  west,  but  near  the  southern  end ; 
and  all  the  common  maps  difler  considerably  as  to  its  precise  situation,  of  which 
indeed  we  can  only  give  a  vague  conjecture,  except  that  it  must  have  been  near  the 
northern  end.  "  Dr.  Richardson,  in  passing  through  the  plain  of  Gennesaret,  in- 
quired of  the  natives  whether  they  knew  such  a  place  as  Capernaum'?  They  imme- 
diately rejoined,  '  Cavernahum  wa  Chorasi;  they  are  quite  near,  but  in  ruins.'  This 
evidence  sufficiently  lixes  the  proximity  of  Chorazin  to  Capernaum,  in  opposition  to 
the  opinion  that  it  was  on  the  east  side  of  the  lake  ;  and  it  is  probable  that  the  Gerasi 
of  Pococke  is  the  same  place,  the  orthography  only  being  varied,  as  Dr.  Richardson's 
Chorasi."  (Conder,  Mod.  Trav.  I.)  But  no  modern  civilized  traveler  ever  visited 
the  actual  site  of  Capernaum,  until  American  missionary  enterprise  had  sent  forth 
Christian  ministers  to  the  survey  of  the  moral  condition  and  necessities  of  the  Holy 
Land.  The  Rev.  Pliny  Fisk,  a  missionary  of  the  American  Board  of  Commissioners 
for  Foreign  Missions,  in  journeying  through  Galilee,  on  his  spiritual  errand,  did  not 
neglect  opportunities  of  examining  localities  so  important  in  sacred  chorography, 
and  turned  aside  during  his  stay  at  Tiberias  to  examine  the  region  around  the  lake. 
In  his  journal,  Nov.  12,  1823,  he  says, — "  I  went  with  our  guide,  Antoon  Baulus,  to 
see  the  ruins  of  Capernaum,  on  the  shore  of  the  lake,  north  of  Tiberias.  One  hour's 
ride  brought  us  to  an  Arab  village  called  Mydool.  We  then  entered  a  plain,"  (Gen- 
nesar  1)  "  which  we  were  an  hour  in  crossing.  Then  passing  a  deserted  khan,  (inn,) 
we  entered  upon  a  rough  piece  of  road,  and  soon  came  to  the  ruins  of  an  Arab 
house.  A  few  rods  north  of  it  are  some  ruined  walls,  but  clearly  of  modern  origin. 
Af^er  passing  a  set  of  mills  on  a  brook,  we  came  to  the  ruins  of  Capernaum,  at  least 
to  ruins  which  now  bear  that  name,  in  about  three  hours'  ride  from  Tiberias.  Here 
are  ruins  which  are  manifestly  very  ancient.  A  part  of  the  wall  of  one  building 
still  stands ;  and  many  walls  appear  at  the  surface  of  the  ground  as  well  as  broken 
columns,  pedestals,  and  capitals.  These  are  of  hard  limestone,  like  those  of  Baalbec, 
There  are  now  twenty  or  thirty  Arab  huts  on  the  ruins  of  the  old  city."  (Bond's 
Life  of  Fisk,  p.  346.)  No  ancient  writer  mentions  Capernaum  very  distinctly.  Jo- 
sephus  says,  that  in  the  plain  of  Gennesar  there  was  a  remarkable  fotmtain  called 
Caphariiaum,  but  mentions  no  city  of  that  name.  (Jew.  War,  III.  x.  8.)  He  speaks, 
in  the  history  of  his  own  life,  (§.  72,)  of  a  village  in  the  neighborhood,  called  Ke- 
j>harnome,  but  its  locality  is  not  particularly  specified. 

Leaving  Nazareth,  Jesus  had  come  to  Capernaum,  at  the  north- 
western end  of  the  lake,  and  there  made  his  home.  About  this 
time,  perhaps  on  occasion  of  his  marriage,  Simon  had  left  Beth- 
saida, the  city  of  his  birth,  and  now  dwelt  in  Capernaum,  probably 
on  account  of  his  wife  being  of  that  place,  and  he  may  have  gone 
into  the  possession  of  a  house,  inherited  by  his  marriage ; — a  sup- 
position that  would  agree  with  the  circumstance  of  the  residence  of 
his  wife's  mother  in  her  married  daughter's  family,  which  would 
not  be  so  easily  explainable  on  the  supposition  that  she  had  also 
sons  to  inherit  their  father's  property,  and  furnish  a  home  to  their 
mother.  It  has  also  been  suggested,  that  he  probably  removed  to 
Capernaum  after  his  introduction  to  Christ,  in  order  to  enjoy  his 
instructions  more  conveniently,  being  near  him.  This  motive 
would  no  doubt  have  had  some  weight.  Here  the  two  brothers 
dwelt  together  in  one  house,  which  makes  it  almost  certain  that 
Andrew  was  unmarried ;  for  the  peculiarity  of  eastern  manners 
would  hardly  have  permitted  the  existence  of  two  families,  two 


Peter's  discipleship.  61 

husbands,  two  wives,  in  the  same  domestic  circle.  Making  this 
place  the  centre  of  their  business,  they  industriously  devoted  them- 
selves to  honest  labor,  extending  their  fishing  operations  over  the 
lake,  on  which  they  toiled  night  and  day.  It  seems  that  the  house 
of  Simon  and  Andrew  was  Jesus's  regular  place  of  abode  while  in 
Capernaum,  of  which  supposition  the  manifest  proofs  occur  in  the 
course  of  the  narrative.  Thus,  when  Jesus  came  out  of  the  syna- 
gogue, he  went  to  Simon's  house, — remained  there  as  at  a  home, 
during  the  day,  and  there  received  the  visits  of  the  immense  throng 
of  people  who  brought  their  sick  friends  to  him ;  all  which  he 
would  certainly  have  been  disposed  to  do  at  his  proper  residence, 
rather  than  where  he  was  a  mere  occasional  visiter.  He  is  also 
elsewhere  mentioned,  as  going  into  Peter's  house  in  such  a  familiar 
and  habitual  kind  of  way,  as  to  make  the  inference  very  obvious, 
that  it  was  his  home.  On  these  terms  of  close  domestic  intimacy, 
did  Jesus  remain  with  these  favored  disciples  for  more  than  a  year, 
during  which  time  he  continued  to  reside  at  Capernaum.  He  must 
have  resided  in  some  other  house,  however,  on  his  first  arrival  in 
Capernaum,  because,  in  the  incident  which  is  next  given  here,  his 
conduct  was  evidently  that  of  a  person  much  less  intimately  ac- 
quainted with  Simon  than  a  fellow-lodger  would  be.  The  cir- 
cumstances of  the  call  evidently  show,  that  Peter,  although 
acquainted  with  Christ  previously,  in  the  way  mentioned  by  John, 
had  by  no  means  become  his  intimate,  daily  companion.  We 
learn  from  Luke,  that  Jesus,  walking  forth  from  Capernaum,  along 
the  lake,  saw  two  boats  standing  by  the  lake,  but  the  fishers  having 
gone  out  of  them,  were  engaged  in  putting  their  nets  and  other 
fishing-tackle  in  order.  As  on  his  walk  the  populace  had  thronged 
about  him,  from  curiosity  and  interest,  and  were  annoying  him 
with  requests,  he  sought  a  partial  refage  from  their  friendly  at- 
tacks, on  board  of  Simon's  boat,  which  was  at  hand,  and  begging 
nim  to  push  out  a  little  from  the  land,  he  immediately  made  the  boat 
his  pulpit,  in  preaching  to  the  throng  on  shore,  sitting  down  and 
teaching  the  people  out  of  the  boat.  After  the  conclusion  of  his 
discourse,  perhaps  partly,  or  in  some  small  measure,  with  the 
design  of  properly  impressing  his  hearers  by  a  miracle,  with  the 
idea  of  his  authority  to  assume  the  high  bearing  which  so  charac- 
terized his  instructions,  and  which  excited  so  much  astonishment 
among  them,  he  urged  Simon  to  push  out  still  further  into  deep 
water,  and  to  open  his  nets  for  a  draught.  Simon,  evidently  already 
so  favorably  impressed  respecting  his  visiter,  as  to  feel  disposed  to 


62  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

obey  and  gratify  him,  did  according  to  the  request,  remarking, 
liowever,  that  as  he  had  toiled  all  night  without  catching  any 
thing,  he  opened  his  net  again  only  out  of  respect  to  his  Divine 
Master,  and  not  because,  after  so  many  fruitless  endeavors,  so  long 
continued,  it  was  reasonable  to  hope  for  the  least  success.  Upon 
drawing  in  the  net,  it  was  found  to  be  filled  with  so  vast  a  number 
of  fishes,  that  having  been  used  before  its  previous  rents  had  been 
entirely  mended,  it  broke  with  the  unusual  weight.  They  then 
made  known  the  difficulty  to  their  friends,  the  sons  of  Zebedee, 
who  were  in  the  other  boat,  and  were  obliged  to  share  their  burden 
between  the  two  vessels,  which  were  both  so  overloaded  with  the 
fishes  as  to  be  in  danger  of  sinking.  At  this  event,  so  unexpected 
and  overwhelming,  Simon  was  seized  with  mingled  admiration 
and  awe ;  and  reverently  besought  Jesus  to  depart  from  a  sinful 
man,  so  unworthy  as  he  was  to  be  a  subject  of  benevolent  attention 
from  one  so  mighty  and  good.  As  might  be  expected,  not  only 
Peter,  but  also  his  companions, — the  sons  of  Zebedee, — were  struck 
with  a  miracle  so  peculiarly  impressive  to  them,  because  it  was  an 
event  connected  with  their  daily  business,  and  yet  utterly  out  of 
the  common  course  of  things.  But  Jesus  soothed  their  awe  and 
terror  into  interest  and  attachment,  by  telling  Simon  that  hence- 
forth he  should  find  far  nobler  employment  in  taking  men.  And 
as  soon  as  they  had  brought  their  boats  to  land,  they  forsook 
their  nets,  boats  and  all,  and  followed  him,  not  back  into  Caper- 
naum, but  over  all  Galilee,  while  he  preached  to  wondering  thou- 
sands the  gospel  of  peace,  and  set  forth  to  them  his  high  claims  to 
their  attention  and  obedience,  by  healing  all  the  diseased  which  his 
great  fame  induced  them  to  bring  in  such  multitudes.  This  was, 
after  all,  the  true  object  of  his  calling  his  disciples  to  follow  him 
in  that  manner.  Can  we  suppose  that  he  would  come  out  of  Ca- 
pernaum, in  the  morning,  and  finding  there  his  acquaintances 
about  their  honest  business,  would  call  on  them,  in  that  unaccount- 
able manner,  to  follow  him  back  into  their  home,  to  which  they 
would  of  course,  naturally  enough,  have  gone  of  their  own  accord, 
without  any  divine  call  for  a  simple  act  of  necessity  ?  It  was  evi- 
dently with  a  view  to  initiate  them,  at  once,  into  the  knowledge  of 
the  labors  to  which  he  had  called  them,  and  to  give  them  an  insight 
into  the  nature  of  the  trials  and  difficulties  which  they  must  en- 
counter in  his  service.  In  short,  it  was  to  enter  them  on  their 
apprenticeship  to  the  mysteries  of  their  new  and  holy  vocation. 
On  this  pilgrimage  through  Galilee,  then,  he  must  have  been  ac- 


Peter's  discipleship.  63 

companied  by  his  newly  chosen  helpers,  who  thus  were  daily  and 
hourly  witnesses  of  his  words  cuid  actions,  as  recorded  by  all  the 
three  first  evangelists. 

The  accounts  which  Matthew  and  Mark  give  of  this  call,  have  seemed  so  strikingly 
different  from  that  of  Luke,  that  Calmet,  Thoynard,  Macknight,  Hug,  Michaelis, 
Eichhorn,  Marsh,  Paulus,  (and  perhaps  some  others,)  have  considered  Luke's  story, 
in  V.  1 — 11,  as  referring  to  a  totally  distinct  event.  See  Calmet's,  Thoynard's,  Mac- 
knight's,  Michaelis's,  and  Vater's  harmonies,  in  loc.  Also  Eichhorn 's  introduction, 
1.  §58,  V.  II., — Marsh's  dissertation  on  the  origin  of  the  three  gospels,  in  table  of 
coincident  passages, — Paulus's  "  Commentar  ueber  das  Neue  Test."  1  Thiel.  xxiii. 
Abschnitt;  comp.  xix.  Abschnitt, — Hug's  "  Einleitung  in  das  N.  T.,"  Vol.  II.  §40. 
"  Erste  auswandenmg,  Lucas,  iii.,"  comp.  Mark.  These  great  authorities  would  do 
much  to  support  any  arrangement  of  gospel  events ;  but  the  still  larger  number  of 
equally  high  authorities  on  the  other  side,  justifies  my  boldness  in  attempting  to  find  a 
harmony,  where  these  great  men  could  see  none.  Lightfoot,  Le  Clerc,  Arnauld, 
Newcome,  with  his  subsequent  editors,  and  Thirlwall,  in  their  harmonies,  agree  in 
making  all  three  evangelists  refer  to  the  same  event.  Grotius,  Hammond,  Wetstein, 
Scott,  Clarke,  Kuinoel,  and  Rosenmiiller,  in  their  several  commentaries  in  loco, — 
also  Stackhouse  in  his  history  of  the  Bible,  and  Home  in  his  introduction,  with 
many  others,  all  take  the  view  which  I  have  presented  in  the  text,  and  may  be  con- 
sulted by  those  who  wish  for  reasons  at  greater  length  than  my  limits  will  allow. 

The  date  of  this  actual  call  has  been  variously  fixed  by  difierent  chronologists ;  but 
it  may,  with  good  reason,  be  referred  to  the  latter  part  of  the  year  in  which  the  pre- 
ceding introduction  of  Peter  to  Jesus  took  place, — a  journey  to  Jerusalem  and  a 
passover  (John  ii.  14)  being  commonly  supposed  to  have  intervened.  Baronius 
(Ann.  p.  107)  fixes  it  in  the  year  of  Christ  31,  and  of  Tiberius  15,  which  is  corrected 
by  his  accurate  critic,  Antony  Pagi,  to  A.  D.  29,  of  the  Dionysian  or  vulgar  era, 
corresponding  to  the  sixteenth  of  Tiberius.  (Pag.  Crit.  Baronii,  Vol.  I.  p.  18.  comp. 
Appar.  Chron.  p.  42.)  Baillet  (Vies  des  Saints,  Vol.  II.  col.  341,  342,  Jan.  29)  gives 
it  in  the  latter  part  of  the  year  of  Christ  31,  some  months  after  Peter's  first  introduc- 
tion. In  this,  he  seems  merely  to  follow  Baronius.  Cave  (Hist.  Lit.  Vol.  I.  p.  4) 
also  dates  the  call  in  A.  D.  31. 

"  Peter  and  Andrew  dwelt  together  in  one  ho^ise." — This  appears  from  Mark  i.  29, 
where  it  is  said  that,  after  the  call  of  the  brothers  by  Jesus,  "  they  entered  the  house 
of  Simon  and  Andrew." 

"  Sat  dovm  and  taught  the  people  out  of  the  ship"  verse  3.  This  was  a  convenient 
position,  adopted  by  Jesus  on  another  occasion  also.    Matt.  xiii.  2.    Mark  iv.  1. 

"  Launch  out." — Luke  v.  4.  'E-rTavayayc,  (Epanagage,)  the  same  word  which  occurs 
in  verse  3,  there  translated  in  the  common  English  version,  "  thrust  out."  It  was, 
probably,  a  regular  nautical  term  for  this  backward  movement,  though  in  the  classic 
Greek,  'E^avayetv,  {Eocanagein,)  was  the  form  always  used  to  express  this  idea,  inso- 
much that  it  seems  to  have  been  the  established  technical  term.  Perhaps  Luke  may 
have  intended  this  term  originally,  which  might  have  been  corrupted  by  some  early 
copyist  into  this  word,  which  is  in  no  other  place  used  with  this  meaning. — "  Let 
down"  (liaXoKTaTe,  Khalasate,  in  the  plural ;  the  former  verb  sing.)  More  literally, 
"  loosen"  which  is  the  primary  signification  of  the  verb,  and  would  be  the  proper  one, 
since  the  operation  of  preparing  the  net  to  take  the  fish,  consisted  in  loosening  the 
ropes  and  other  tackle,  which,  of  course,  were  drawn  tight,  when  the  net  was  not  in 
use,  closing  its  mouth. — "  Master,  we  have  toiled,"  &c.  verse  5.  The  word  'E^torara, 
(Epistala,)  here  translated  Master,  is  remarkable,  as  never  occurring  in  the  New 
Testament,  except  in  this  gospel.  Grotius  remarks  {in  loc.)  that  doubtless  Luke,  (the 
most  finished  and  correct  Greek  scholar  of  all  the  sacred  writers,)  considered  this 
as  a  more  faithful  translation  of  the  Hebrew  ■■2-1,  {Rabbi,)  than  the  common  expres- 
sions of  the  other  evangelists,  Kipie,  {Kurie,  Lord,)  and  AiSacKuXe,  {Didaskale,  teacher.) 
It  was  a  moderate,  though  dignified  title,  between  these  two  in  its  character ;  rather 
lower  than  "  Lord,"  and  rather  higher  than  "  Teacher."  It  is  used  in  the  Alexan- 
drine version,  as  the  proper  term  for  a  "  steward,"  a  "  military  commander,"  &c.  (See 
Grotius,  Op.  theol.  Vol.  II.  p.  372;  or  Poole's  Synopsis  on  this  passage.)  "  Toiled  all 
night."  This  was  the  best  time  for  taking  the  fish,  as  is  well  known  to  those  who 
follow  fishing  for  a  living. 

On  this  journey,  they  saw  some  of  his  most  remarkable  miracles, 


64  LIVES  OF  THE  AP0STLE3. 

such  as  the  healing  of  the  leper,  the  paraiytic,  the  man  with  the 
withered  hand,  and  others  of  which  the  details  are  not  given.  It 
was  also  during  this  time,  that  the  sermon  on  the  mount  was  de- 
livered, which  was  particularly  addressed  to  his  disciples,  and  was 
plainly  meant  for  their  instruction,  in  the  conduct  proper  in  them 
as  the  founders  of  the  gospel  faith.  Besides  passing  through  many 
cities  on  the  nearer  side,  he  also  crossed  over  the  lake,  and  visited 
the  rude  people  of  those  wild  districts.  The  journey  was,  there- 
fore, a  very  long  one,  and  must  have  occupied  several  weeks. 
After  he  had  sufficiently  acquainted  them  with  the  nature  of  the 
duties  to  which  he  had  consecrated  them,  and  had  abundantly  im- 
pressed them  with  the  high  powers  which  he  possessed,  and  of 
which  they  were  to  be  the  partakers,  he  came  back  to  Capernaum, 
and  there  entered  into  the  house  of  Simon,  which  he  seems  hence- 
forth to  have  made  his  home  while  in  that  city.  They  found 
that,  during  their  absence,  the  mother-in-law  of  Simon  had  been 
taken  ill,  and  was  then  suffering  under  the  heat  of  a  violent  fever. 
Jesus  at  once,  with  a  word,  pronounced  her  cure  ;  and  immediately 
the  fever  left  her  so  perfectly  healed,  that  she  arose  from  her  sick 
bed,  and  proceeded  to  welcome  their  return,  by  her  grateful  efforts 
to  make  their  home  comfortable  to  them,  after  their  tiresome  pil- 
grimage. 

"  Immediately  the  fever  left  her." — Matt.  viii.  15;  Mark  i.  31 ;  Luke  iv.  39.  It  may 
seem  quite  idle  to  conjecture  the  specific  character  of  this  fever;  but  it  seems  to  me 
a  very  justifiable  guess,  that  it  was  a  true  intermittent,  or  fever  and  ague,  arising 
from  the  marsh  influences,  which  must  have  been  very  strong  in  such  a  place  as  Ca- 
pernaum,— situated  as  it  was,  on  the  low  margin  of  a  large  fresh-water  lake,  and  with 
all  the  morbific  agencies  of  such  an  unhealthy  site,  increased  by  the  heat  of  that  cli- 
mate. The  immediate  termination  of  the  fever,  imder  these  circumstances,  was  an 
abimdant  evidence  of  the  divine  power  of  Christ's  word,  over  the  evil  agencies  which 
mar  the  health  and  happiness  of  mankind. 

During  some  time  after  this,  Peter  does  not  seem  to  have  left 
his  home  for  any  long  period  at  once ;  but  he  no  doubt  accompa- 
nied Jesus  on  all  his  excursions  through  Galilee,  besides  the  first, 
of  which  the  history  has  been  here  given.  It  would  be  hard,  and 
exceedingly  unsatisfactory,  however,  to  attempt  to  draw  out  from 
the  short,  scattered  incidents  which  fill  the  interesting  records  of 
the  gospels,  any  very  distinct,  detailed  narrative  of  these  various 
journeys.  The  chronology  and  order  of  most  of  these  events,  is 
still  left  much  in  the  dark ;  and  most  of  the  pains  taken  to  bring 
out  the  truth  to  the  light,  have  only  raised  the  greater  dust  to  blind 
the  eyes  of  the  eager  investigator.  To  pretend  to  roll  all  these 
clouds  away  at  once,  and  open  to  common  eyes  a  clear  view  of 


Peter's  discipleship.  66 

facts,  which  have  so  long  confused  the  minds  of  some  of  the  wisest 
and  best  of  almost  every  Christian  age,  and  too  often,  alas !  in 
turn,  been  confused  by  them, — such  an  effort,  however  well  meant, 
could  only  win  for  its  author  the  contempt  of  the  learned,  and  the 
perplexed  dissatisfaction  of  common  readers.  But  one  very  simple, 
and  comparatively  easy  task,  is  plainly  before  the  writer ;  and  to 
that  he  willingly  devotes  himself  for  the  present.  This  task  is, 
that  of  separating  and  disposing,  in  what  may  seem  their  natural 
order,  with  suitable  illustration  and  explanation,  those  few  facts 
contained  in  the  gospels,  relating  distinctly  to  this  apostle.  These 
facts,  accordingly,  here  follow. 

HIS  FIRST  MISSION. 

The  next  affair  in  which  Peter  is  mentioned,  by  either  evan- 
gelist, is  the  final  enrolling  of  the  twelve  peculiar  disciples,  to  whom 
Jesus  gave   the  name  of  apostles.     In  their  proper  place  have 
already  been  mentioned,  both  the  meaning  of  this  title  and  the 
rank  of  Peter  on  the  list ;  and  it  need  here  only  be  remarked,  that 
Peter  went  forth  with  the  rest,  on  this,  their  first  and  experimental 
mission.     All  the  three  first  gospels  contain  this  account ;  but 
Matthew  enters  most  fully  into  the  charge  of  Jesus,  in  giving  them 
their  first  commission.     In  his  tenth  chapter,  this  charge  is  given 
with  such  particularity,  that  a  mere  reference  of  the  reader  to  that 
place  will  be  sufficient,  without  any  need  of  explanation  here. 
After  these  minute  directions  for  their  behavior,  they  departed,  as 
Mark  and  Luke  record,  and  "  went  through  the  towns,  preaching 
the  gospel,  that  men  should  repent.     And  they  cast  out  many 
devils,  and  anointed  with  oil  many  that  were  sick,  and  healed 
them."     How  far  their  journey  extended,  cannot  be  positively  de- 
termined ;  but  there  is  no  probability  that  they  went  beyond  the 
limits  of  Galilee.     Divided  as  they  were  into  couples,  and  each 
pair  taking  a  different  route,  a  large  space  must  have  been  gone 
over  in  this  mission,  however  brief  the  time  can  be  supposed  to 
have  been.    As  to  the  exact  time  occupied,  we  are,  indeed,  as  un- 
certain as  in  respect  to  the  distance  to  which  they  traveled ;  but 
from  the  few  incidents  placed  by  Mark  and  Luke  between  their 
departu%e  and  return,  it  could  hardly  have  been  more  than  a  few 
weeks,  probably  only  a  few  days.     The  only  affair  mentioned  by 
either  evangelist,  between  their  departure  and  return,  is,  the  notice 
taken  by  Herod  of  the  actions  of  Jesus,  to  whom  his  attention  was 
drawn  by  his  resemblance  to  John  the  Baptist.     They  then  say, 


66  LIVES  OF  THE   APOSTLES. 

that  "  the  apostles,  when  they  were  returned,  gathered  themselves 
together  to  Jesus,  and  told  him  all  things, — both  what  they  had 
done  and  what  they  had  taught."  As  this  report  was  received  by 
Jesus  without  any  comment  that  is  recorded,  it  is  fair  to  conclude 
that  their  manner  of  preaching,  and  the  success  of  their  labors, 
had  been  such  as  to  deserve  his  approbation.  In  this  mission, 
there  is  nothing  particularly  commemorated  with  respect  to  Peter's 
conduct ;  but  no  doubt  the  same  fiery  zeal  which  distinguished 
him  afterwards,  on  so  many  occasions,  made  him  foremost  in  this, 
his  earliest  apostolic  labor.  His  rank,  as  chief  apostle,  too,  pro- 
bably gave  him  some  prominent  part  in  the  mission,  and  his  field 
of  operations  must  have  been  more  important  and  extensive  than 
that  of  the  other  apostles,  and  his  success  proportionably  greater. 

It  is  deserving  of  notice,  that  on  this  first  mission,  Jesus  seems  to  have  arranged 
the  twelve  in  pairs,  in  which  order  he  probably  sent  them  forth,  as  he  certainly  did 
the  seventy  disciples,  described  in  Luke  x.  1.  The  object  of  this  arrangement,  was 
no  doubt  to  secure  them  that  mutual  support  which  was  so  desirable  for  men,  so  un- 
accustomed to  the  high  duties  on  which  they  were  now  despatched. 

Their  destination,  also,  deserves  attention.  The  direction  of  Jesus  was,  that  they 
should  avoid  the  way  of  the  heathen,  and  the  cities  of  the  Samaritans,  who  were  but 
little  better,  and  should  go  to  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel.  This  expression 
■was  quoted,  probably,  from  those  numerous  passages  in  the  prophets,  where  this  term 
is  applied  to  the  Israelites,  as  in  Jer.  1.  6,  Isa.  liii.  6,  Ezek.  xxxiv.  6,  &c.,  and  was 
used  with  peculiar  force,  in  reference  to  the  condition  of  those  to  whom  Jesus  sent 
his  apostles.  It  seems  to  me,  as  if  he,  by  this  peculiar  term,  meant  to  limit  them  to 
the  provinces  of  Galilee,  where  the  state  and  character  of  the  Jews  was  such  as  emi- 
nently to  justify  this  melancholy  appellative.  The  particulars  of  their  condition  will 
be  elsewhere  shown.  They  were  expressly  bounded  on  one  side,  from  passing  into 
the  heathen  territory,  and  on  the  other  from  entering  the  cities  of  the  Samaritans, 
who  dwelt  between  Galilee  and  Judea  proper ;  so  that  a  literal  obedience  of  these  in- 
structions, would  have  confined  them  entirely  to  Galilee,  their  native  land.  Mac- 
knight  also  takes  this  view.  The  reasons  of  this  limitation,  are  abundant  and  obvious. 
The  peculiarly  abandoned  moral  condition  of  that  outcast  section  of  Palestine, — the 
perfect  familiarity  which  the  apostles  must  have  felt  with  the  people  of  their  own 
region,  whose  peculiarities  of  language  and  habits  they  themselves  shared  so  per- 
fectly as  to  be  unfitted  for  a  successful  outset  among  the  Jews  of  the  south,  without 
more  experience  out  of  Galilee, — the  shortness  of  the  time,  which  seems  to  have 
been  taken  up  in  this  mission, — the  circumstance  that  Jesus  sent  them  to  proclaim 
that  "  the  kingdom  of  heaven  was  at  hand,"  that  is,  that  the  Messiah  was  approach- 
ing, which  he  did  in  order  to  arouse  the  attention  of  the  people  to  himself,  when  he 
should  go  to  them,  (compare  Luke  x.  1,)  thus  making  them  his  forenmners, — and  the 
fact,  that  the  places  to  which  he  actually  did  go  with  them,  on  their  return,  were  all 
in  Galilee,  (Matt.  xi.  xix.  1,  Mark  vi.  7,  x.  1,  Luke  ix.  1 — 51,) — all  serve  to  show  that 
this  first  mission  of  the  apostles,  was  limited  entirely  to  the  Jewish  population  of  Ga- 
lilee. His  promise  to  them  also,  in  Matt.  x.  2,  3,  "  you  shall  not  finish  the  cities  oj 
Israel,  before  the  son  of  man  come,"  seems  to  me  to  mean  simply,  that  there  would 
be  no  occasion  for  them  to  extend  their  labors  to  the  Gentile  cities  of  Galilee,  or  to  the 
Samaritans ;  because,  before  they  could  finish  their  specially  allotted  field  of  survey, 
"he  himself  would  be  ready  to  follow  them,  and  confirm  their  labors.  This  jvas  men- 
tioned to  them  in  connexion  with  the  prediction  of  persecutions  which  tney  would 
meet,  as  an  encouragement.  For  various  other  explanations  of  this  last  passage,  see 
Poole's  Synop.sis,  Rosenmiiller,  Wetstein,  Macknight,  Le  Sainte  Bible  avec  notes, 
&c.  in  loc.  But  Kuinoel,  who  quotes  on  his  side  i3eza,  Bolten,  and  others,  supports 
the  view,  which  an  unassisted  consideration  induced  me  to  suggest. 

"  Anointed  with  oil."  Mark  vi.  13.  The  same  expression  occurs  in  James  v.  14, 
and  needs  explanation,  from  its  connexion  with  a  peculiar  rite  of  the  Romish  church, 


Peter's  discipleship.  67 

— extreme  unction,  from  which  it  differs,  however,  inasmuch  as  it  wa-s  always  a 
hopeful  operation,  intended  to  aid  the  patient,  and  secure  his  recovery ;  while  the 
Romish  ceremony  is  always  performed  in  case  of  complete  despair  of  life,  only  with 
a  view  to  prepare  the  patient,  by  this  form,  for  certain  death.  The  operation  men- 
tioned as  so  successfully  performed  by  the  apostles,  for  the  cure  of  diseases,  was 
undoubtedly  a  simple  remedial  process,  previously  in  long-established  use  among  the 
Hebrews,  as  clearly  appears  by  the  numerous  authorities  quoted  by  Lightfoot,  Wet- 
stein,  and  Paulus,  from  Rabbinical,  Greek,  and  Arabic  sources ;  yet  Beza,  and  others, 
quoted  in  Poole's  Synopsis,  as  well  as  Rosenmiiller,  suggest  some  symbolical  force 
in  the  ceremony,  for  which  see  those  works  in  loc.  See  also  Kuinoel,  and  Bloom- 
field,  who  gives  numerous  references.  See  also  Marlorat's  BibUotheca  expositionum, 
Stackhouse's  Hist,  of  the  Bible,  Whitby,  &c. 

THE  SCENES  ON  THE  LAKE. 

After  receiving  the  report  of  his  apostle's  labors,  Jesus  said  to 
them,  "  Come  ye  yourselves  apart  into  a  retired  place,  and  rest 
awhile ;"  for  there  were  many  coming  and  going,  and  they  had  no 
leisure  so  much  as  to  eat.  And  he  took  them  and  went  privately 
aside  by  boat,  into  a  lonely  place,  near  the  city  called  Bethsaida. 
And  the  people  saw  him  departing,  and  many  knew  him,  and 
went  on  foot  to  the  place,  out  of  all  the  country,  and  outwent 
them,  and  came  together  to  him  as  soon  as  he  reached  there.  And 
he  received  them,  and  spoke  unto  them  of  the  kingdom  of  God, 
and  healed  them  that  had  need  of  healing.  It  was  on  this  occa- 
sion that  he  performed  the  miracle  of  feeding  the  multitude  with 
five  loaves  and  two  fishes.  So  great  was  the  impression  made  on 
their  minds  by  this  extraordinary  act  of  benevolence  and  power, 
that  he  thought  it  best,  in  order  to  avoid  the  hindrance  of  his  great 
task,  by  any  popular  commotion  in  his  favor,  to  go  away  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  be  efiectually  beyond  their  reach  for  the  time. 
With  this  view,  he  constrained  the  disciples  to  get  into  the  ship, 
and  go  before  him  to  the  other  side  of  the  lake,  opposite  to  Beth- 
saida, where  they  then  were,  while  he  sent  away  the  people.  After 
sending  the  multitude  away,  he  went  up  into  a  mountain,  apart, 
to  pray.  And  after  night-fall,  the  vessel  was  in  the  midst  of  the 
sea,  and  he  alone  on  the  land.  Thence  he  saw  them  toiling  with 
rowing,  (for  the  wind  was  contrary  to  them,  and  the  ship  tossed 
in  the  waves :)  and  about  three  or  four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  he 
comes  to  them,  walking  on  the  sea,  and  appeared  as  if  about  to 
pass  unconcernedly  by  them.  But  when  they  saw  him  walking 
upon  the  sea,  they  supposed  it  to  have  been  a  spirit,  and  they  all 
cried  out,  "  It  is  a  spirit ;"  for  they  all  saw  him,  and  were  alarmed ; 
and  immediately  he  spoke  to.  them,  and  said,  "  Be  comforted ;  it  is 
I ;  be  not  afraid."  And  Peter,  foremost  in  zeal  on  this  occasion, 
as  at  almost  all  times,  said  to  him,  "  Lord,  if  it  be  thou,  bid  me 


68  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

come  to  thee  upon  the  water."  And  he  said,  "Come."  And 
when  Peter  had  come  down  out  of  the  vessel,  he  walked  on  the 
water,  to  go  to  Jesus.  But  when  he  saw  the  wind  boisterous,  he 
was  afraid ;  and  beginning  to  sink,  he  cried,  "  Lord,  save  me." 
And  immediately  Jesus  stretched  forth  his  hand  and  caught  him ; 
and  said  to  him,  "  O  thou  of  little  faith !  wherefore  didst  thou 
doubt  ?"  And  when  they  were  come  into  the  ship,  the  wind  ceased ; 
and  they  were  sore  amazed  in  themselves  beyond  measure,  and 
wondered.  And  all  they  that  were  in  the  vessel  came  and  wor- 
shiped him,  saying,  "  Of  a  trudi,  thou  art  the  Son  of  God."  This 
amazement  and  reverence  was  certainly  very  tardily  acknowledged 
by  them,  after  all  the  wonders  they  had  seen  wrought  by  him ;  but 
they  considered  not  the  miracle  of  the  loaves,  the  most  recent  of 
all,  which  happened  but  a  few  hours  before.  For  this  thought- 
lessness, in  a  matter  so  striking  and  weighty,  Jesus  himself  after- 
wards rebuked  them,  referring  both  to  this  miracle  of  feeding  the 
five  thousand,  and  to  a  subsequent  similar  one.  However,  the 
various  great  actions  of  a  similar  character,  thus  repeated  before 
them,  seem  at  last  to  have  had  more  effect,  since,  on  an  occasion 
not  long  after,  they  boldly  and  clearly  made  their  profession  of 
faith  in  Jesus,  as  the  Christ. 

"  A  lonely  place." — The  word  deserl,  which  is  the  adjective  given  in  this  passage, 
in  the  common  English  version,  (Matt.  xiv.  13,  15,  Mark  vi.  31,  32,  35,  Luke  ix.  10, 
12,)  does  not  convey  to  the  reader  the  true  idea  of  the  character  of  the  place.     The 
Greek  word  "Epji^ios  {Ercmos)  does  not  in  the  passage  just  quoted,  mean  "  desert,"  in 
our  modern  sense  of  that  English  word,  Avhich  always  conveys  the  idea  of  "  desola- 
tion," "  wildness,"  and  "  barrenness,"  as  well  as  "  solitude."    But  the  Greek  word  by 
no  means  implied  these  darker  characteristics.     The  primary,  uniform  idea  of  the 
word  is  "  Irmely,"  "  solilary ;"  and  so  little  does  it  imply  "  barrenness,"  that  it  is  applied 
to  lands,  rich,  fertile,  and  pleasant ;  a  connexion,  of  course,  perfectly  inconsistent  with 
our  ideas  of  a  desert  place.     Schleusner  gives  the  idea  very  fairly  luider  'Efj»)/Jia, 
{Eremia,)  a  derivative  of  this  word.     "  Notat  locum  aliquem  vel  tractiun  terrae,  non 
tarn  incuUum  et  horridum,  quam  minus  habitabilem, — solitudinem, — locum  vacuum 
quidem  ab  hominibus,  pascuis  tamen  et  agris  ahundaniem,  et  arboribus  obsUum."    "  It 
means  a  place  or  tract  of  land,  not  so  much  uncultivated  and  wild,  as  it  does  one 
thinly  inhabited, — a  solitude,  a  place  empty  of  men  indeed,  yet  rich  in  pastures  and 
fields,  and  planted  with  trees."    But  after  giving  this  very  clear  and  satisfactory  ac- 
count of  the  derivative,  he  immediately  after  gives  to  the  primitive  itself,  the  primary 
meaning  "  de.sertus,  desolalus,  vastus,  devastalus,"  and  refers  to  passages  where  the 
word  is  applied  to  ruined  cities;  but  in  every  one  of  those  passages,  the  true  idea  is 
that  above  given  as  the  meaning,  "  stripped  of  inhabitants,"  and  not  "  desolated"  or 
"  laid  waste."     Hedericus  gives  this  as  the  first  meaning,  "  desertus,  solus,  solitarius, 
inhabitatMS."     Schneider  also  fully  expresses  it,  in  German,  by  ^^  einsam,"  {lonely, 
solitary,)  in  which  he  is  followed  by  Passow,  his  improver,  and  by  Donnegan,  his 
English  translator.     Jones  and  Pickering  also  give  it  thus.     Bretschneidcr  and 
Wahl,  in  their  N.  T.  Lexicons,  have  given  a  just  and  proper  classification  of  the 
meanings.     The  word  "  deserl"  came  into  our  English  translation,  by  the  minute 
verbal  adherence  of  the  translators  to  the  Vulgate  or  Latin  version,  where  the  word 
is  expressed  by  "  desertum,"  properly  enough,  because  desertus,  in  Latin,  does  not 
mean  desert  in  English,  nor  any  thing  like  it,  but  simply  "  lonely,"  "  uninhabited;" 
— in  shortj  it  has  tlie  force  of  the  English  participle  "  descried,"  and  not  of  the  ad- 


Peter's  discipleship.  69 

jective  "  desert,"  which  has  probably  acquired  its  modern  meaning,  and  lost  its  old 
one,  since  our  common  translation  was  made  ;  thus  making  one  instance,  among  a 
thousand  others,  of  the  imperfection  of  this  ancient  translation,  which  too  often  limits 
itself  to  a  servile  English  rendering  of  the  Vulgate.  Campbell,  in  his  four  gospels, 
has  repeated  this  passage,  without  correcting  the  error,  though  Hammond,  long 
before,  in  his  just  and  beautiful  paraphrase,  (on  Matt.  xiv.  13,)  had  corrected  it  by 
the  expression,  "  a  place  not  inhabited."  Charles  Thomson,  in  his  version  of  the 
Alexandrine,  has  overlooked  the  error  in  Matt.  xiv.  13 — 15,  but  has  corrected  it  in 
Mark  \i.  31,  &c.,  and  in  Luke  ix.  10;  expressing  it  by  "  solitary."  The  remark  of 
the  apostles  to  Jesus,  "  This  place  is  lonely,"  does  not  require  the  idea  of  a  barren 
or  wild  place ;  it  was  enough  that  it  was  far  from  any  village,  and  had  not  inhabitants 
enough  to  furnish  food  for  five  thousand  men ;  as  in  2  Cor.  xi.  27,  it  is  used  in  oppo- 
sition to  "  city,"  in  the  sense  of  "  the  country." 

In  the  course  of  the  conversations  and  instructions  which  soon 
after  occurred  in  connexion  with  the  miracle  of  the  loaves,  Jesus, 
in  the  synagogue  at  Capernaum,  proclaimed  to  an  assembly  of 
many  disciples,  several  solemn  and  mysterious  truths  respecting 
his  own  nature,  and  the  conditions  of  salvation  through  him, — 
truths  which  sounded  so  strangely  to  the  ears  of  his  hearers,  that 
many  from  that  day  renounced  the  discipleship  of  him  who  laid 
such  difficult  and  seemingly  impracticable  obligations  on  his  fol- 
lowers. On  witnessing  this  melancholy  defection  of  so  many  who 
had  once  heartily  espoused  his  cause  and  doctrines  on  an  imperfect 
acquaintance,  he  turned  mournfully  to  the  little  band  of  the  chosen 
twelve,  now  left  almost  alone  with  him,  and  said — "  Will  you  also 
go  away  ?"  In  reply  to  this  simple  but  moving  inquiry,  Simon 
Peter,  with  the  prompt  zeal  that  characterized  and  well  became 
him,  as  the  chief  and  leader  of  the  apostles,  spoke  in  behalf  of  all, 
eloquently  repelling  the  implication  of  doubt,  by  the  unhesitating 
and  all-confiding  declaration — '•  Lord !  To  whom  shall  we  go  ? 
Thou  hast  the  words  of  eternal  life.  And  we  believe  and  are 
sure,  that  thou  art  that  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God."  Thus 
honestly  and  boldly  spoke  the  faithful  apostohc  chief,  with  as  little 
doubt  of  the  zeal  and  firmness  of  his  associates  as  of  his  own. 
But  he,  who  knew  the  hearts  of  all  men,  saw  among  the  silently 
assenting  eleven,  one  already  self-devoted  to  a  career  of  treachery, 
crime,  and  ruin  ;  and  his  reply  to  this  clear  profession  was  there- 
fore tempered  with  the  statement  of  the  circumstance  which  ex- 
plained and  justified  the  previous  doubtful  inquiry.  The  accuser 
was  among  them,  known  only  to  himself  and  his  future  victim. 

HIS  DECLARATION  OF  CHRISt's  DIVINITY. 

Journeying  on  northward,  Jesus  came  into  the  neighborhood  of 
Cesarea  Philippi,  and  while  he  was  there  in  some  solitary  place, 
praying  alone  with  hi.s  select  disciples,  at  the  conclusion  of  his 


70  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

prayer,  he  asked  them,  "  Who  do  men  say  that  I,  the  son  of  man, 
am?"  And  they  answered  him,  "  Some  say  that  thou  art  John  the 
Baptist :"  (Herod,  in  particular,  we  know,  had  this  notion  ;)  "  some, 
that  thou  art  Ehjah  ;  and  others  that  thou  art  Jeremiah,  or  one  of 
the  prophets,  that  is  risen  again."  So  pecuHar  was  his  doctrine, 
and  so  far  removed  was  he,  both  in  impressive  eloquence  and  in 
original  views,  from  the  degeneracy  and  servility  of  that  age,  that 
the  universal  sentiment  was,  that  one  of  the  bold  pure  "  spirits  of 
the  fervent  days  of  old,"  had  come  back  to  call  Judah  from  foreign 
servitude,  to  the  long-remembered  glories  of  the  reigns  of  David 
and  Solomon.  But  his  chosen  ones,  who  had  by  repeated  instruc- 
tions, as  well  as  long  acquaintance,  better  learned  their  Master, 
though  still  far  from  appreciating  his  true  character  and  designs, 
had  yet  a  higher  and  juster  idea  of  him,  than  the  unenlightened 
multitudes  who  had  been  amazed  by  his  deeds.  To  draw  from 
them  the  distinct  acknowledgment  of  their  belief  in  him,  Jesus  at 
last  plainly  asked  his  disciples,  "  But  who  do  you  say  that  I  am  ?" 
Simon  Peter,  in  his  usual  character  as  spokesman,  replied  for  the 
whole  band,  "  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God." 
Jesus,  recognizing  in  this  prompt  answer,  the  fiery  and  devoted 
spirit  that  would  follow  the  great  work  of  redemption  through 
hfe,  and  at  last  to  death,  replied  to  the  zealous  speaker  in  terms  of 
marked  and  exalted  honor,  prophesying  at  the  same  time  the  high 
part  which  he  would  act  in  spreading  and  strengthening  the 
kingdom  of  his  Master :  "  Blessed  art  thou,  Simon,  son  of  Jonah, 
for  flesh  and  blood  have  not  revealed  this  unto  thee,  but  my  Father 
who  is  in  heaven.  And  I  say  also  unto  thee,  that  thou  art  a 
ROCK,  and  on  this  rock  I  will  build  my  church,  and  the  gates  of 
hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it.  And  I  will  give  thee  the  keys  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven ;  and  whatsoever  thou  shalt  bind  on  earth 
shall  be  bound  in  heaven ;  and  whatsoever  thou  shalt  loose  on 
earth,  shall  be  loosed  in  heaven."  In  such  high  terms  was  the 
chief  apostle  distinguished,  and  thus  did  his  Master  peculiarly 
commission  him  above  the  rest,  for  the  high  office  to  which  all 
the  energies  of  his  remaining  life  were  to  be  devoted. 

IfTio  do  men  say  that  lam. — The  common  English  translation,  here  makes  a  gross 
grammatical  blunder,  putting  the  relative  in  the  objective  case, — "  MTinm  do  men 
say,"  &c.  (Matt.  xvi.  13— L5.)  It  is  evident  that  on  inverting  the  order,  putting  the 
relative  last  instead  of  first,  it  will  be  in  the  nominative, — "  Men  say  that  I  am  who  ?" 
making,  in  short,  a  nominative  after  the  verb,  though  it  here  comes  before  it  by  the 
inversion  which  the  relative  requires.  Here  again  the  difficulty  may  be  traced  to  a 
heedless  copying  of  the  Vulgate.  In  Latin,  as  in  Greek,  the  relative  is  given  in  the 
accusative,  and  very  properly,  because  it  is  followed  by  the  infinitive.    "  Cliiem  dicuiit 


Peter's  discipleship.  71 

homines  esse  Filium  hominis  1"  which  literally  is,  "  Whom  do  men  say  the  son  of 
man  to  be  1" — a  very  correct  form  of  expression ;  but  the  blunder  of  our  translators 
was  in  preserving  the  accusative,  while  they  changed  the  verb  from  the  infinitive  to 
the  finite  form;  for  "  whom"  cannot  be  governed  by  "  say.'"  Hammond  has  passed 
over  the  error ;  but  Campbell,  Thomson,  and  Webster,  have  corrected  it. 

Son  of  Man. — This  expression  has  acquired  a  peculiarly  exalted  sense  in  our 
minds,  in  consequence  of  its  repeated  application  to  Jesus  Christ,  and  its  limitation  to 
him,  in  the  New  Testament.  But  in  those  days  il  had  no  meaning  by  which  it  coiild 
be  considered  expressive  of  any  peculiar  characteristic  of  the  Savior,  being  a  mere 
general  emphatic  expression  for  the  common  word  "  man,"  used  in  solemn  address 
or  poetical  expressions.  Both  in  the  Old  and  New  Testament  it  is  many  limes  ap- 
plied to  men  in  general,  and  to  particular  individuals,  in  such  a  way  as  to  show  that 
it  was  only  an  elegant  periphrasis  for  the  common  terra,  without  implying  any  pecu- 
liar importance  in  the  person  thus  designated,  or  referring  to  any  peculiar  circum- 
stance as  justifying  this  appellative  in  that  case.  Any  concordance  will  show  how 
commonly  the  word  occurred  in  this  connexion.  The  diligent  Butterworth  enume- 
rates eighty-nine  times  in  which  this  word  is  applied  to  Ezekiel,  in  whose  book  of 
prophecy  it  occurs  oftener  than  in  any  other  book  in  the  Bible.  It  is  also  applied  to 
Daniel,  in  the  address  of  the  angel  to  him,  as  to  Ezekiel;  and  in  consideration  of  the 
vastly  more  frequent  occurrence  of  the  expression  in  the  writers  after  the  captivity, 
and  its  exclusive  use  by  them  as  a  formula  of  solemn  address,  it  has  been  commonly 
considered  as  having  been  brought  into  this  usage  among  the  Hebrews,  from  the  dia- 
lects of  Chaldea  and  Syria,  where  it  was  much  more  common.  In  Syriac,  more  par- 
ticularly, the  simple  expression,  "  man,"  is  entirely  banished  from  use  by  tliis  solemn 
periphrasis,  ^..0.^^12)  {bar-nosh,)  "  son  op  man,"  which  every  where  takes  the  place  of 
the  original  direct  form.  It  should  be  noticed,  also,  that  in  every  place  in  the  Old 
Testament,  where  this  expression  ("  son  of  man")  occurs,  before  Ezekiel,  the  former 
part  of  the  sentence  invariably  contains  the  direct  form  of  expression,  ("  man,")  and 
this  periphrasis  is  given  in  the  latter  part  of  every  such  sentence,  for  the  sake  of  a 
poetical  repetition  of  the  same  idea  in  a  slightly  different  form.  Take  for  instance, 
Psalm  viii.  4,  "  What  is  man,  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him"?  or  the  son  of  man  that 
thou  \'isitest  him  1"  And  exactly  so  in  every  other  passage  anterior  to  Daniel  and 
Ezekiel,  as  Numbers  xxiii.  19,  Job  xxv.  6,  xxxv.  8,  Isa.  li.  12,  Ivi.  2,  and  several 
other  passages,  to  which  any  good  concordance  will  direct  the  reader. 

The  New  Testament  writers,  too,  apply  this  expression  in  other  ways  than  as  a 
name  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  given  as  a  mere  periphrasis,  entirely  synonymous  with 
"  man,"  in  a  general  or  abstract  sense,  without  reference  to  any  particular  individual, 
in  Mark  iii.  28,  fcompare  Matt.  xii.  31,  where  the  simple  expression  "  men"  is 
given,)  Heb.  ii.  6,  (a  mere  translation  of  Ps.  viii.  4,)  Eph.  iii.  5,  Rev.  i.  13,  xiv.  14. 
In  the  peculiar  emphatic  limitation  to  which  this  note  refers,  it  is  applied  by  Jesus 
Christ  to  himself  about  eighty  times  in  the  gospels,  but  is  never  used  by  any  other 
person  in  the  New  Testament,  as  a  name  of  the  Savior,  except  by  Stephen,  in  Acts 
iii.  56.  It  never  occurs  in  this  sense  in  the  apostolic  epistles.  (Bretschneider.)  For 
this  use  of  the  word,  I  should  not  think  it  necessary  to  seek  any  mystical  or  import- 
ant reason,  as  so  many  have  done ;  nor  can  I  see  that  in  its  application  to  Jesus,  it  has 
any  very  direct  reference  to  the  circumstance  of  his  having,  though  divine,  put  on  a 
human  nature ;  but  it  is  simply  a  nobly  modest  and  strikingly  emphatic  form  of  expres- 
sion iised  by  him,  in  speaking  of  his  own  exalted  character  and  mighty  plans,  and 
partly  to  avoid  the  too  frequent  repetition  of  the  personal  pronoun.  It  is  at  once  evi- 
dent that  this  indirect  form,  in  the  third  person,  is  both  more  dignified  and  modest  in 
solemn  address,  than  the  use  of  the  first  person  singular  of  the  pronoim.  Exactly 
similar  to  this  are  many  forms  of  circumlocution  with  which  we  are  familiar.  The 
presiding  officer  of  any  great  deliberative  assembly,  for  instance,  in  announcing  his 
own  decision  on  points  of  order,  by  a  similar  periphrasis,  says,  "  The  Chair  decides," 
&c.  In  fashionable  forms  of  intercourse,  such  instances  are  still  more  frequent.  In 
many  books,  where  the  writer  has  occasion  to  speak  of  himself,  he  speaks  in  the  third 
person,  "  the  author,"  &c. 

This  periphrasis  ("  son  of")  is  not  peculiar  to  Oriental  languages,  as  every  Greek 
scholar  knows  who  is  familiar  with  Homer's  common  expression  vug  'Axaioi'',  (huu 
Mhaion,)  "  sons  of  Grecians,"  instead  of  "  Grecians"  simply,  which,  by  a  striking 
coincidence,  occurs  in  Joel  iii.  6,  in  the  same  sense.    Other  instances  might  be  need- 
lessly multiplied. 

Thmi  art  a  Rock,  ^c. — This  is  the  just  translation  of  Peter's  name,  and  the  fores 


72  LIVES   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

of  the  declaration  is  best  understood  by  this  rendering.  As  it  stands  in  the  original, 
it  is  "  Thou  art  Iltrpus,  {Pclros,  "  a  rock,")  and  on  this  Ucrpa  (^Pelra,  "  a  rock")  I  will 
*'uild  my  church,"— a  play  on  the  words  so  palpable,  that  great  injustice  is  done  to 
its  force  by  a  common,  tame,  unexplained  translation.  The  variation  of  the  words 
in  the  Greek,  from  the  masculine  to  the  feminine  termination,  makes  no  diflerence 
in  the  expression.  In  the  Greek  Testament,  the  feminine  Trirpa  (petra)  is  the  only 
form  of  the  word  used  as  the  common  noun  for  "  rock;"  but  the  masculine  irirpos  (pe- 
tros)  is  used  in  the  most  finisiied  classic  writers  of  the  ancient  Greek,  of  the  Ionic, 
Doric,  and  Attic,  as  Homer,  Herodotus,  Pindar,  Xenophon,  and,  in  the  later  order  of 
writers,  Diodorus  Siculus.  H.  Stephens  gives  the  masculine  form  as  the  primitive, 
but  Schneider  derives  it  from  the  feminine. 

This  sin^ple  and  natural  construction  has,  however,  seemed  to  many  of  ancient' 
and  modern  times  to  be  so  replete  with  difficulties,  and  so  irreconcilable  with  their 
notions  of  the  character  of  Peter,  and  with  the  extent  of  the  honor  implied  in  the 
words,  that  they  have  sought  other  modes  of  interpretation.  The  full  consideration 
of  the  various  constructions  that  have  been  put  on  these  words,  would  require  a 
much  larger  space  than  the  limits  of  this  book  will  allow,  and  the  vaslness  of  the 
subject  may  be  appreciated  from  the  circumstance  that  in  Suicer'.s  Thesaurus,  the 
statement  of  the  principal  opinions  of  the  Fathers  fills  eight  large  folio  columns; 
(Vol.  II.  col.  098 — 706,)— and  the  condensed  view  of  more  modern  opinions  in  Poole's 
Synopsis  covers  a  very  large  folio  page.  All  these  statements  of  opinions  may  be 
briefly  reduced  to  tbis.  The  great  majority  of  the  Fathers  consider  the  words  as  re- 
ferring primarily  to  Peter,  though  this  opinion  is  variously  qualified  in  different 
Eassages,  by  such  remarks  as  "  that  it  was  upon  Peter's  faith,  rather  than  upon  Peter 
imself,  that  the  church  v/as  founded" — a  nicety  that  may  well  be  characterized  as 
"  a  distinction  without  a  difference;"  for  who  supposes  that  the  church  could  be  said 
to  be  founded  upon  Peter,  in  any  more  personal  sense,  than  that  his  zeal,  faith,  devo- 
tion, and  energy,  on  this  occasion  manifested,  should  be  the  active  means  of  establish- 
ing, extending,  and  governing  the  church  of  that  Lord  whom  he  had  declared  to  be 
the  Christ?  But  this  is,  after  all,  a  secondary  construction,  and  not  the  true  primary 
grammatical  relation  of  the  words.  The  principles  of  syntax  require  that  the  words 
"ZAw  rock"  should  refer  to  some  substantive  already  expressed;  and  since  there  is  no 
such  abstract  noun  in  the  passage,  as  "faith"  but,  on  the  contrary,  the  name  of  Peter 
is  just  before  mentioned  with  a  palpable  allusion  to  the  paro7iomasia  of  Peiros  and 
Petra,  every  rule  of  grammar  and  common  sense  makes  it  necessary  to  infer  that 
Jesus  applied  the  words,  "  this  rock,"  to  Peter.  This  reference  to  the  etymological 
signification  of  proper  names  is  by  no  means  unusual  in  the  solemn  language  of  scrip- 
ture prophecy.  The  Hebrew  prophets  abound  in  such  allusions,  (Stuart's  Heb. 
Gram.  §  571 ;)  and  Jacob's  prophecy  (Gen.  xlix.)  is  in  many  passages  made  up  of 
faronumasiac  on  the  names  of  his  sons.  And  what  shows  that  the  Fathers  considered 
the  abstract  reference  as  a  secondary  view,  and  that  with  them  the  personal  reference 
to  Peter  was  the  primary  natural  application  of  the  passage,  is — the  fact  that  the  same 
Fathers  who  are  quoted  in  support  of  this  as  opposed  to  a  personal  i-eference,  do  in 
other  passages  distinctly  declare  Peter  himself  to  have  been  tlie  foundation  of  the 
church.  Thus  Chrysostom,  who  is  quoted  as  maintaining  in  some  passages  that 
Peter's  confession  was  the  foundation  of  the  church,  in  very  numerous  passages  calls 
Peter,  the  rock  on  which  the  church  was  founded,  and  explains  the  appellation  by 
reference  to  the  meaning  of  his  name.  'Apijayhi  rrtrpa,  Kpriirli  d(ja>>€VTos, — "  the  un- 
broken rock,  the  unshaken  foundation."  (Homil.  82.) — 'H  KprirrU  rw  CKK-Xriaias,  &c., — 
"  The  foundation  of  the  church, — truly  a  rock,  both  in  name  and  in  deed."  (Horn. 

108.) — 'O  (!io  TOVTO  K^riOoii  IltTfiOf,  tnciiav  rJ}  izirTTii   neTTeTpuijjiivnf  rjv, — "  For   this   caUse,    he 

was  called  a  rock,  {Petros,)  because,  in  faith,  he  was  of  a  rocky  firmness."  (Hom. 
2,  on  Ps.  li.)  Chrysostom  abounds  in  these  exalted  commendations  of  Peter,  and, 
in  several  places,  mentions  him  under  such  titles  as — "  the  foundation  of  the  church." 
(et/itXioi-  TJK  £/fxX;)<Tiuf,  Hom.  3,  on  Matt.) — "  The  foundation  of  the  confession."  (r^f 
o^roXoyiof,  Homil.  32.) — "The  column  of  the  church."  ('O  arvUs,  &c.  Hom.  32.) — 
"  The  firmament  of  the  faith," — and  many  other  expressions  less  immediately  con- 
nected with  this  passage.  Cyril,  of  Alexandria,  also,  who  is  quoted  in  defense  of  the 
secondary  apniication  of  these  words,  plainly  declares  that "  Jesus  very  properly  named 
him  Petros,  (the  rock,)  because  he  would  found  his  church  upon  him."  (Lib.  II.  in 
Johan.  i.  42.)— Theophanks,  also  quoted  in  defense  of  the  opposite  view,  says  that 
"  Peter  was  the  symbol  of  the  faith,  being,  as  it  were,  the  rock  of  the  faith,  and  the 
foundation  of  the  church." — Efiphanius  also  declares  Peter  "the  solid  rock  on  which 
the  church  was  built,"  (Haer.  59.) — Ambrose  says,  "  Peter  is  called  the  rock  of  the 


Peter's  discipleship.  73 

churches,  on  account  of  the  firmness  of  his  devotion,  as,  says  the  Lord—'  Thou  art 
Peter,  and  on  this  rock  I  will  build  my  church.'" — Photius  says  ihat  "  on  Peter  were 
laid  the  foundations  of  the  faith." — All  these  Fathers  are  quoted  moreover  in  support 
of  the  view,  that  it  was  not  upon  Peter  himself,  but  upon  his  confession,  his  faith,  and 
his  teaching,  that  the  church  was  built;  but  the  fair  construction  of  the  declarations 
here  quoted  is  enough  to  show,  that  however  distinct  the  opposite  declarations,  they 
never  can  annuU  the  opinion  that  Peter  was  the  person  meant  by  the  term — "  this 
rock," — and  that  on  him,  in  the  full  scope  of  the  poetical  prophecy  of  Christ,  tlie 
church  was  built.  Indeed  it  must  be  understood  as  a  thing  of  course,  that  the  whole 
expression  is  poetical,  and  requires  to  be  interpreted  into  common  language  to  give 
its  full  force,  equally  whether  the  words  are  referred  primarily  to  Peter's  confession 
or  to  Peter  himself; — if  such  a  distinction  can  indeed  be  made.  Besides  the  Fathers 
above  quoted,  there  are  numerous  others,  still  more  ancient,  Avhose  testimony  has 
always  been  esteemed  unequivocal  in  favor  of  the  application  of  the  words  to  Peter. 
Gregory  Nazianzen  says  of  Peter — "  He  indeed  was  called  a  rock,  and  to  him  were 
committed  the  foundations  of  the  church."  (Orat.  26,  de  Petro.)  He  also  calls  him 
"the  prop  of  the  church."  (Apolog.  ad  init.) — Basil,  of  Caesarea,  says — "  The  soul 
of  the  blessed  Peter  is  called  a  higii  rock,  because  it  fixed  its  roots  firmly  in  the  faith, 
and  raised  itself  steadily  against  the  shocks  of  temptation."  (On  Isa.  ii.) — In  another 
work,  he  says — "  Peter,  on  account  of  the  eminence  of  his  faith,  received  on  himself 
the  foundation  of  the  church."  (Adv.  Eunom.  Lib.  II.  p.  41,  d.  Paris  ed.) — Hilary 
calls  Peter  "  the  rock  of  the  church," — "  the  foundation  of  the  church,"  &c.,  in 
several  passages. — Epiphanius,  in  words  more  palpabl}''  direct  than  those  quoted  above 
from  him  by  Suicer,  calls  Peter  "  the  great  leader  (or  Coryphaeus, — xofjui^oidraroj 
dT)aT6\o>v)  of  the  apostles, — who  is  to  us  indeed  a  solid  rock  at  the  foundation  of  the 
faith,  on  which  the  church  universal  is  built ;  because  he,  first  of  all,  acknowledged 
Jesus  as  the  Christ,  the  son  of  the  living  God,  and  was  told  that  on  this  rock  of  firm 
faith,  Jesus  would  build  his  church."  (Haeres.  LIX.  8.)  He  elsewhere  says  that 
Peter  was  "  manife.nly  declared  the  great  leader  of  the  apostles."  (Haer.  LI.  17.) — 
Cyprian  (A.  D.  248,  earlier  than  any  before  quoted)  says,  in  three  places,  that  "  on 
Petrus,  the  church  was  built."  ("  Petrus,  super  quern  ecclesia  fundata  est."  Epist.  71, 
72,  bis.) — Tertullian  (A.  D.  192,  the  oldest  authority  on  this  text)  says  of  Peter,  that 
he  was  "  called  the  rock  on  which  the  church  was  to  be  built."  (Petrum,  aedificandae 
ecclesiae  petrani  dictum.  De  praescriptione  hereticorum,  22.)  A  testimony  so  an- 
cient, may  well  outweigh  in  authority  the  speculations  of  a  hundred  later  Fathers, 
as  to  the  original  understanding  of  the  text. — Origen  may  with  equal  propriety  be 
ranked  as  unqualified  testimony  to  the  same  effect,  notwithstanding  that  he  has  been 
claimed  as  opposing  the  sole  ascription  of  the  honor  to  Peter.  In  his  commentary  on 
Matt.  xvi.  16,  he  very  beautifully  extends  the  words  of  Christ  from  Peter  (to  whom 
he  does  not  deny  their  primary  application)  to  all  who  shall  imitate  the  zeal  and  faith 
of  Peter.  In  the  interpretation  which  he  gives,  he  grants,  of  course,  that  the  primary 
application  of  the  words  of  Jesus  on  that  occasion,  was  to  Peter,  from  whom  he  does 
not  seek  to  detract  a  particle  of  the  original  honor  of  these  exalted  terms ;  but  he 
proceeds  to  make  the  following  poetical,  yet  practical  application.  "  If  light  from  the 
Father  who  is  in  heaven  do  but  shine  in  our  heart,  we  shall  become  as  Peter,  and  to 
us  also  it  shall  be  said  by  the  Word,  '  Thou  art  Petros,'  &c.  For  every  disciple  of 
Christ  is  a  rock,  upon  which  is  built  every  doctrine  of  the  church,  and  that  conduct 
in  life  which  accords  with  it."  The  whole  passage,  so  far  from  denying  (as  some  sup- 
pose) the  primary  application  of  the  words  to  Peter,  does  most  triumphantly  confirm 
that  view,  by  extending  it  secondarily  to  all  who  shall  be  inspired  with  that  faith  and 
zeal  which  moved  Peter  on  that  occasion.  That  to  any  other  of  the  apostles  who  might 
be  equally  faithful  and  zealous,  the  same  words  might  be  applied,  need  not  be  denied ; 
but  in  the  case  recorded,  the  blessing,  the  promise,  and  the  whole  prophecy  were  ad- 
dressed to  Peter  solely  and  singly,  nor  was  any  part  ever  extended  to  the  other  apos- 
tles, except  the  assurance  that  what  they  should  bind  or  loose  on  earth  should  be  bound 
or  loosed  in  heaven ;  but  all  the  rest  remains  the  peculiar  privilege  of  Peter.  To  him 
alone  were  given  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  he  alone  was  declared 
blessed  in  the  revelation  of  the  truth  from  the  Father ;  and  all  these  peculiar  honors 
were  in  perfect  consistence  with  the  pre-eminence  which  was  always  granted  to  him. 
As  Origen  himself  says,  "  Peter  was  probably  j)ut  first  on  the  list  of  apo.stles,  because 
he  was  more  honorable  than  the  rest;  just  as  Judas  was  put  last."  (Comm.  in  Job.  I. 
42.)  And  finally,  he  says,  that  "  on  Peter  was  built  the  church  of  Christ."  (In 
Euseb.  H.  E.,  Vl.  19.) 
Thus  far  all  the  testimonies  of  the  Fathers  are  shown,  in  efiect,  to  harmonize,  in 


74  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

ascribing  the  reference  of  this  declaration  to  Peter,  and  many  more  might  be  shown 
to  the  same  purport.  But  Augusiin  (A.  D.  397)  was  the  first  to  maintain  that  by 
the  words — "  this  rock,"  Jesus  meant  himself,  and  really  had  no  direct  reference  at 
all  to  Peter  in  the  utterance  of  the  expression — "  upon  this  rock  I  will  build  my 
church."  This  opinion  has  been  adopted  and  earnestly  defended  in  modern  limes  by 
some  of  those  who  were  seeking  the  means  of  combating  that  Papal  tyranny  which 
based  its  blasphemous  claims  to  Divine  right  on  this  passage.  A  nost  of  Gallic  and 
of  Protestant  commentators,  whose  names,  though  great,  cannot  outweigh  the  evi- 
dence in  favor  of  a  better  view,  have  maintained  this  ground.  (For  the  list  of  these 
authors,  and  the  details  of  their  opinions,  see  Poole's  Synopsis  and  Wolf's  Curae,  iii 
loc.)  The  necessity  of  explaining  away  this  noble  pre-eminence  of  Peter,  (which 
seems  to  have  been  the  grand  motive  of  the  perversion  among  moderns,)  is  however 
entirely  obviated  and  removed,  by  the  fact  that  even  though  we  should  give  up  to  the 
Papists  all  which  they  demand  not  only  for  Peter's  eminence,  but  also  for  his  power 
and  suprcviacij  over  the  apostles  and  the  whole  church,  all  the  conclusions  which  they 
have  so  boldly  drawn  from  this  in  favor  of  any  superior  authority,  or  even  emi- 
nence of  the  church  of  Rome,  are  just  as  foolishly  false,  as  would  be  similar  infe- 
rences in  favor  of  any  other  church  claiming  the  name  of  Christian  in  any  part  of 
the  world.  The  church  of  Rome  has  no  more  connexion  with  Peter  than  the  church 
of  Novogorod  or  of  St.  Petersburgh  has;  and  any  pretension  that  Peter  ever  founded 
or  noticed  the  church  of  Rome,  or  made  it  the  inheritor  of  his  power  and  honor  as 
the  head  of  the  apostolic  company,  can  be  proved  to  be  as  idle  and  unfounded  as  the 
claim  also  set  up  by  the  Roman  see  to  the  power  of  working  miracles,  of  forgiving 
sins,  and  the  possession  of  the  keys  of  heaven ;  and  its  falsity  will  be  thus  proved  in 
the  right  place,  in  the  course  of  this  work. 

The  fullest  and  most  masterly  exhibition  of  the  papistical  argument  on  this  point, 
is  found  in  Natalis  Alexander's  "  Historia  Ecclesiastica."  (Vol.  I.  pp.  170 — 175,  and 
pp.  191 — 207.)—  Baronius  has  also  an  argument  of  some  length  on  this  subject  in  his 
Annales.  (A.  C.  33,  §§  IG— 27.) — The  true  and  just  defense  of  this  primary  application 
of  the  words  may  be  found  in  Cameron,  on  the  passage.  His  argument  is  most 
triumphantly  displayed  in  Poole's  Synopsis,  where  it  is  shown  to  be  perfectly  con- 
sistent with  the  firm  maintenance  of  Protestant  ground. 

Among  the  most  eminent  modern  supporters  of  Augustin's  reference  of  it  to  Christ, 
are  Maldonati,  Erasmus,  Lightfoot,  and  Wolf.  The  two  latter  may  be  consulted  for 
the  best  specimens  of  this  argument. 

After  this  distinct  profession  of  faith  in  him  by  his  disciples, 
through  Peter,  Jesus  particularly  and  solemnly  charged  them  all, 
that  they  should  not  then  assert  their  belief  to  others,  lest  they 
should  thereby  be  drawn  into  useless  and  unfortunate  contests  about 
their  Master,  with  those  who  entertained  a  very  different  opinion  of 
him.  For  Jesus  knew  that  his  disciples,  shackled  and  possessed  as 
they  were  with  their  phantasies  about  the  earthly  reign  of  a  Mes- 
siah, were  not,  as  yet,  sufficiently  prepared  to  preach  this  doctrine  : 
and  he  wisely  foresaw  that  the  mass  of  the  Jewish  people  would 
either  put  no  faith  at  all  in  such  an  announcement,  or  that  the  ill 
disposed  and  ambitious  would  abuse  it,  to  the  purposes  of  effecting 
a  political  revolution,  by  raising  a  rebellion  against  the  Roman 
rulers  of  Palestine,  and  oversetting  foreign  power.  He  had,  it  is 
true,  already  sent  forth  his  twelve  apostles,  to  preach  the  coming 
of  the  kingdom ;  but  that  was  only  to  the  effect  that  the  time  of 
the  Messiah's  reign  was  nigh,  and  that  the  lives  and  hearts  of  all 
must  be  changed, — all  which  the  apostles  might  well  preach,  with- 
out pretending  to  announce  who  .'^e  Messiah  was. 


Peter's  discipleship.  75 

his  ambitious  hopes  and  their  humiliation. 

This  avowal  of  Peter's  belief  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  to 
which  the  other  apostles  gave  their  assent,  silent  or  loud,  was  so 
clear  and  hearty,  that  Jesus  plainly  perceived  their  persuasion  of 
his  divine  authority  to  be  so  strong,  that  they  might  now  bear  a 
decisive  and  open  explanation  of  those  things  which  he  had  hith- 
erto rather  darkly  and  dimly  hinted  at,  respecting  his  own  death. 
He  also,  at  this  time,  brought  out  the  full  truth  more  clearly,  as  to 
the  miseries  which  hung  over  him,  and  his  expected  death,  with 
the  view  the  more  effectually  to  overthrow  those  false  notions 
which  they  had  preconceived,  of  earthly  happiness  and  triumph 
to  be  expected  in  the  Messiah's  kingdom ;  and  with  the  view,  also, 
of  preparing  them  for  the  events  which  must  shortly  happen  ;  lest, 
after  they  saw  him  nailed  to  the  cross,  they  should  all  at  once  lose 
their  high  hopes,  and  utterly  give  him  up.  He  knew,  too,  that  he 
had  such  influence  with  his  disciples,  that  if  their  minds  were 
shocked,  and  their  faith  in  him  shaken,  at  first,  by  such  a  painful 
disclosure,  he  could  soon  bring  them  back  to  a  proper  confidence 
in  him.  Accordingly,  from  this  time,  he  began  distinctly  to  set 
forth  to  them,  how  he  must  go  to  Jerusalem,  and  suffer  many 
things  from  the  elders,  and  chief  priests,  and  scribes,  and  be  killed, 
and  be  raised  again  on  the  third  day.  There  is  much  room  for 
reasonable  doubt,  as  to  the  manner  in  which  those  who  heard 
this  declaration  of  Christ,  understood  it  at  the  time.  As  to  the 
former  part  of  it,  namely,  that  he  would  be  ill-treated  by  the  great 
men  of  the  Jewish  nation,  both  by  those  ruling  in  the  civil  and  in 
the  religious  government,  it  was  too  plain  for  any  one  to  put  any 
but  the  right  meaning  upon  it.  But  the  promise  that  he  should, 
after  this  horrible  fate,  rise  again  from  the  dead  on  the  third  day, 
did  not,  as  it  is  evident,  by  any  means  convey  to  them  the  mean- 
ing which  all  who  read  it  now,  are  able  to  find  in  it.  Nothing 
can  be  more  plain  to  a  careful  reader  of  the  gospels,  than  that  his 
disciples  and  friends  had  not  the  slightest  expectation  that  he  would 
ever  appear  to  them  after  his  cruel  death ;  and  the  mingled  horror 
and  dread  with  which  the  first  news  of  that  event  was  received 
by  them,  shows  them  to  have  been  utterly  unprepared  for  it.  It 
required  repeated  positive  demonstration,  on  his  part,  to  assure 
them  that  he  was  truly  alive  among  them,  in  his  own  form  and 
character.  The  question  then  is — what  meaning  had  they  all 
along  given  to  the  numerous  declarations  uttered  by  him  to  them, 


76  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

apparently  foretelling  this,  in  the  distinct  terms  of  which  the 
above  passage  is  a  specimen  ?  Had  they  understood  it  as  we  do, 
and  yet  so  absolutely  disbelieved  it,  that  they  put  no  faith  in  the 
event  itself,  when  it  had  so  palpably  occurred  ?  And  had  they,  for 
months  and  years,  followed  over  Palestine,  through  labors,  and 
troubles,  and  dangers,  a  man,  who,  as  they  supposed,  was  boldly 
endeavoring  to  saddle  their  credulity  with  a  burden  too  monstrous 
for  even  them  to  bear  ?  They  must,  from  the  nature  of  their  con- 
nexion with  him,  have  put  the  most  unlimited  confidence  in  him, 
and  could  not  thus  devotedly  have  given  themselves  up  to  a  man 
whom  they  believed  or  suspected  to  be  constantly  uttering  to  them 
a  falsehood  so  extravagant  and  improbable.  They  must,  then, 
have  put  some  meaning  on  it,  different  from  that  which  our  clearer 
light  enables  us  to  see  in  it ;  and  that  meaning,  no  doubt,  they 
honestly  and  firmly  believed,  until  the  progress  of  events  showed 
them  the  power  of  the  prophecy  in  its  wonderful  and  literal  fulfil- 
ment. They  may  have  misunderstood  it,  in  his  lifetime,  in  this 
way :  a  universal  characteristic  of  the  language  of  the  children  of 
Shem,  seems  to  be  a  remarkable  proneness  to  figurative  expres- 
sions ;  and  the  more  abstract  the  ideas  which  the  speaker  wishes  to 
convey,  the  more  strikingly  material  are  the  figures  he  uses,  and 
the  more  poetical  the  language  in  which  he  conveys  them.  Teach- 
ers of  morals  and  religion,  most  especially,  have,  among  those  na- 
tions of  the  East,  been  always  distinguished  for  their  highly  figu- 
rative expressions,  and  none  abound  more  richly  in  them  than  the 
writers  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament.  So  peculiarly  effective, 
for  his  great  purposes,  did  Jesus  Christ,  in  particular,  find  this 
variety  of  eloquence,  that  it  is  distinctly  said  of  him,  that  he  sel- 
dom or  never  spoke  to  the  people  without  a  parable,  which  he  was 
often  obliged  to  expound  more  in  detail,  to  his  chosen  followers, 
when  apart  with  them.  This  style  of  esoteric  and  exoteric  in- 
struction had  early  taught  his  disciples  to  look  into  his  most  ordi- 
nary expressions  for  a  hidden  meaning ;  and  nothing  can  be  more 
likely  than  that  often,  when  left  to  their  own  conjectures,  they,  for 
a  time  at  least,  overleaped  the  simple  Hteral  truth,  into  a  fog  of 
figurative  interpretations,  as  too  many  of  their  very  modern  suc- 
cessors have  often  done,  to  their  own  and  others'  misfortune.  We 
certainly  know  that,  in  regard  to  those  very  expressions  about 
raising  the  dead,  there  was  a  very  earnest  inquiry  among  the  three 
chief  apostles,  some  time  after,  as  will  be  mentioned  in  place, 
showing  that  it  never  seemed  possible  to  them  that  their  Lord, 


Peter's  discipleship.  ^71 

mighty  as  he  had  showed  himseh',  could  ever  mean  to  say  to  them, 
that,  when  his  bitter  foes  had  crowned  his  hfe  of  toil  and  cares 
with  a  bloody  and  cruel  exit,  he — even  He,  could  dare  to  promise 
them,  that  he  would  break  through  that  iron  seal,  which,  when 
once  set  upon  the  energies  of  man,  neither  goodness,  nor  valor, 
nor  knowledge,  nor  love,  had  ever  loosened,  but  which,  since  the 
first  dead  yielded  his  breath,  not  the  mightiest  prophet,  nor  the 
most  inspired,  could  ever  break  through  for  himself  The  figure 
of  death  and  resurrection,  has  often  been  made  a  striking  image 
of  many  moral  changes ; — of  some  one  of  which,  the  hearers  of 
Jesus  probably  first  interpreted  it.  In  connexion  with  what  he 
had  previously  said,  nothing  could  seem  more  natural  to  them, 
than  that  he,  by  this  peculiarly  strong  metaphor,  wished  to  remind 
them  that,  even  after  his  death  by  the  envious  and  cruel  hands 
of  Jewish  magistrates,  in  but  a  few  days,  his  name, — the  ever  fresh 
influence  of  his  bright  and  holy  example, — the  undying  powers  of 
his  breathing  and  burning  words,  should  still  live  with  them,  and 
with  them  triumph  over  the  momentary  struggles  of  the  enemies 
of  the  truth. 

The  manner,  also,  in  which  Simon  Peter  received  this  commu- 
nication, shows  that  he  could  not  have  anticipated  so  glorious  and 
dazzling  a  result  of  such  horrible  evils :  for,  however  literally  he 
may  have  taken  the  prophecy  of  Christ's  cruel  death,  he  used  all 
his  powers  to  dissuade  his  adored  master  from  exposing  himself 
to  a  fate  so  dark  and  dreadful, — so  sadly  destructive  of  all  the 
new-born  hopes  of  his  chosen  followers,  and  from  which  the  con- 
clusion of  the  prophecy  seemed  to  oifer  no  clear  or  certain  mode 
of  escape.  Never  before,  had  Jesus  spoken  in  such  plain  and  de- 
cided terms  about  the  prospect  of  his  own  terrible  death.  Peter, 
whose  heart  had  just  been  lifted  up  to  the  skies  with  joy  and  hope, 
in  the  prospect  of  the  glorious  triumphs  to  be  achieved  by  his 
Lord  through  his  means,  and  whose  thoughts  were  even  then 
dwelling  on  the  honors,  the  power,  the  fame,  which  were  to  accrue 
to  him  for  his  share  in  the  splendid  work, — was  shocked  beyond 
measure,  at  the  strange  and  seemingly  contradictory  view  of  the 
results,  now  taken  by  his  great  leader.  With  the  confident  fami- 
harity  to  which  their  mutual  love  and  intimacy  entitled  him,  in 
some  measure,  he  laid  his  hand  expostulatingly  upon  him,  and 
drev/  him  partly  aside,  to  urge  him  privately  to  forget  thoughts  of 
despondency,  so  unworthy  of  the  great  enterprise  of  Israel's  resto- 
ration, to  which  they  had  all  so  manfully  pledged  themselves  as  his 


78  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

supporters.  We  may  presume,  that  he,  in  a  tone  of  encourage- 
ment, endeavored  to  show  him  how  impossible  it  would  be  for  the 
dignitaries  of  Jerusalem  to  withstand  the  tide  of  popularity  which 
had  already  set  so  strongly  in  favor  of  Jesus ;  that  so  far  from 
looking  upon  himself  as  in  danger  of  a  death  so  infamous,  from 
the  Sanhedrim,  he  might  at  the  head  of  the  hosts  of  his  zealous 
Galileans,  march  as  a  conqueror  to  Jerusalem,  and  thence  give 
laws  from  the  throne  of  his  father  David,  to  all  the  wide  territories 
of  that  far-ruling  king.  Such  dreams  of  earthly  glory  seemed  to 
have  filled  the  soul  of  Peter  at  that  time ;  and  we  cannot  wonder, 
then,  that  every  ambitious  feeling  within  him  recoiled  at  the 
gloomy  announcement,  that  the  idol  of  his  hopes  was  to  end  hi? 
days  of  unrequited  toil,  by  a  death  so  infamous  as  that  of  the 
cross. — "  Be  it  far  from  thee,  Lord,"  ("  God  forbid,"  "  Do  not  say 
so,"  "  Do  not  thus  damp  our  courage  and  high  hopes,")  "  This 
must  not  happen  to  thee." — Jesus,  on  hearing  these  words  of  ill- 
timed  rebuke,  which  showed  how  miserably  his  chief  follower  had 
been  infatuated  and  misled  by  his  foolish  and  carnal  ambition, 
turned  away  indignantly  from  the  low  and  degraded  motives,  by 
which  Peter  sought  to  bend  him  from  his  holy  purposes.  Not 
deigning  to  look  upon  him,  but  turning  to  the  other  disciples,  who 
had  kept  their  feelings  of  regret  and  disappointment  to  themselves, 
he,  in  the  most  energetic  terms,  expressed  his  abhorrence  of  such 
notions,  by  his  language  to  the  speaker.  "  Get  thee  behind  me, 
Satan  ;  thou  art  a  scandal  to  me ;  for  thou  savorest  not  the  things 
which  be  of  God,  but  the  things  which  be  of  men." — "  In  these 
fervent  aspirations  after  eminence,  I  recognize  none  of  the  pure 
devotion  to  the  good  of  man,  which  is  the  sure  test  of  the  love  of 
God ;  but  the  selfish  desire  for  transient,  paltry  distinction,  which 
characterizes  the  vulgar  ambition  of  common  men,  enduring  no 
toil  or  pain,  but  in  the  hope  of  a  more  than  equal  earthly  re- 
ward speedily  accruing." — After  this  stern  reply,  which  must  have 
strongly  impressed  them  all  with  the  nature  of  the  mistake  of 
which  they  had  been  guilty,  he  addressed  them  still  further,  in 
continuation  of  the  same  design  of  correcting  their  false  notion 
of  the  earthly  advantages  to  be  expected  by  his  companions  in  toil. 
He  immediately  gave  them  a  most  untempting  picture  of  the  char- 
acter and  conduct  of  him  who  could  be  accepted  as  a  fit  fellow- 
worker  with  Jesus.  "  If  any  one  wishes  to  come  after  me,  let  him 
deny  himself,  and  let  him.  take  up  his  cross,"  (as  if  we  should  say, 
let  him  come  with  his  baiter  around  his  neck,  and  with  the  gibbet 


Peter's  discipleship.  79^ 

on  his  shoulder,)  "  and  follow  me.  For  whosoever  shall  save  his 
life  for  my  sake,  shall  lose  it ;  and  whosoever  will  lose  his  life  for 
my  sake,  shall  find  it.  For  what  is  a  man  profited,  if  he  shall 
gain  the  ^dJioU  world,  eind  lose  his  own  soul  1  For  the  Son  of  Mem 
shall  come  in  the  glory  of  his  Father,  with  his  angels ;  and  then, 
he  shall  reward  every  man  according  to  his  works."  "  I  solemnly 
tell  you,  there  are  some  standing  here  who  shall  not  taste  of  death, 
till  they  see  the  Son  of  Man  coming  in  his  kingdom."—"  In  vain 
would  you,  in  pursuit  of  your  idle  dreams  of  earthly  glory,  yield 
up  all  the  powers  of  yuur  soni,  and  spend  your  life  for  an  object 
so  worthless.  After  all,  what  is  there  in  all  the  world,  if  you 
should  have  the  whole  at  your  disposal — what,  for  the  momentary 
enjo5'-ment  of  which,  you  can  calmly  pay  down  your  soul  as  the 
price  ?  Seek  not,  then,  for  rewards  so  unworthy  of  the  energies 
which  I  have  recognized  in  you,  and  have  devoted  to  far  nobler 
purposes.  Higher  honors  will  crown  your  toils  and  suflerings,  in 
my  service ; — nobler  prizes  are  seen  near,  with  the  eye  of  faith. 
Speedily  will  the  frail  monuments  of  this  world's  wonders  crumble, 
and  the  memory  of  its  greatnesses  pass  away ;  but  over  the  ruins 
of  kingdoms,  the  coming  of  the  Man  to  whom  you  have  joined 
yourselves  is  sure ;  and  in  that  triumphant  advent,  you  shall  find 
the  imperishable  requital  of  your  faithful  and  zealous  works.  And 
of  the  nature  and  aspect  of  the  glories  which  I  now  so  dimly 
shadow  in  words,  some  of  those  who  now  hear  me  shall  soon  be 
the  living  witnesses,  as  of  a  foretaste  of  rewards,  whose  full  en- 
joyment can  be  yours,  only  after  the  weariness  and  misery  of  this 
poor  life  are  all  passed.  Years  of  toil,  dangers,  pain,  and  sorrow, 
— lives  passed  in  contempt  and  disgrace, — deaths  of  ignominy,  of 
unpitied  anguish,  and  lingering  torture,  must  be  your  passage  to 
the  joys  of  which  I  speak ;  while  the  earthly  honors  which  you 
now  covet,  shall  for  ages  continue  to  be  the  prize  of  the  base,  the 
cruel,  and  the  foolish,  from  whom  you  vainly  hope  to  snatch 
them." 

THE  TRANSFIGURATION. 

The  mysterious  promise  thus  made  by  Jesus,  of  a  new  and  pe- 
culiar exhibition  of  himself,  to  some  of  his  chosen  ones,  he  soon 
sought  an  occasion  of  executing.  About  six  or  eight  days  after 
this  remarkable  conversation,  he  took  Peter,  and  the  two  sons  of 
Zebedee,  James  and  John,  and  went  with  them  into  a  high  moun- 
tain, apart  by  themselves.     As  to  the  name  and  place  of  this 


80  LltTES  OP  THii  AP0S1LE3. 

mountain,  a  matter  of  some  interest  certainly,  there  have  been  two 
opinions  among  those  who  have  attempted  to  illustrate  the  topo- 
graphy of  the  gospels. — The  phrase,  "  a  high  mountain,"  has  in- 
stantly brought  to  the  thoughts  of  most  learned  readers,  Mount 
Tabor,  famous  for  several  great  events  in  Bible  history,  which 
they  have  instantly  adopted,  without  considering  the  place  in 
which  the  previous  account  had  left  Jesus,  which  was  Caesarea 
Philippi ;  already  described  as  in  the  farthest  northern  part  of  Gal- 
ilee.    Now,  Mount  Tabor,  however  desirable  in  other  particulars, 
as  the  scene  of  a  great  event  in  the  life  of  Jesus,  was  full  seventy 
miles  south  of  the  place  where  Jesus  had  the  conversation  with 
his  disciples,  which  led  to  the  remarkable  display  which  followed 
a  few  days  after,  on  the  mountain.     It  is  true,  that  the  intervening 
period  of  a  week  was  sufficient  to  enable  him  to  travel  this  dis- 
tance with  ease ;  but  the  difficulty  is,  to  assign  some  possible  ne- 
cessity or  occasion  for  such  a  journey.     Certainly,  he  needed  not 
to  have  gone  thus  far  to  find  a  mountain,  for  Caesarea  Philippi 
itself  stands  by  the  base  of  Panium,  which  is  a  part  of  the  great 
Syrian  range  of  Antilibanus.     This  great  mountain,  or  mountain 
chain,  rises  directly  behind  the  city,  and  parts  of  it  are  so  high 
above  the  peak  of  Tabor,  and  every  other  mountain  in  Palestine,  as 
to  be  covered  with  snow,  even  in  that  warm  country.    The  original 
readers  of  the  gospel  story,  were  dwellers    in     Israel,    and  must 
have  been,  for  the  most  part,  well  acquainted  with  the  character 
of  the  places  which  were  the  scenes  of  the  incidents,  and  could 
hardly  have  been  ignorant  of  the  fact,  that  this  splendid  city,  so 
famous  as  the  monument  of  royal  pride  and  gratitude,  was  near 
the  northern  end  of  Palestine,  and,  of  course,  must  have  been 
known  even  by  those  who  had  never  seen  it,  nor  heard  it  particu- 
larly described,  to  be  very  near  the  great  Syrian  mountains ;  so 
near,  too,  as  to  be  very  high  elevated  above  the  cities  of  the  south- 
ern country,  since  not  far  from  the  city  gushed  out  the  most  dis- 
tant sources  of  the  rapid  Jordan.    But  another  difficulty,  in  respect 
to  this  journey  of  seventy  miles  to  Tabor,  is,  that  while  the  gospels 
give  no  account  of  it,  it  is  even  contradicted  by  Mark's  statement, 
that  after  departing  from  the  mountain,  he  passed  through  Galilee, 
and  came  to  Capernaum,  which  is  between  Tabor  and  Caesarea 
Philippi,  twenty  or  thirty  miles  from  the  former,  and  forty  or  fifty 
from  the  latter.     Now,  that  Jesus  Christ  spared  no  exertion  of 
body  or  mind,  in  "  going  about  doing  good,"  no  one  can  doubt ; 
but  that  he  would  spend  the  strength  devoted  to  useful  purposes, 


Peter's  discipleship.  81 

in  traveling  from  one  end  of  Galilee  to  the  other,  for  no  greater 
good  than  to  ascend  a  particular  mountain,  and  then  to  travel 
thirty  miles  back  on  the  same  route,  is  a  most  unnecessary  tax 
upon  our  faith.     But  here,  close  to  Caesarea  Philippi,  was  the 
mighty  range  of  Antilibanus,  known  in   Hebrew  poetry  by  the 
name  of  Hermon,  in  this  part ;  and  He,  whose  presence  made  all 
places  holy,  could  not  have  chosen,  among  all  the  mountains  of 
Palestine,  one  which  nature  had  better  fitted  to  impress  the  be- 
holder who  stood  on  the  summit,  with  ideas  of  the  vast  and  sub- 
lime.    Modern  travelers  assure  us  that,  from  the  peaks  behind  the 
city,  the  view  of  the  lower  mountains  to  the  south, — of  the  plain 
through  which  the  young  Jordan  flows,  soon  spreading  out  into 
the  broad  sheet  of  lake  Houle,  (Samachonitis  lacus,)  and  of  the 
country,  almost  to  lake  Tiberias,  is  most  magnificent.     The  pre- 
cise peak  which  was  the  scene  of  the  event  here  related,  it  is  im- 
possible to  conjecture.     It  may  have  been  any  one  of  three  which 
are  prominent :   either  the  castle  hill,  or  farther  oiF  and  much 
higher,  Mount  Bostra,  once  the  site  of  a  city,  or,  farther  still,  and 
highest  of  all,  Merum  Jubba,  which  is  but  a  few  hours  walk  from 
the  city.      The  general  impression  of  the  vulgar,  however,  and  of 
those  who  take  the  traditions  of  the  vulgar  and  the  ignorant,  with- 
out examination,  has  been,  that  Tabor  was  the  scene  of  the  event ; 
so  that,  at  this  day,  it  is  known  among  the  Christians  of  Pa- 
lestine, by  the  name  of  the  Mount  of  the  Transfiguration.     iSo 
idly  are  these  foolish  local  traditions  received,  that  this  falsehood, 
so  palpable  on  inspection,  has  been  quietly  handed  down  from  the 
time  of  the  devoutly  credulous  empress  Helena,  when  hundreds  of 
these  and  similar  localities,  were  hunted  up  so  hastily,  and  by  per- 
sons so  ill-qualified  for  the  search,  that  more  modern  investigators 
may  be  pardoned  for  treating  with  so  little  consideration  the  voice 
of  such  antiquity,  when  it  is  found  opposed  to  a  rational  and  con- 
sistent understanding  of  the  gospel  story.    When  the  question  was 
first  Eisked,  '-'Where  is  the  mount  of  the  transfiguration?"  there 
were  enough  persons  interested  to  reply,  "  Mount  Tabor."     No 
reason  was  probably  asked  for  the  decision,  and  none  was  given ; 
but  as  the  scene  was  acted  on  a  high  mountain  in  Galilee,  and  as 
Tabor  answered  perfectly  to  this  very  simple  description,  and  was 
moreover  interesting  on  many  other  accounts,  both  historical  and 
natural,  it  was  adopted  for  the  transfiguration  without  any  discus- 
sion whatever,  among  those  on  the  spot.     Still,  to  learned  and 
diligent  readers  of  the  gospels,  the  inconsistencies  of  such  a  belief 


82  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

have  been  so  obvious,  that  many  great  theologians  have  decided, 
for  the  reasons  here  given,  that  the  transfiguration  must  have  taken 
place  on  some  part  of  Mount  Panium,as  it  was  called  by  the  Greeks 
and  Romans ;  known  among  the  Jews,  however,  from  the  earliest 
times,  by  the  far  older  name  of  Mount  Hermon.  On  the  determi- 
nation of  this  point,  more  words  have  been  expended  than  some 
may  deem  the  matter  to  deserve  ;  but  among  the  various  objects 
of  the  modern  historian  of  Bible  times,  none  is  more  important  or 
interesting,  than  that  of  settling  the  often  disputed  topography  of 
the  sacred  narrative;  and  as  the  ground  here  taken  differs  so 
widely  from  the  almost  universally  received  opinion,  the  minute 
reasons  were  loudly  called  for,  in  justification  of  the  author's  bold- 
ness. The  ancient  blunder  here  detected,  and  shown  to  be  based 
only  upon  a  guess,  is  a  very  fair  specimen  of  the  way  in  which, 
in  the  moral,  as  in  the  natural  sciences,  "  they  all  copy  from  one 
another,"  without  taking  pains  to  look  into  the  truth  of  small  mat- 
ters. And  it  seems  to  show,  moreover,  how,  when  men  of  patient 
and  zealous  accuracy,  have  taken  the  greatest  pains  to  expose  and 
correct  so  causeless  an  error,  common  readers  and  writers,  too, 
will  carelessly  and  lazily  slip  back  into  the  old  blunder,  thus 
making  the  counsels  of  the  learned  of  no  effect,  and  loving  dark- 
ness rather  than  light,  error  rather  than  exactness,  because  they 
are  too  shiftless  to  find  a  good  reason  for  what  is  laid  down  before 
them  as  truth.  But  so  it  is.  It  is,  and  always  has  been,  and 
always  will  be,  so  much  easier  for  men  to  swallow  whole,  or  reject 
whole,  the  propositions  made  to  them,  that  the  vast  majority  had 
much  rather  believe  on  other  people's  testimony,  than  go  through 
the  harassing  and  tiresome  task  of  looking  up  the  proofs  for  them- 
selves. In  this  very  instance,  this  important  topographical  blun- 
der was  fully  exposed  and  corrected  a  century  and  a  half  ago,  by 
Lightfoot,  one  of  the  greatest  Hebrew  scholars  that  ever  lived ; 
and  we  see  how  much  wiser  the  world  is  for  his  pains. 

Caesarea  Philippi. — This  city  stood  where  all  the  common  maps  place  it,  in  the 
farthest  northern  part  of  Palestine,  just  at  the  foot  of  the  mountains,  and  near  the 
fountain  head  of  the  Jordan.  The  name  by  which  it  is  called  in  the  gospels,  is  an- 
o^ner  instance,  like  Julias  Bethsaida,  of  a  compliment  paid  by  the  servile  kings,  of 
the  divisions  of  Palestine,  to  their  imperial  masters,  who  had  given,  and  who  at  any 
time  could  take  away,  crown  and  kingdom  from  them.  The  most  ancient  name  by 
which  this  place  is  known  to  have  been  mentioned  in  the  Hebrew  scriptures,  is  Lasha, 
in  Genesis  x.  19,  afterwards  variously  modified  into  Les/iem,  (Joshua  xix.  47,)  and 
Laish,  (Judges  xviii.  7,  xiv.  29,)  a  name  somewhat  like  the  former  in  soimd,  though 
totally  different  in  meaning,  (acrS  leskem.,  "  a  precious  stone,"  and  Br^"?  laish,  "  a  lion,") 
undoubtedly  all  three  being  from  the  same  root,  (and  bearing  only  an  accidental  resem- 
blance to  the  two  Hebrew  words  just  quoted,)  but  variously  modified  in  the  changing 
pronunciations  of  different  ages  and  tribes.    In  the  earUest  passage,  (Gen,  x.  19,)  it 


Peter's  discipleship.  83 

is  clearly  described  as  on  the  farthest  northern  limit  of  the  land  of  Canaan,  and  after- 
wards being  conquered,  later  than  most  of  that  region,  by  a  band  of  the  tribe  of  Dan, 
and  receiving  the  name  of  this  tribe,  as  an  addition  to  its  former  one,  it  became 

{)roverbially  known  imder  the  name  of  Dan,  as  the  farthest  northern  point  of  the 
and  of  Israel, — Beersheba  being  the  southern  one.  It  did  not,  however,  lose  its  early 
Canaanitish  name  till  long  after ;  for,  in  Isaiah  x.  30,  it  is  spoken  of  under  the  name 
of  Laish,  as  the  most  distant  part  of  Israel  to  which  the  cry  of  the  distressed  could 
reach.  It  is  also  mentioned  under  its  later  name  of  Dan,  in  Gen.  xiv.  14,  and  Deut. 
xxxiv.  1,  where  it  is  given  by  the  writer,  or  some  copyist,  in  anticipation  of  the  sub- 
sequent account  of  its  acquiring  this  name  after  the  conquest.  Josephus  also  men- 
tions it,  under  this  name,  in  Ant.  book  I.  chap.  x.  and  book  VIII.  chap.  viii.  sect.  4,  in 
both  which  places  he  speaks  of  it  as  standing  at  one  of  the  sources  of  the  Jordan, 
from  which  circumstance,  no  doubt,  the  latter  part  of  the  river's  name  is  derived. 
After  the  overthrow  of  the  Israelitish  power  in  that  region,  it  fell  into  the  hands  of 
new  possessors,  and  under  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  went  by  the  name  of  Panias, 
(Josephus  and  Ptolemy,)  or  Paneas,  (Josephus  and  Pliny,)  which  name,  according  to 
Ptolemy,  it  had  under  the  Phoenicians.  This  name,  supposed  to  have  been  taken 
from  the  Phoenician  name  of  the  mountain  near,  Josephus  gives  to  it,  in  all  the  later 
periods  of  his  history,  until  he  speaks  of  the  occasion  on  which  it  received  a  new 
change  of  name. 

Its  commanding  and  remarkable  position,  on  the  extremity  of  Palestine,  made  it  a 
frontier  post  of  some  importance ;  and  it  was  therefore  a  desirable  addition  to  the  do- 
minions of  Herod  the  Great,  who  received  it  from  his  royal  patron,  Augustus  Caesar, 
along  with  its  adjacent  region  between  Galilee  and  Trachonitis,  after  the  death  of 
Zenodorus,  its  former  possessor.  (Jos.  Ant.  XV.  x.  3.)  Herod  the  Great,  out  of 
gratitude  for  this  princely  addition  to  his  dominions,  at  a  time  when  attempts  were 
made  to  deprive  him  of  his  imperial  master's  favor,  raised  near  the  city  a  noble 
monument  to  Augustus.  (Jos.  as  above  quoted.)  "  He  built  a  monument  to  him,  of 
white  marble,  in  the  land  of  Zenodorus,  near  Panium.  There  is  a  beautiful  cave 
in  the  moimtain,  and  beneath  it  there  is  a  chasm  in  the  earth,  rugged,  and  of  immense 
depth,  full  of  still  water,  and  over  it  hangs  a  vast  mountain ;  and  under  the  cave  rise 
the  springs  of  the  Jordan.  This  place,  already  very  famous,  he  adorned  with  the 
temple  which  he  consecrated  to  Caesar."  A  lofty  temple  of  white  marble,  on  such 
a  high  spot,  contrasted  with  the  dark  rocks  of  the  mountain  and  cave  around,  must 
have  been  a  splendid  object  in  the  distance,  and  a  place  of  frequent  resort. 

This  city,  along  with  the  adjacent  provinces,  after  the  death  of  the  iirst  Herod,  was 
given  to  his  son  Philip,  made  tetrarch  of  Iturea  and  Trachonitis.  This  prince,  out 
of  gratitude  to  the  royal  donor,  at  the  same  time  when  he  rebuilt  and  repaired  Beth- 
saida,  as  alreadj^  mentioned,  "  also  embellished  Paneas,  at  the  fountains  of  the  Jordan, 
and  gave  it  the  name  of  Caesarea."  (Jos.  Ant.  book  XVIII.  chap.  ii.  sec.  1,  also  Jewish 
War,  book  II.  chap.  ix.  sec.  1.)  and  to  distinguish  it  from  other  Caesareas,  hereafter 
to  be  mentioned,  it  was  called  from  the  name  of  its  royal  builder,  Caesarea  Philippi, 
that  is,  "  the  Caesarea  of  Philip."  By  this  name  it  was  most  commonly  known  in. 
the  time  of  Christ ;  but  it  did  not  answer  the  end  of  perpetuating  the  name  of  its 
builder  and  his  patron,  for  it  shortly  afterwards  received  its  former  name,  Paneas, 
which,  probably,  never  went  wholly  out  of  i\se.  As  late  as  the  time  of  Pliny,  (about 
A.  D.  70,)  Paneas  was  a  part  of  the  name  of  Caesarea.  "  Fons  Paneas,  qui  cognomen 
dedit  Caesareae," — "■  the  foimtain  Paneas,  which  gave  to  Caesarea  a  surname  ;"  (Plin. 
Nat.  Hist,  book  v.  chap.  1.5:)  which  shows  that,  at  that  time,  the  name  Paneas  was 
one,  by  which  even  foreign  geographers  recognized  this  city,  in  spite  of  the  imperial 
dignity  of  its  new  title.  Eusebius  (about  A.  D.  315)  speaks  of  "  Caesarea  Philippi, 
which  the  Phoenicians  call  Paneas,  at  the  foot  of  moimt  Panium."    (<I>iXi7nroD  Kii- 

capcia   i>   Jlavca^a  ^oiviKei  TOoaayoptiovcn,    &C.  Hist.   EcC.  book  vii.  chap.    17.)      Jcrome 

(about  A.  D.  392)  never  mentions  the  name  Caesarea  Philippi,  as  belonging  to  this 
cit\',  except  in  commenting  on  Matt.  xvi.  13,  where  he  finds  it  necessary  to  explain, 
this  name,  as  an  antiquated  term,  then  out  of  use.  "  Caesaream  Philippi,  quae  nunc  di- 
citur  Paneas,"—"  Caesarea  Philippi,  which  is  nmc  called  Paneas ;"  and  in  all  the  other 

? laces  where  he  has  occasion  to  mention  the  place,  he  gives  it  only  the  name  of  Paneas. 
:'hus,  in  commenting  on  Amos  viii.  14,  he  says,  "  Dan,  on  the  boundary  of  the 
Jewish  territor}',  which  nmv  is  Paneas."  And  on  Jerem.  iv.  15, — "  The  tribe  Dan, 
near  mount  Lebanon,  and  tlie  city  which  is  nmo  called  Paneas,"  &c. — See  also  his 
commentary  on  Daniel  xi.  16. 

After  the  death  of  Philip,  this  city,  along  with  the  rest  of  his  dominions,  was  pre- 
sented by  Caius  Caligula  to  Agrippa  I.,  and,  after  his  death,  was  ultimately  given  by 


84  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

Claudius  Caesar  to  Agrippa  II.,  who  added  still  farther  to  the  improvements  made  by 
Philip,  more  particularly  ornamenting  the  Panium,  or  famous  source  of  the  Jordan, 
near  the  city,  as  Josephus  testifies.  (Jewish  War,  book  III.  chap.  x.  sect.  7  )  "  The 
natural  beauty  of  the  Panium,  moreover,  was  still  more  highly  adorned  {i:po<rci)'iaKrtTat) 
with  royal  magnificence,  being  embellished  by  the  wealth  of  Agrippa."  This  king  also 
attempted  to  perpetuate  the  name  of  one  of  his  imperial  patrons,  in  connexion  with  the 
city,  calling  it  Neronias,  in  honor  of  one  who  is  well  enough  known  without  this  aid. 
(Jos.  Ant.  book  XX.  chap.  ix.  sect.  4.)  The  perfectly  transient  character  of  this  idle 
appellation,  is  abundantly  shown  from  the  preceding  copious  quotations. 

The  city,  now  called  Banias,  (not  Bclinas,  as  Wahl  erroneously  says,)  has  been 
visited  and  examined  in  modern  times  by  several  travelers,  of  whom,  none  has  de- 
scribed it  more  minutely  than  Burckhardt.  His  account  of  the  mountains  around 
the  city,  so  finely  illustrates  my  description  of  the  scene  of  the  transliguration,  that 
I  extract  largely  from  it  here.  In  order  to  appreciate  the  description  fully,  it  must  be 
tmderstood  that  Heish  is  now  the  general  Arabic  name  for  the  mountain  chain,  which 
was  by  ancient  authors  variously  called  Lebanon,  Libanus,  Anti-Libanus,  Hermon, 
and  Panium ;  for  all  these  names  have  been  given  to  the  mountain-range,  on  whose 
slope  Caesarea  Philippi,  or  Paneas,  stood. 

"  The  district  of  Banias  is  classic  groimd;  it  is  the  ancient  Caesarea  Philippi;  the 
lake  Houlc,  is  the  Lacns  SamacAonilis.  Immediately  after  my  arrival,  I  took  a  man 
of  the  village  to  show  me  the  way  to  the  ruined  castle  of  Banias,  which  bears  E.  by 
S.  from  it.  It  stands  on  the  top  of  a  mountain,  Avhich  forms  part  of  the  mountain  of 
Heish,  at  an  hour  and  a  quarter  from  Banias ;  it  is  now  in  complete  ruins,  but  was 
once  a  very  strong  fortress.  Its  whole  circumference  is  twenty-five  minutes.  It  is 
surrounded  by  a  wall  ten  feet  thick,  flanked  Avith  numerous  round  towers,  built  with 
equal  blocks  of  stone,  each  about  two  feet  square.  The  keep,  or  citadel,  seems  to 
have  been  on  the  highest  summit,  on  the  eastern  side,  where  the  walls  are  stronger 
than  on  the  lower,  or  western  side.  The  view  from  thence  over  the  Houle  and  a 
part  of  its  lake,  the  Djebel  Safad,  and  the  barren  Heish,  is  magnificent.  On  the 
western  side,  within  the  precincts  of  the  castle,  are  ruins  of  many  private  habitations. 
At  both  the  western  corners,  runs  a  succession  of  dark,  strongly  built,  low  apart- 
ments, like  cells,  vaulted,  and  with  small  narrow  loop-holes,  as  if  for  musquetry. 
On  this  side  also,  is  a  well  more  than  twenty  feet  square,  walled  in,  with  a  vaulted 
Toof  at  least  twenty-five  feet  high ;  the  well  was,  even  in  this  dry  season,  full  of  water : 
there  are  three  others  in  the  castle.  There  are  many  apartments  and  recesses  in  the 
castle,  which  could  only  be  exactly  described  by  a  plan  of  the  whole  building.  It 
seems  to  have  been  erected  during  the  period  of  the  crusades,  and  must  certainly 
have  been  a  very  strong  hold  to  those  who  possessed  it.  I  could  discover  no  traces 
of  a  road  or  paved  way  leading  up  the  mountain  to  it.  In  winter  time,  the  shepherds 
of  the  Felahs  of  the  Heish,  who  encamp  upon  the  momitains,  pass  the  night  in  the 
castle  with  their  cattle.         ******** 

"  Banias  is  situated  at  the  foot  of  the  Heish,  in  the  plain,  which  in  the  immediate 
vicinity  of  Banias  is  not  called  Ard  Houle,  but  Ard  Banias.  It  contains  about  one 
hundred  and  fifty  houses,  inhabited  mostly  by  Turks:  there  are  also  Greeks,  Druses, 
and  Enzairie.  It  belongs  to  Hasbeya,  whose  Emir  nominates  the  Sheikh.  On  the 
]N.  E.  side  of  the  village,  is  the  source  of  the  river  of  Banias,  Avhich  empties  itself 
into  the  Jordan  at  the  distance  of  an  hour  and  a  half,  in  the  plain  below.  Over  the 
source  is  a  perpendicular  rock,  in  which  seA^eral  niches  have  been  cut  to  receive 
statues.  The  largest  niche  is  above  a  spacious  cavern,  under  which  the  river  rises. 
This  niche  is  six  feet  broad  and  as  much  in  depth,  and  has  a  smaller  niche  in  the 
bottom  of  it.  Immediately  above  it,  in  the  perpendicular  face  of  the  rock,  is  another 
niche,  adorned  with  pilasters,  supporting  a  shell  ornament.        *        *        *        * 

"  Round  the  source  of  the  river  are  a  number  of  hewn  stones.  The  stream  flows 
on  the  north  side  of  the  village,  where  is  a  well-built  bridge,  and  some  remains  of 
the  ancient  town,  the  principal  part  of  which  seems,  however,  to  have  been  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  river,  where  the  ruins  extend  for  a  quart ._;■  of  an  hour  from  the 
bridge.  No  walls  remain,  but  great  quantities  of  stones  and  architectural  fragments 
are  scattered  about.        ******** 

"  I  went  to  see  the  ruins  of  the  ancient  cit}"^  of  Bostra,  of  which  the  people  spoke 
much.  Bostra  must  not  be  confounded  with  "Boszra,  in  the  Haouran ;  both  places  are 
mentioned  in  the  Books  of  Moses.  The  way  to  the  ruins  lies  for  an  hour  and  a  half 
in  the  road  by  which  I  came  from  Rasheyat-el-Fukhar;  it  then  ascends  for  three 
quarters  of  an  hour  a  steep  mountain  to  the  right,  on  the  top  of  which  is  the  city ;  it 
is  divided  into  two  parts,  the  largest  being  upon  the  very  summit,  the  smaller  at  ten 


Peter's  discipleship.  85 

minutes  walk  lower  down,  and  resembling  a  suburb  to  the  upper  part.  Traces  are 
still  visible  of  a  paved  way  that  had  connected  the  two  divisions.  There  is  scarcely 
any  thing  in  the  ruins  worth  notice;  they  consist  of  the  foundations  of  private  habi- 
tations, built  of  moderate  sized  square  stone.  The  lower  city  is  about  twelve  minutes 
"walk  in  circumference;  a  part  of  the  four  walls  of  one  building  only  remains  entire; 
in  the  midst  of  the  ruins  was  a  well,  at  this  time  dried  up.  The  circuit  of  the  upper 
city  raav  be  about  twenty  minutes ;  in  it  are  the  remains  of  several  buildings.  In. 
the  highest  part  is  a  heap  of  wrought  stones,  of  larger  dimensions  than  the  rest, 
which  seem  to  indicate  that  some  public  building  had  once  stood  on  the  spot.  There 
are  several  coluums  of  one  foot,  and  of  one  foot  and  a  half  in  diameter.  In  two  dif- 
ferent places,  a  short  column  was  standing  in  the  centre  of  a  roimd  paved  area  of 
about  ten  feet  in  diameter.    There  is  likewise  a  deep  well,  walled  in,  but  now  dry.  ♦• 

"  The  country  around  these  ruins  is  very  capable  of  cultivation.  Near  the  lower 
city  are  groups  of  olive  trees.  *  *  * 

"  I  descended  the  mountain  in  the  direction  towards  the  source  of  the  Jordan,  and 
passed,  at  the  foot  of  it,  the  miserable  village  of  Kerwaya.  Behind  the  moimtain  of 
JBostra,  is  another,  still  higher,  called  Djebel  Meroura  Djoubba."  (Burckhardt's 
Syria,  4to.  London,  pp.  37—42.)  ' 

From  Conder's  Modern  Traveler  I  also  draw  a  sketch  of  other  travelers'  observa- 
tions on  the  place  and  the  surrounding  country. 

"  BcTRCKHARDT,  in  coming  from  Damascus,  pursued  the  more  direct  route  taken  by 
the  caravans,  which  crosses  the  Jordan  at  Jacob's  Bridge.  Captains  Irby  and  Man- 
gles left  this  road  at  Khan  Sasa,  and  passed  to  the  westward  for  Panias,  thus  striking 
between  the  road  to  Acre,  and  that  by  Raschia  and  Hasbeya.  The  first  part  of  the 
road  from  Sasa,  led  through  a  fine  plain,  watered  by  a  prett}'',  winding  rivulet,  with 
numerous  tributary  streams,  and  many  old  ruined  mills.  It  then  ascended  over  a 
very  rugged  and  rocky  soil,  quite  destitute  of  vegetation,  having  in  some  places  traces 
of  an  ancient  paved  way,  '  probably  the  Roman  road  from  Damascus  to  Caesarea 
Philippi.'  The  higher  part  of  Djebel  Sheikh  [that  is — "  the  old  man  or  white  moun- 
tain,"— its  top  being  always  covered  with  snow,]  was  seen  on  the  right.  The  road 
became  less  stony,  and  the  shrubs  increased  in  number,  size,  and  beauty,  as  they  de- 
scended into  a  rich  little  plain,  at  the  immediate  foot  of  the  mountain.  '  From  this 
plain,'  continues  captain  M.,  '  we  ascended,  and  after  passing  a  very  small  village, 
saw  on  our  lelt,  close  to  us,  a  very  picturesque  lake,  apparently  perfectly  circular,  of 
little  more  than  a  mile  in  circumference,  surrounded  on  all  sides  by  sloping  hills, 
richly  wooded.  On  quitting  Phiala,  at  but  a  short  distance  from  it,  we  crossed  a 
stream  which  discharges  into  the  larger  one  which  we  first  saw :  the  latter  we  fol- 
lowed for  a  considerable  distance;  and  then  mounting  a  hill  to  the  S.  W.  had  in  view 
the  great  Saracenic  castle,  near  Panias,  the  town  of  that  name,  and  the  plain  of  the 
Jordan,  as  far  as  the  Lake  Houle,  with  the  mountains  on  the  other  side  of  the  plain, 
forming  altogether  a  fine  coup  d'aiil.  As  we  descended  towards  Panias,  we  found 
the  country  extremely  beautiful.  Great  quantities  of  wild  flowers,  and  a  variety  of 
shrubs  just  budding,  together  with  the  richness  of  the  verdure,  grass,  corn,  and  beans, 
showed  us,  all  at  once,  the  beauties  of  spring,  (Feb.  24,)  and  conducted  us  into  a  cli- 
mate quite  different  from  Damascus.  In  the  evening  we  entered  Panias,  crossing  a 
causeway  constructed  over  the  rivulet,  which  flows  from  the  foot  of  Djebel  Sheikh. 
,The  river  here  rushes  over  great  rocks  in  a  very  picturesque  manner,  its  banks  being 
covered  with  shrubs  and  the  ruins  of  ancient  walls.'  *  *  * 

"  Panias,  afterwards  called  Caesarea  Philippi,  has  resumed  its  ancient  name.  The 
present  town  of  Banias  is  small.  Seetzen  describes  it  as  a  little  hamlet  of  about 
twenty  miserable  huts,  inhabited  by  Mahomedans.  The  '  Castle  of  Banias'  is  situated 
on  the  summit  of  a  lofty  mountain;  it  was  built,  Seetzen  says,  without  giving  his  au- 
thority, in  the  time  of  the  caliphs."    (Mod.  Trav.  Vol.  I.  Palestine,  pp.  353 — 6.) 

The  distance,  in  time,  from  Mount  Tabor  to  Caesarea  Philippi,  may  be  conceived 
from  the  account  given  by  Ibn  Haukal,  an  Arabian  geographer  and  traveler  of  the 
tenth  century.  He  says,  "  from  Tibertheh  (Tiberias,  which  is  near  Tabor)  to  Sur, 
(Tyre,)  is  one  day's  journey;  and  from  that  to  Banias,  (Paneas,)  is  two  days'  easy 
journey."    (Sir  W.  Ouseley's  translation  of  Ibn  Haukal's  Geography,  pp.  48,  49.) 

Mount  Paneas.  The  argument  on  this  locality  may  be  found  very  fully  and  fairly 
stated  by  Kuinoel.  (Commentar.  Matt.  xvii.  1.)  The  origination  of  this  view  is  due 
to  the  critical  and  learned  Lightfoot,  whose  clear  and  satisfactory  arguments,  sup- 
ported by  all  references  tliat  can  illustrate  the  point,  may  be  found  in  his  "  Horae 
Hebr.  et  Talm.  in  Evangel.  Marc."  cap.  ix.  ver.  7.  Also  in  Matt.,  Cent.  Cher., 
cap.  67. 


86  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

This  was  an  occasion  on  which  Christ  did  not  choose  to  display 
his  glories  to  the  eyes  of  the  ignorant  and  impertinent  mobs  that 
usually  thronged  his  path,  drawn  together  as  they  were,  by  idle 
curiosity,  by  selfish  wishes  for  relief  from  various  diseases,  or  by 
the  determination  to  profit  by  the  mischief,  which  almost  always 
results  from  such  a  promiscuous  assemblage.  It  may  be  fairly 
considered  a  moral  impossibility,  for  such  disorderly  and  sponta- 
neous assemblies  to  meet,  without  more  evils  resulting,  than  can 
possibly  be  counterbalanced  by  the  good  done  to  the  assembly  as 
a  whole,  whatever  it  may  be  to  individuals.  So,  at  least,  Jesus 
Christ  seems  always  to  have  thought ;  for  he  never  encouraged 
such  gatherings,  and  took  every  desirable  opportunity  of  getting 
rid  of  them,  without  injury  to  themselves,  or  of  withdrawing  him- 
self quietly  from  them,  as  the  easiest  way  of  dispersing  them ; 
knowing  how  utterly  hopeless  must  be  the  attempt  to  do  any  great 
good  among  such  a  set  of  idlers,  compared  with  what  he  might  do 
by  private  and  special  intercourse  with  individuals.  It  is  worthy 
of  note,  that  Matthew,  and  all  whose  calls  he  describes,  were  about 
their  business.  Thus,  on  an  occasion  already  mentioned,  when 
Jesus  was  walking  by  the  sea  of  Galilee,  with  the  simple  object  of 
doing  most  good,  he  did  not  seek  among  the  multitude  that  was 
following  him,  for  the  devoted  laborers  whom  he  might  call  to  the 
great  work  of  drawing  in  men  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth  as 
revealed  in  him.  No ;  he  turned  from  all  the  zealous  loungers 
who  had  left  their  business,  if  they  had  any,  to  stroll  about  after 
the  wonderful  man  who  had  attracted  such  general  attention  by  his 
great  and  good  deeds.  He  despatched  them  as  fast  as  possible, 
with  a  few  words  of  instruction  and  exhortation ;  for  though  he 
did  not  seek  these  undesirable  occasions,  yet  he  would  have  been 
as  much  wanting  in  benevolence  as  in  wisdom,  if,  when  all  the 
evils  of  such  a  throng  had  occurred  by  the  meeting,  he  had  not 
hastened  to  offer  the  speediest  antidote  to  the  mischief,  and  the 
best  compensation  for  the  loss  of  time  to  the  company,  by  giving 
them  such  words  of  counsel,  leproof,  correction,  or  encouragement, 
as,  even  when  cast  like  bread  upon  the  waters,  or  seed  by  the  way- 
side, might  yet  perchance,  or  by  grace,  "  be  found  after  many 
days,"  returning  to  the  hands  of  the  giver,  in  gratitude,  by  spring- 
ing up  and  bearing  some  fruit  to  the  praise  and  glo»-y  of  God. 
Having  thus  sent  off  the  throng,  he  addressed  himself  tu  the  honest 
men  whom  he  had  found  quietly  following  their  daily  employ- 
ments, and  immediately  performed  with  them  there,  and,  as  is  evi- 


Peter's  discipleship.  87 

dent,  mainly  for  their  benefit,  a  most  remarkable  miracle ;  and 
when  they  had  been  thus  impressed  with  his  power  and  wisdom, 
sunmioned  them  to  his  aid  in  converting  the  world ;  sagely  and 
truly  judging,  that  those  who  had  been  faithful  in  few  things,  would 
be  the  best  rulers  over  many  things, — that  they  who  had  steadily 
and  faithfully  worked  at  their  proper  business,  had  the  best  talent 
and  disposition  for  laboring  in  a  cause  which  needed  so  much  pa- 
tient industry  and  steady  application  in  its  devotees.  These  were 
the  men  whom  he  hoped  to  make,  by  his  instructions,  the  success- 
ful founders  of  the  Christian  faith ;  and  these  were  the  very  men 
whom,  out  of  thousands  who  longed  for  the  honors  of  his  notice, 
he  now  chose  as  the  objects  of  his  special  instruction  and  com- 
mission, and  called  them  apart  to  view  the  display  of  the  most 
wonderful  mystery  of  his  life. 

Among  these  three  favored  ones,  we  see  Peter  included,  and  his 
name,  as  usual,  first  of  all.  By  this  it  appears,  that,  however 
great  his  late  unfortunate  misapprehension  of  the  character  and 
office  of  Christ,  and  however  he  may  have  deserved  the  stern  re- 
buke with  which  his  forward  but  well  meant  remonstrance  was 
met ;  still  he  was  so  far  from  having  lost  his  Master's  favor  on  this 
account,  that  he  yet  held  the  highest  place  in  the  favor  of  Jesus, 
who  had  been  moved  by  the  exposure  of  his  favorite's  ignorance, 
only  to  new  efforts  to  give  him  a  just  and  clear  view  of  the  im- 
portant truths  in  which  he  was  most  deficient.  In  pursuance  of 
this  design,  he  took  these  three,  Peter,  James,  and  John,  with  him, 
up  into  the  high  mountain-peaks  of  Hermon,  from  which  their 
eyes  might  glance  far  south  over  the  land  of  Israel — the  land  of 
their  fathers  for  ages  on  ages,  stretching  away  before  them  for  a 
vast  distance,  and  fancy  could  easily  extend  the  view.  In  this 
land,  so  holy  in  the  recollections  of  the  past,  so  sad  to  the  contem- 
plation of  the  present,  were  to  begin  their  mighty  labors.  Here, 
too,  bright  and  early,  one  of  the  three  was  to  end  his ;  while  his 
brother  and  friend  were  to  spread  their  common  Master's  dominion 
over  thousands  and  millions  who  had  never  yet  heard  of  that  land, 
or  its  ancient  faith. 

Of  all  the  mountains  of  Israel,  none  could  have  been  better 
chosen  than  that  which  Jesus  now  ascended,  to  give  the  great  three 
a  foretaste  of  his  diviner  glories.  It  was  Hermon, — classic  in  He^ 
brew  poetiy, — holy  in  the  visions  of  the  inspired, — glorious  in  its 
own  native  vastness  and  elevation, — now  moist  with  those  pure 
dews  that  of  old  presented  to  the  Psalmist's  mind,  the  most  natu- 


88  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

ral  and  beautiful  image  of  the  soft  and  grateful  influences  of  social 
love, — the  token,  too,  of  the  blessing  which  God  had  commanded 
over  all  the  land  of  Israel,  "  to  the  utmost  bound  of  the  everlasting 
hills" — from  holy  Zion  to  the  mountains  of  distant  Idumea,  and 
the  far  northern  heights  of  Hermon.  The  highest  of  all  the 
mountains  of  Palestine — the  only  one  among  them  which  was 
covered  with  snow — and  constituting  the  northeastern  bound  of 
the  whole  region, — its  physical  characters  were  such  as  to  make  it 
a  scene  well  worthy  of  the  most  remarkable  event  in  the  earthly 
life  of  the  Son  of  God.  In  the  solemn  decline  of  an  eastern  day, 
amid  the  deepening  shades  that  the  mighty  western  mountains 
threw  behind  them,  as  the  sun  went  down  over  the  far  sea, — Jesus 
climbed  the  mountain  behind  Caesarea  Philippi,  and  led  his  fa- 
vored disciples  to  its  top,  where  no  human  footstep  could  break 
the  silence  of  night,  or  intrude  on  the  awful  secrecy  of  the  scene 
that  followed.  Jesus  Christ  always  sought  the  lonely  tops  of 
mountains,  with  a  peculiar  zest,  in  his  seasons  of  retirement,  as 
well  as  for  the  most  impressive  displays  of  his  eloquence,  or  his 
miraculous  power.  The  obvious  reasons  were — the  advantages  of 
perfect  solitude  and  security  against  sudden  intrusion: — the  free, 
pure  air  of  the  near  heaven,  and  the  broad  light  of  the  immense 
prospect,  were  powerful  means  of  lifting  the  soul  to  a  state  of 
moral  sublimity,  equal  to  the  impressions  of  physical  grandeur, 
made  by  the  objects  around.  Their  most  holy  historical  associa- 
tions, moreover,  were  connected  with  the  tops  of  high  mountains, 
removed  from  which,  the  most  awful  scenes  of  ancient  miracle 
would,  to  the  fancy  of  the  dweller  of  mountainous  Palestine,  have 
seemed  stripped  of  their  most  imposing  aids.  Moriah,  Sinai, 
Horeb,  Ebal,  Gerizim,  Zion,  and  Tabor,  were  the  classic  ground 
of  Hebrew  history ;  and  to  the  fiery  mind  of  the  imaginative  Is- 
raelite, their  high  tops  seemed  to  tower  in  a  religious  sublimity,  as 
striking  and  as  lasting  as  their  physical  elevation.  From  these 
lofty  peaks,  so  much  nearer  to  the  dwelling-place  of  God,  his  soul 
took  a  higher  flight  than  did  ever  the  fancy  of  the  Greek  from 
the  classic  tops  of  Parnassus,  Ida,  "  old  Pelion,  or  the  skyish 
head  of  blue  Olympus ;"  and  the  three  humble  gazers,  who  now 
stood  waiting  there  with  their  divine  Master,  felt,  no  doubt,  their 
devotion  proportionally  exalted  with  their  situation,  by  such  asso- 
ciations. It  was  the  same  spirit,  that,  throughout  the  ancient 
world,  led  the  earliest  religionists  to  avail  themselves  of  these  phy- 
sical advantages,  as  they  did  in  their  mountain  worship,  and  with 


Peter's  discipleship.  89 

a  success  just,  in  proportion  as  the  purity  and  sincerity  of  their 

worship,  and  the  high  character  of  its  object,  corresponded  with 

the  lofty  grandeur  of  the  place. 

"  Not  vainly  did  the  early  Persian  make 
His  altar  the  high  places,  and  the  peak 
Of  earth-o'er-gazing  moimtains,  there  to  seek 
The  spirit  in  whose  honor  shrines  are  weak, 
Upreared  of  human  hands.    Come  and  compare 
Columns  and  idol-dwellings,  Goth  or  Greek, 
With  nature's  realms  of  worship,  earth  and  air ; 
Nor  fix  on  fond  abodes  to  circumscribe  thy  prayer," 

In  such  a  scene,  and  inspired  by  such  sympathies,  were  the 
chosen  three,  on  this  occasion.  The  bare  details,  as  given  in  the 
three  gospels,  make  it  evident  that  the  scene  took  place  in  the 
night,  as  will  be  shown  in  the  course  of  the  narrative ;  and  this 
was  in  accordance  also  with  Christ's  usual  custom  of  choosing  the 
night  as  the  season  of  solitary  meditation.  Having  reached  the 
top,  he  engaged  himself  and  them  in  prayer.  How  solemn — how 
awful  the  scene  !  The  Savior  of  all,  afar  from  the  abodes  of  men, 
from  the  sound  and  sight  of  human  cares  and  sins, — alone  with 
his  chosen  three,  on  the  vast  mountains,  with  the  world  as  far  be- 
neath their  eyes  as  its  thoughts  were  below  their  minds  !  In  the 
silence  of  the  night,  with  the  lights  of  the  city  and  villages  faintly 
gleaming  in  the  distance  on  the  lower  hills  and  the  plain, — with 
no  sound  near  them  but  the  murmuring  of  the  night-wind  about 
the  rocks, — with  the  dark  canopy  of  gathering  clouds  above  them, 
— Jesus  prayed.  His  voice  went  up  from  this  high  altar  of  earth's 
wide  temple,  to  the  throne  of  his  Father,  to  whom  he  commended 
in  words  of  supplication  those  who  were  to  labor  for  him  when 
his  earthly  work  should  cease.  We  may  well  suppose  that  the 
substance  of  his  prayer  was,  that  their  thoughts,  before  so  gro- 
veling, and  now  so  devotedly  clinging  to  visions  of  earthly  do- 
minion and  personal  aggrandizement,  might  "  leave  all  meaner 
things,  to  low  ambition  and  the  pride  of  kings,"  and  might  rise, 
as  on  that  high  peak,  from  earth  towards  heaven. — to  the  just 
sense  of  the  far  higher  efforts  and  honors  to  which  they  were  des- 
tined. What  intercession  could  be  more  effectual?  From  His 
Father  and  their  Father, — from  His  God  and  their  God, — Jesus 
asked,  for  the  dearest  of  his  earthly  friends,  such  gifts  as  no  meaner 
source  could  furnish.  The  faith  that  might  uproot  the  mountains, 
and  hurl  the  mighty  Hermon  into  the  far  western  sea, — the  hope 
that  passes  the  veil  of  dim  futurity,  and  anchors  the  soul  beyond 
the  dark  floods  of  death, — the  love  that  endures  all  things,  and 


90  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

that  never  fails,  though  prophecies,  and  tongues,  and  knowledge 
cease, — oil  the  high  emotions  and  energies  that  could  indue  them 
for  the  work  to  which  he  devoted  them,  were,  doubtless,  now  called 
down  on  the  apostolic  trio,  by  their  Lord.  Such  prayers  from 
such  a  petitioner  could  not  be  without  avail ;  nor  were  they.  Yet 
who  that  could  have  viewed  the  errors,  the  follies,  and  weaknesses 
that  dimmed  the  otherwise  bright  course  of  those  apostles  in  the 
days  that  next  followed,  would  not  have  looked  on  those  pray- 
ers as  ineffectual,  and  the  object  as  lost?  Not  so  the  eye  that 
searched  the  hearts  of  all  men,  and  saw,  in  the  long  course  ot 
coming  years,  the  slow  but  certain  accomplishment  of  the  entreaty 
thus  earnestly  sent  up  by  the  Son  of  God  to  God  himself  Through 
the  unrevealed  course  of  coming  events,  the  development  of  better 
purposes — of  higher  principles — of  holier  feelings — and  of  a  purer 
devotion  in  the  spirits  of  those  loved  though  erring  followers,  was 
as  sure  to  the  mind  of  the  Redeemer,  as  was  the  accomplishment 
of  his  own  divine  plans ;  and  he  knew  that  the  answer  to  such 
prayer  was  not  to  be  sought  in  the  sudden  movements  of  a  mi- 
raculous change.  "  The  hearts  of  men  are  in  the  hands  of  God, 
and  he  turns  them  as  the  rivers  of  water  are  turned,"  by  present- 
ing obstacles  in  one  direction,  and  by  removing  them  in  another, 
— by  impulses,  falls,  and  difficulties, — all  operating  through  a  long 
course,  and  changing  the  character  of  the  career  only  in  the  lapse 
of  time  and  distance.  Such  is  the  answer  of  God  to  prayer  for 
the  transformation  of  character,  the  change  of  heart,  and  the 
renewal  of  spirit ;  and  such  was  the  course  of  his  operations  on 
the  soul,  even  when  his  special  influences  were  invoked  by  the 
great  agent  of  the  world's  redemption ;  and  how  can  feeble  and 
erring  man  hope  for  a  more  instant  accomplishment  of  his  similar 
purposes  ?    Or  how  dare  he  claim  it  ? 

With  their  thoughts  and  feelings  thus  kindled  with  the  holy  as- 
sociations of  the  hour^  the  place,  and  the  person,  their  souls  must 
have  risen  with  his  in  that  solemn  and  earnest  supplication  ;  and 
their  prayers  for  new  devotion  and  exaltation  of  spirit  must  have 
been  almost  equally  ardent.  Probably  some  hours  were  passed  in 
this  employment,  varied  perhaps  by  the  eloquent  and  pointed  in- 
structions given  by  Jesus,  to  prepare  these  chiefs  of  the  apostohc 
band  for  the  full  understandinar  of  the  nature  of  his  mission  and 
theirs.  How  vastly  important  to  their  success  in  their  labors,  and 
to  their  everlasting  happiness,  must  these  prayers  and  instructions 
have  been  !     The  three  hearers,  we  may  presume,  gave  for  a  long 


Peter's  discipleship.  91 

time,  the  most  devoted  attention  which  a  scene  so  impressive  could 
awaken  ;  but  yet  they  were  men,  and  weary  ones  too,  for  they  had 
come  a  considerable  distance  up  a  very  steep  way,  and  it  was  now 
late  at  night, — ^no  doubt  long  past  their  bed-time.  The  exercise 
which  their  journey  to  the  spot  had  given  them,  was  of  a  land  for 
which  their  previous  habits  of  life  had  quite  unfitted  them.  They 
were  all  fishermen,  and  had  dwelt  all  their  lives  in  the  low  flat 
country  on  the  shores  of  lake  Tiberias  and  the  valley  of  the  Jor- 
dan, where  they  had  nothing  to  do  with  climbing  hills.  And 
though  their  constant  habits  of  hard  labor  must  have  made  them 
stout  men  in  their  vocation,  yet  we  all  know  that  the  muscles 
called  into  action  by  the  management  of  the  boat  and  net,  are  very 
different  from  those  which  support  and  advance  a  man  in  ascend- 
ing acclivities.  Every  one  that  has  noticed  the  sturdy  arms  and 
slender  legs  of  most  sailors,  has  had  the  practical  proof,  that  a 
man  may  work  all  his  life  at  pulling  the  seine  and  drag-net,  haul- 
ing the  ropes  of  a  vessel,  and  tugging  at  the  oar,  without  being 
thereby,  in  the  slightest  degree,  fitted  for  labors  of  a  different  char- 
acter. The  work  of  toiling  up  a  very  high,  steep  mountain,  then, 
was  such  as  all  their  previous  habits  of  life  had  wholly  unfitted 
them  for ;  and  their  overstretched  limbs  and  bodies  must  have  been 
both  sore  and  weary,  so  that  when  they  came  to  a  resting  place, 
they  very  naturally  were  inclined  to  repose,  and  must  have  felt 
drowsy.  In  short,  they  fell  asleep  ;  and  that,  too,  as  it  would  ap- 
pear, in  the  midst  of  the  prayers  and  counsels  of  their  adorable 
Lord.  And  yet  who  that  considers  all  the  reasons  above  given, 
can  wonder  1  for  it  is  very  possible  for  a  man  to  feel  the  highest 
interest  in  a  subject  offered  to  his  consideration, — an  interest,  too, 
which  may  for  a  long  time  enable  a  zealous  mind  to  triumph  over 
bodily  incapacity, — ^yet  there  is  a  point  beyond  which  the  most 
intense  energy  of  mind  cannot  drag  the  sinking  body,  when  fatigue 
has  drained  its  strength,  which  nothing  but  sleep  can  renew.  Men, 
when  thus  worn  down,  will  sleep  in  the  midst  of  a  storm,  or  on 
the  eve  of  certain  death.  In  such  a  state  were  the  bodies  of  the 
companions  of  Jesus ;  and  thus  wearied,  they  slept  long,  in  spite 
of  the  storm  which  is  supposed  by  many  to  have  arisen,  and  to 
have  been  the  immediate  cause  of  some  of  the  striking  appearances 
which  followed.  It  is  said  by  many  standard  commentators,  that 
the  fairest  account  of  such  of  the  incidents  as  are  connected  with 
natural  objects,  is,  that  a  tremendous  thunder-storm  came  down 
upon  the  mountain  while  they  were  asleep,  and  that  a  loud  peal 


92  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES, 

bursting  from  this,  was  the  immediate  cause  of  their  awaking.  All 
the  details  that  are  given,  certainly  justify  the  supposition.  They 
are  described  as  suddenly  starting  from  their  sleep,  in  such  a  man- 
ner as  would  naturally  follow  only  from  a  loud  noise  violently 
arousing  the  slumbering  senses.  Awakened  thus  by  a  peal  of 
thunder,  the  first  sight  that  struck  their  amazed  eyes,  was  their 
Master,  resplendent  through  the  darkness  of  night  and  storm  with 
a  brilliant  light,  that  so  shone  upon  him  and  covered  him,  as  to 
change  his  whole  aspect  to  a  degree  of  glory  indescribable.  To 
add  to  their  amazement  and  dread,  they  saw  that  he  was  not  alone, 
but  two  mysterious  and  spiritual  personages,  announced  to  them 
as  Moses  and  Elijah,  were  now  his  companions,  having  found 
means  to  join  him,  though  high  on  the  mighty  rock,  alone  and  in 
darkness,  so  inaccessible  to  human  approach.  These  two  ancient 
servants  of  God  now  appeared  with  his  beloved  Son,  whose  labors 
and  doctrines  and  triumphs  were  so  far  to  transcend  theirs ;  and 
in  the  hearing  of  the  three  apostles,  uttered  solemn  words  of  pro- 
phecy about  his  approaching  death,  and  triumph  over  death.  The 
two  sons  of  Zebedee  were  so  startled  as  to  be  speechless ;  but  the 
boldness  and  talkativeness  of  Peter,  always  so  pre-eminent,  enabled 
him^  even  here,  to  speak  his  deep  awe  and  reverence.  Yet  con- 
fused with  half-awakened  sleep,  and  stunned  by  the  bursting  thun- 
der, he  spoke  as  a  man  thus  suddenly  awaked  naturally  speaks, 
scarcely  separating  the  thoughts  of  his  dream  from  the  objects  that 
met  his  opening  eye.  He  said,  "  Lord,  it  is  good  for  us  to  be  here  ; 
and  if  thou  wilt,  let  us  make  three  tabernacles,  (or  resting  places;) 
one  for  thee,  one  for  Moses,  and  one  for  Elijah."  These  things  he 
said  before  his  confused  thoughts  could  fully  arrange  themselves 
into  words  proper  to  express  his  feelings  of  awe;  and  he,  half 
dreaming  still,  hardly  knew  what  he  said.  But  as  he  uttered 
these  words,  the  dark  cloud  above  them  suddenly  descended  upon 
the  mountain's  head,  enwrapping  and  overshadec^ing^^them ;  and 
amid  the  flash  of  lightnings  and  the  roar  of  thuhde^,  given  out 
in  the  concussion,  they  distinguished,  in  no  human  voice,  these 
awful  words,  "  This^^j^^my  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well 
pleased ;  hear  ye  hin^."^  Who  can  wonder  that  a  phenomenon  so 
tremendous,  both  morally  and  physically,  overwhelmed  their  senses, 
and  that,  alarmed  beyond  measure,  they  fell  again  on  their  faces  to 
the  earth,  so  astonished  that  they  did  not  dare  to  rise  or  look  up, 
until  Jesus  came  to  them  and  re-assured  them  with  his  friendly 
touch,  saying,  "  Arise,  and  be  not  afraid."     And  lifting  up  their 


Peter's  discipleship.  93 

eyes,  they  saw  no  man  any  more,  save  Jesus  only  with  themselves. 
The  whole  object  of  their  retirement  to  this  solitude  being  now  ac- 
complished, they  prepared  to  return  to  those  whom  they  had  left  to 
wonder  at  their  strange  absence.  It  was  now  probably  about 
morning  ;  the  storm  was  passed, — the  clouds  had  vanished, — the 
thunder  was  hushed,  and  the  cheerful  sun  now  shone  on  moun- 
tain and  plain,  illuminating  their  downward  path  towards  the  city, 
and  inspiring  their  hearts  with  the  joyous  emotions  suited  to  their 
enlarged  views  of  their  Lord's  kingdom,  and  their  own  duties.  As 
they  went  down,  Jesus  charged  them  to  tell  no  man  what  things 
they  had  seen,  till  he,  the  Son  of  Man,  rose  from  the  dead.  And 
they  kept  it  close,  and  told  no  man  in  those  days  any  of  those 
things  which  they  had  seen.  But  they  questioned  much  with 
one  another  what  the  rising  from  the  dead  should  mean.  So  that 
it  appears,  that  after  all  the  repeated  assureaices  Jesus  had  given 
them  of  the  certainty  of  this  event,  they  had  never  put  any  clear 
and  definite  meaning  upon  his  words,  and  were  still  totally  in  the 
dark  as  to  their  essential  import.  This  proof  of  their  continued 
ignorance  serves  to  confirm  the  view  already  taken  of  the  way  in 
which  they  understood,  or  rather  misunderstood,  the  previous 
warning  of  the  same  event,  in  connexion  with  his  charge  and  re- 
buke of  Peter,  In  connexion  also  with  what  they  had  seen  on 
the  mountain,  and  the  injunction  of  secrecy,  another  question 
arose — why  they  could  not  be  allowed  to  speak  freely  on  the  sub- 
ject. "  For  if  they  had  now  distinctly  seen  the  prophet  Elijah 
returned  from  the  other  world,  as  it  appeared,  why  could  they  not 
properly  announce  publicly,  so  important  and  desirable  an  event? 
Else,  why  did  the  Jewish  teachers  say  that  Elijah  must  first  come 
before  the  Messiah  ?  And  why,  then,  should  they  not  freely  offer 
their  testimony  of  his  presence  with  Jesus  on  this  occasion,  as  the 
most  satisfactory  proof  of  his  Messiahship  ?"  The  answer  of  Jesus 
very  clearly  informed  them  that  they  were  not  to  consider  this 
vision  as  having  any  direct  connexion  with  the  prophecy  respect- 
mg  Elijah's  re-appearance,  to  precede  and  aid  the  true  Messiah  in 
the  establishment  of  the  ancient  Jewish ,  dominion ;  but  that  all 
that  was  intended  in  that  prophecy  had  been  fully  brought  to  pass 
in  the  coming  of  John  the  Baptist,  who,  in  the  spirit  and  power 
of  Elijah,  had  already  run  his  bright  but  brief  course  as  the  Mes- 
siah's precursor.  With  such  interesting  conversation  they  con- 
tinued their  course  in  returning  towards  the  city.  The  way  in 
which  Luke  here  expresses  the  circumstances  of  the  time  of  their 


94  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

return,  is  the  last  and  most  satisfactory  proof  to  be  offered  of  the 
fact,  that  their  visit  to  the  mountain  had  been  in  the  night.  His 
words  are,  "  And  it  came  to  pass  that,  on  the  next  day,  when  they 
came  down  from  the  mountain,  a  large  multitude  met  them,"  <fec. 
This  shows  that  they  did  not  go  and  return  the  same  day,  between 
sunrise  and  sunset;  and  the  only  reasonable  supposition  left  to 
agree  with  the  other  circumstances,  is,  that  they  went  at  evening, 
and  returned  early  in  the  morning  of  the  next  day.  After  their 
descent,  they  found  that  the  remaining  disciples  had  been  making 
an  unsuccessful  attempt  to  cure  an  epileptic  person ;  who  was  re- 
lieved, however,  at  a  word,  as  soon  as  brought  to  Jesus  himself. 
They  continued  no  very  long  time  in  this  part  of  Galilee,  after 
these  events,  but  journeyed  slowly  southwards,  towards  the  part 
which  Jesus  had  formerly  made  his  home.  This  journey  was 
made  by  him  with  especial  care  to  avoid  public  notice,  and  it  is 
particularly  expressed  by  Mark  that  he  went  on  this  homeward 
journey  through  by-ways  or  less  public  roads  than  usual.  For 
as  he  went,  he  renewed  the  sad  warning,  that  he  was  in  constant 
danger  of  being  given  up  into  the  hands  of  wicked  men,  who, 
feeling  reproved  and  annoyed  by  his  life  and  doctrine,  earnestly 
desired  his  death ;  and  that  soon  their  malice  would  be  for  a  time 
successful ;  but  that  after  they  had  done  their  worst,  he  should  at 
last  triumph  over  them.  Still  this  assurance,  obvious  as  its  mean- 
ing may  now  seem  to  us,  was  not  understood  by  them ;  and 
though  they  puzzled  themselves  extremely  about  it,  they  evidently 
considered  their  ignorance  as  of  a  somewhat  justly  blamable  na- 
ture, for  they  dared  not  ask  for  a  new  explanation.  This  passage 
still  farther  shows,  how  far  they  must  have  been  from  rightly  ap- 
preciating his  first  declaration  on  this  subject.  Having  followed 
the  less  direct  routes,  for  these  reasons,  he  came  (doing  much  good 
on  the  journey,  no  doubt,  in  a  quiet  and  unnoticed  way,  as  we 
know  he  always  did)  to  Capernaum,  which  he  still  regarded  as 
his  home  ;  and  here  again,  as  formerly,  went  directly  to  the  house 
of  Simon  Peter,  which  he  is  represented  as  entering  on  his  first 
arrival  in  the  city,  in  such  a  way  as  to  show  that  there  was  his 
dwelling,  and  a  welcome  entertainment.  Indeed  we  know  of  no 
other  friend  whom  he  had  in  Capernaum,  with  whom  he  was  on 
such  terms  of  intimacy,  and  we  cannot  suppose  that  he  kept 
house  by  himself, — for  his  relations  had  never  yet  removed  from 
Nazareth. 


Peter's  discipleship.  95 

Of  the  scenes  of  the  transfiguration,  so  great  a  variety  of  opinions  have  been  en- 
tenained,  that  it  would  be  impossible  for  me  to  discuss  the  various  views  within  my 
narrow  limits.  The  old  speculations  on  the  subject  are  very  fully  given  in  Poole's 
Synopsis,  and  the  modern  ones  by  Kuinoel,  who  mentions  a  vast  number  of  German 
writers,  of  whom  few  of  us  have  ever  seen  even  the  names  elsewhere. 

The  view  which  I  have  taken  is  not  peculiar  to  me,  but  is  supported  by  many  high 
authorities,  and  is  in  accordance  with  what  seemed  to  me  the  simplest  and  fairest 
construction  which  could  be  put  upon  the  facts,  after  a  very  full  and  minute  consider- 
ation of  the  various  circumstances,  chronologically,  topographically,  and  gramma- 
tically. It  should  be  noticed  that  my  arrangement  of  the  facts  in  reference  to  the 
time  of  day,  is  this : — Jesus  and  the  three  disciples  ascended  the  mountain  in  the 
evening,  about  sunset,  remained  there  all  night,  and  returned  the  next  morning. 

THE  TRIBUTE   MONEY. 

On  the  occasion  of  his  return  and  entrance  into  Peter's  house, 
a  new  instance  occurred  both  of  his  wisdom  and  his  special  regard 
for  this  apostle.  Some  of  those  who  went  about  legally  authorized 
to  collect  the  tax  due  from  all  conforming  Jews,  to  defray  the  ex- 
penses of  the  temple-worship  at  Jerusalem,  appear  to  have  been 
waiting  for  Christ's  return  from  this  journey,  to  call  on  him  for  his 
share,  if  he  were  willing  to  pay  it  as  a  good  Jew.  They  seem  to 
have  had  some  doubts,  however,  as  to  the  manner  in  which  so 
eminent  a  teacher  would  receive  a  call  to  pay  those  taxes,  from 
which  he  might  perhaps  deem  himself  exempted  by  his  religious 
rank,  more  especially  as  he  had  frequently  denounced,  in  the  most 
unmeasured  terms,  all  those  concerned  in  the  administration  of 
the  religious  affairs  of  the  Jewish  nation.  As  soon  as  he  had  re- 
turned, therefore,  they  took  the  precaution  to  make  the  inquiry  of 
Peter,  as  the  well-kno^vn  intimate  of  Jesus,  "  Doth  not  your  Master 
pay  tribute?"  Peter,  knowing  well  the  steady,  open  reverence 
which  Jesus  always  manifested  for  all  the  established  usages  of 
his  country,  readily  and  unhesitatingly  answered,  "  Yes."  And 
when  he  was  come  into  the  house,  and  was  upon  the  point  of  pro- 
posing the  matter  to  him,  Jesus  anticipated  him,  saying,  "How 
thinkest  thou,  Simon  ?  of  whom  do  the  kings  of  the  earth  take 
custom  or  tribute  ?  of  their  own  children,  or  of  the  children 
of  others  ?"  Peter  says,  "  From  others'  children."  Jesus  says  again 
to  him,  "  Then  are  the  children  free."  That  is  :  "  If,  when  the 
kings  and  rulers  of  the  nations  gather  their  taxes  for  the  support 
of  their  royal  state  and  authority,  they  pass  over  their  own  chil- 
dren untaxed,  as  a  thing  of  course,  then  I,  the  son  of  that  God 
who  is  the  eternal  king  of  Israel,  am  fairly  exempt  from  the  pay- 
ment of  the  sum  due  from  other  Jews,  for  the  support  of  the  cere- 
monials of  my  Father's  temple  in  Jerusalem."  Still,  he  did  not 
choose  to  avail  himself  of  this  honorable  pretext,  but  went  on  to 


JV 


96  LIVES  OF  THE  AP0STLE3. 

tell  Simon,  "  Nevertheless,  lest  we  should  give  needless  occasion 
for  offense,  we  will  pay  what  they  exact ;  and  for  this  purpose,  go 
thou  to  the  sea,  and  take  up  the  fish  that  comes  up  first ;  and  when 
thou  has  opened  his  mouth,  thou  shalt  find  a  piece  of  money ;  take 
that  and  give  it  them  for  me  and  thee." 

Anticipated  him. — This  word  I  substitute  in  the  place  of  "prevented"  which  is  the 
expression  used  in  our  common  English  Bible,  and  which  in  the  changes  of  modern 
usage  has  entirely  lost  the  signification  which  it  had  when  the  translators  applied  it 
to  this  passage.  The  Greek  word  here  is  -KpoiipOaatv,  (proephlhase7i,)  and  literally 
means  '*  forespake,"  or  "  spake  before"  him.  This  was  the  idea  which  the  English 
translators  wished  to  express  by  the  word  ^^  prevented"  whose  true  original  meaning 
is  "  anticipated,"  or  "  was  beforehand  with  him,"  being  in  Latin  compounded  of  the 
words  prac,  "  before,"  and  venio,  "  come."  Among  the  numerous  conveniences  of 
Webster's  edition  of  the  Bible,  for  popular  use,  is  the  fact  that  in  this  and  similar 
passages  he  has  altered  the  obsolete  expression,  and  changed  it  for  a  modem  one, 
which  is  just  and  faithful  to  the  original  idea.  In  this  passage  he  has  given  the  word 
above  suggested.    (Matt.  xvii.  25.) 

Of  the  children  of  others. — This  expression  too  is  a  variation  from  the  common 
English  translation,  which  here  expresses  itself  so  vaguely,  that  a  common  reader 
can  get  no  just  idea  whatever  of  the  passage,  and  is  utterly  unable  to  find  the  point 
of  the  allusion.  The  Greek  word  is  dWorpUov,  (allotrio7i,)  which  is  simply  the  geni- 
tive plural  of  an  adjective,  which  means  "  of,  or  belonging  to  others,"  and  is  second- 
arily applied  also  to  "  strangers,  foreigners,"  &c.,  as  persons  "  belonging  to  other 
lands ;"  but  the  primary  meaning  is  absolutely  necessary  to  be  given  here,  in  order  to 
do  justice  to  the  sense,  since  the  idea  is  not  that  they  take  tribute  money  of  foreigners 
rather  than  of  their  own  subjects ;  but  of  their  subjects  rather  than  of  their  own  chil- 
dren, who  are  to  enjoy  the  benefit  of  the  taxation. 

A  piece  of  money. — The  term  thus  vaguely  rendered,  is,  in  Greek,  craTiip,  (stater,) 
which  was  a  coin  of  definite  value,  being  worth  among  the  Jews  about  four  Attic 
drachms,  and  exactly  equivalent  to  their  shekel,  a  little  more  than  half  a  dollar  of 
federal  money.  The  tax  here  paid  was  the  half-shekel  tax,  due  from  every  Jew  for 
the  service  of  the  temple ;  so  that  the  "  piece  of  money,"  being  one  shekel,  was  just 
suflicient  to  pay  for  both  Jesus  and  Peter.  The  word  translated  "  the  tribute  money" 
(in  verse  24)  is  equally  definite  in  the  Greek, — Si^paxftov,  {didrachmon,)  equivalent  to 
the  Jewish  Affi/-shekel,  and  being  itself  worth  half  a  stater.  The  stater,  however,  as 
a  name  for  Attic  and  Byzantine  gold  coins,  was  equivalent  to  twenty  or  thirty  times 
the  value  of  the  shekel.  (See  Stephens's  Thes.,  Donnegan's,  Jones',  and  Pickering's 
Lexicons.  On  this  passage  see  Hammond's  Annotations,  which  are  here  quite  full 
on  values.  See,  too,  Lightfoot's  Hor.  Heb.  on  Matt.  xvii.  25, — Macknight's  Para- 
phrase, Poole  and  Kuinoel,  for  a  very  full  accoimt  of  the  matter.  Also  my  note  on 
page  44. 

There  have  been  two  different  accormts  of  this  little  circumstance  among  commen- 
tators, some  considering  the  tribute  money  to  have  been  a  Roman  tax,  and  others 
taking  the  ground  which  I  do,  that  it  was  the  Jewish  tax  for  the  expenses  of  the  tem- 
ple-worship. The  reasons  may  be  found  at  great  length  in  some  of  the  authorities 
Just  quoted ;  and  it  may  be  remarked  that  the  point  of  the  allusion  in  Jesus's  question 
to  Peter,  is  all  lost  on  the  supposition  of  a  Roman  tax ;  for  how  could  Jesus  claim  ex- 
emption as  a  son  of  the  Roman  emperor,  as  he  justly  could  from  the  Jewish  tax  for 
the  service  of  the  heavenly  king,  his  Father"?  The  correspondence  of  values,  too, 
with  the  half-shekel  tax,  is  another  reason  for  adopting  that  view;  nor  is  there  any 
objection  to  it,  except  the  circumstance,  that  the  time  at  which  this  tax  is  supposed  to 
have  been  demanded,  does  not  agree  with  that  to  which  the  collection  of  the  temple 
tax  was  limited.    (Ex.  xxx.  13,  and  Lightfoot  on  Matt.  xvii.  24.) 

THE  QUESTION  OF  SUPERIORITY. 

Soon  after  the  last-mentioned  event,  there  arose  a  discussion 
among  the  apostles,  as  to  who  should  have  the  highest  rank  in  the 
administration  of  the  government  of  the  Messiah's  kingdom,  when 


Peter's  discipleship.  97 

it  should  be  finally  triumphantly  established.  The  question  shows 
how  pitiably  deficient  they  still  were,  in  a  proper  understandino- 
of  the  nature  of  the  cause  to  which  they  were  devoted ;  but  the 
details  of  this  circumstance  may  be  deferred  to  a  more  appropriate 
place,  under  the  lives  of  the  persons,  who,  by  their  claims,  after- 
wards originated  a  similar  discussion,  in  connexion  with  which 
this  may  be  most  properly  mentioned.  However,  it  cannot  be 
amiss  to  remark  here,  that  the  very  fact  of  such  a  discussion  having 
arisen,  shov/s,  that  no  one  supposed  that,  from  the  peculiar  distinc- 
tions already  conferred  on  Peter,  he  was  entitled  to  the  assump- 
tion of  any  thing  like  'power  over  the  rest  of  the  twelve ;  or  that 
any  thing  else  than  a  peculiar  regard  of  Christ  for  him,  and  a  con- 
fidence in  his  zeal  and  ability  to  advance  the  great  cause,  was  ex- 
pressed in  his  late  honorable  and  affectionate  declaration  to  him. 
The  occurrence  of  this  discussion  is  also  a  high  and  satisfactory 
proof  of  Peter's  modest  and  unassuming  disposition  •  for  had  he 
maintained  among  the  apostles  the  authority  and  rank  which  his 
Master's  decided  preference  might  seem  to  warrant,  these  high 
pretensions  of  the  sons  of  Zebedee  would  not  have  been  thus  put 
forward  against  one  so  secure  in  Christ's  favor  by  high  talents  and 
long  habits  of  close  intimacy. 

THE  RULE  OP  BROTHERLY  FORBEARANCE. 

The  next  occasion  on  which  the  name  of  Peter  is  mentioned 
in  the  gospels,  is  his  asking  Jesus,  ^'  how  many  times  he  should 
forgive  an  offending  brother?  If  the  brother  should  repeat  the 
offense  seven  times,  should  he  each  time  accord  him  the  forgive- 
ness asked  ?"  This  question  was  suggested  to  Peter's  mind,  by 
the  rules  which  Christ  had  just  been  giving  his  disciples,  for  the 
preservation  of  harmony,  and  for  the  redress  of  mutual  grievances 
among  them.  His  charge  to  them  on  this  subject,  enjoined  the  re- 
peated exercise  of  forbearance  towards  a  brother  who  had  tres- 
passed, and  urged  the  surrender  of  every  imagined  right  of  private 
redress,  to  the  authority  and  sai>etion  of  the  common  assembly  of 
the  apostles.  The  absolute  necessity  of  some  such  rule,  for  the 
very  existence  of  the  apostles'  union,  was  plain  enough.  They 
were  men,  with  all  the  passions  and  frailties  of  common,  unedu- 
cated men,  and  with  all  the  peculiar,  fervid  energy,  which  charac- 
terizes the  physiology  of  the  races  of  southwestern  Asia.  From 
the  constant  attrition  of  such  materials,  no  doubt  individually  dis- 
cordant in  temperameiit  and  coastituticm,  how  could  it  be  hopeoj 


98  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

that,  ill  the  common  course  of  things,  there  would  not  arise  fre- 
quent bursts  of  hnmun  j)ab.sion,  to  mar  and  hinder  the  divine  work 
which  brought  thrnn  to:^elh'.'r7  With  a  most  wise  providence  for 
these  liabilities  to  disagreement,  Jesus  had  just  arranged  a  princi- 
ple of  reliiience  and  quiot  decision,  in  all  cases  of  dispute  in  which 
the  bond  oi  Christian  fellowship  would  be  strained  or  broken.  His 
charge  to  tliem,  all  and  each,  was  this :  "  If  thy  brother  shall 
trespass  against  thee,  go  and  tell  him  his  fault  between  thee  and 
him  alone.  If  he  shall  hear  thee,  thou  hast  gained  thy  brother  ; 
but  if  be  will  not  hear  thee,  take  with  thee  on  thy  second  call, 
one  or  two  more,  that,  according  to  the  standard  forms  of  the  Mo- 
saic law,  by  the  mouth  of  two  or  three  witnesses  every  word  may 
be  established.  And  if  he  shall  refuse  to  hoar  them,  tell  it  at  last 
to  the  conimon  assembly  of  the  apostles  ;  and  after  they  have  given 
their  decision  in  :(avor  of  the  justice  of  the  complaint  and  demand, 
if  he  still  maintain  his  enmity  and  wrong  against  thee,  thou  art 
no  longer  held  by  the  a])OStolic  pledge  to  treat  him  with  brotherly 
regard;  but  having  slighted  all  friendly  advice,  and  the  common 
seniim.int  of  the  brethren,  tie  has  lost  the  privilege  of  their  fellow- 
ship, and  must.be  to  thee  as  one  of  the  low  worid  around  him — a 
heathen  and  an  outcast  Jew."  On  this  occasion,  also,  he  renewed 
to  ilicra  all,  the  commission  to  bind  and  loose,  which  he  had  belbre 
particuiorly  delivered  only  to  Peter.  As  he  had,  in  speaking  of 
the  treatment,  made  abundant  requisitions  for  the  exercise  of  for- 
bearance, without  mentioning  the  proper  limit  to  these  acts  of 
forgiveness,  Peter  now  puts  the  question:  "If  my  brother  sin 
against  me  seven  times,  and  as  often  make  tJic  reparation  which  I 
may  honestly  ask,  shall  I  continue  to  forgive  him?";  That  is,*"  Shall 
!•  not  seem,  by  these  repeated  acts  of.  forbearance,  at  last  to  be 
offeriii/T  him  inducornents  to  oifeud  .against  one  so  placable?  And 
if  these  transgressions  are  thus  enormously  multiplied,  will  it  not 
be  right  that  I  should  withhold  the  kind  consideration^  which  is 
made  of  so  little  account?"    The  ans\^er  of  Jesus  vis,  ■  *o 

thee,  not  merely  till  seven  times,  but  till  r..-.:--^-t:r  lii,  ' 

That  is,  ."  To  your  forbearance  towards  r  :  >; 

C!i;!    i  ti  brother,  there  should  be         '       i  biii  uu- 
a.&r      ■>  to  his  error.     In  ,coming   _  _.  ^.   m  the  v, 
me,  \\'it  'rivc  given  up  your  natural  rights  to 
gfi^'  »aally,  those  injuries  ' 

moi.  .  ,^         nee.     Thep^'J.,'l•vati•^ 
community  to  which  you  Jiave  joined  yourself  is  of  so  much  im- 


Peter's  discipl^ship.  99 

portance  to  the  triumphant  advaiicemi  i^f.  ot'  our  cause,  as  to  re- 
quire justly  all  these  sacrifices  of  per-nnal  feeling."  With  his 
usual  readiness  in  securing  an.  abiding  ruaiemhrancc  of  his  great 
leading  rules  of  action,  Jesus,  on  this  occiusion,  concluded  the  sub- 
ject with  illustrating  the  principle,  by  a  beautiful  parable  or  story ; 
a  mode  of  instruction,  far  more  impressive  to  the  glowing  iinagi- 
nation  of  the  Oriental,  than  to  the  more  calculating  geriuis  of 
colder  races. 

This  inquiry  may  have  been  suggested  to  Peter  by  a  remark  made  by  Christ,  wliich 
is  not  gi\'-en  by  Matthew  as  by  Lulie,  (xvii.  4.)  "  If  he  sin  against  thee  seven  times 
in  a  day,  and  seven  times  turn  again,  &c.  thou  shalt  forgive  him."  So  Maldonali  sug- 
gests; but  it  is  certainly  very  hard  to  bring  these  two  accounts  to  a  miiinlo  harmony, 
and  I  should  much  prefer  to  consider  Luke  as  having  given  a  genera!  statement  of 
Christ's  doctrine,  without  referring  to  the  occasion  or  circumstances,  wliile  Matthew 
has  given  a  more  distinct  account  of  the  whole  matter.  The  discrepancy  beiween 
the  two  accounts  has  seemed  so  great,  that  the  French  harmonists,  as  well  as  New- 
come,  Le  Clerc,  Macknight,  Thirhvall,  and  Bloomfield,  consider  them  as  relerring 
to  totally  different  occasions, — that  in  Matthew  occurring  in  Capernaum,  but  that  in 
Luke,  after  his  journey  to  Jerusalem  to  the  feast  of  the  tabernacles.  But  the  utter 
absence  of  all  chronological  order  in  the  greater  part  of  Luke's  go>pel  is  crough  to 
make  us  suspect,  ihat  the  event  he  alludes  to  may  coincide  with  ihai  of  Mauhew's 
story,  since  the  amount  of  the  precept,  and  the  general  form  of  expression,  is  the 
same  in  both  cases.  This  is  the  view  taken  by  RosenmiiUer,  Kuinoel,  Vatcr,  Clarke, 
Paulus ;  and  it  seems  to  be  further  justified  by  the  consideration,  that  the  repe- 
tition of  the  precept  must  have  been  entirely  unnecessary,  after  having  been  so 
clearlv  laid  down,  and  so  fully  re-examined  in  answer  to  Peter's  inquiry,  as  given  by 
MaUh'ew,  (xviii.  1.5— 22.) 

Seven  times. — This  number  was  a  general  expression  among  the  Hebrews  for  a 
frequent  repetition,  and  was  perfectly  vague  and  indefinite  as  to  the  number  of  repe- 
titions, as  is  shown  in  many  instances  in  the  Bible  where  it  occurs.  Severity  times 
seven,  was  another  expression  of  the  recurrences  carried  to  a  superlative  number, 
and  is  also  a  standard  Hebraism,  (as  in  Gen.  iv.  24.)  See  Poole,  Lightfoot,  Clarke, 
Scott,  and  other  commentators,  for  Rabbinical  illustrations  of  these  phrases. 

A  heathen  and  an  mtloast. — This  latter  expression  I  have  chosen,  as  giving  best  the 
full  force  of  the  name  pvblicari,  which  designated  a  class  of  men  among  the  Jews, 
who  were  considered  by  all  around  them  as  having  renounced  national  pride,  honor, 
and  religion,  for  the  base  purpose  of  worldly  gain^  serving  under  the  Roman  govern- 
ment as  tax-gatherers,  that  is,  hiring  the  taxes  of  a  district,  which  they  took  by  pay- 
ing the  government  a  definite  sum,  calculating  to  make  a  rich  profit  on  the  bargain 
by  S5'^stematic  extortion  and  oppression.  The  name,  therefore,  was  nearly  synony- 
mous with  the  modern  word  renegade, — "  one  who.  for  base  motives,  has  renoimced 
tbe  creed  and  customs  of  his  fathers." 

THE  JOURNEY  TO  JERUSALEM. 

The  occurrence  which  occasioned  this  discussion,  took  place  at 
Capernaum,  where  Jesus  seems  to  have  resided  with  his  apostles 
for  some  time  after  his  northern  tour  to  Caesarea  Philippi,  giving 
them,  as  opportunity  suggested,  a  great  number  and  variety  of 
practical  instructions.  At  length  he  started  with  them,  on  his  last 
journey  to  Jerusalem,  the  only  one  which  is  recorded  by  the  three 
first  evangeUsts,  although  John  gives  us  accounts  of  three  pre- 
vious visits  to  the  Jewish  capital.  On  this  journey,  while  he  was 
passing  on  to  Jerusalem,  by  a  somewhat  circuitous  course,  through 


100  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES, 

that  portion  of  Judea  which  hes  east  of  the  Jordan,  he  had  taken 
occasion  to  remark,  (in  connexion  with  the  disappointment  of  the 
rich  young  man,  who  could  not  give  up  his  wealth  for  the  sake  of 
the  gospel,)  how  hard  it  was  for  those  that  had  riches,  and  put 
their  trust  in  them,  to  join  heartily  in  the  promotion  of  the  cause 
of  Christ,  or  share  in  the  honors  of  its  success.  Peter,  then,  speak- 
ing for  himself  and  the  faithful  few  who  had  followed  Jesus  thus 
far  through  many  trials,  to  the  risk  and  loss  of  much  worldly  pro- 
fit, reminded  Jesus  of  what  they  had  given  up  for  his  sake.  "  Be- 
hold, we  have  forsaken  all,  and  followed  thee.  What  shall  we 
have  therefore?"  The  solemn  and  generous  assurance  of  Jesus,- 
in  reply,  was,  that  those  who  had  followed  him  thus,  should,  in 
the  final  establishment  of  his  kingdom,  when  he  should  receive 
the  glories  of  his  triumph,  share  in  the  highest  gifts  which  he, 
conqueror  of  all,,  could  bestow.  Then  those  who  had  forsaken 
kindred  and  lands,  for  his  sake,  should  find  all  these  sacrifices 
made  up  to  them,  in  the  enjoyment  of  rewards  incalculably  be- 
yond those  earthly  comforts  in  value. 

"  Behold,  we  have  forsaken  all" — Chrysostom  has  an  aMmated  commentary  on  this 
passage.  In  one  of  his  homilies,  he  begins  with  this  text,  (Matt.  xix.  27,)  and  imme- 
diately breaks  into  a  bold  apostrophe  to  the  apostle  himself. — "  All  things  1  What 
things'?  O  blessed  Peter !  Thy  reed  1  (i.  e.  fishing-pole;)  Thy  net  1  Thy  boat  1  Thy 
business  ■?  Are  these  what  thou  eallest  all  7  '  Yes,'  he  says ;  '  but  not  in  the  spirit  of 
ambition  (or  vain  glory)  do  I  say  this ;  but  that  by  this  inquiiy  I  may  bring  the  poor 
into  the  scope  of  the  injunction.'  For  since  the  Lord  said — '  If  thou  wilt  be  perfect^ 
sell  all  that  thou  hast,  and  give  to  the  poor,  and  thou  shall  have  treasure  in  heaven' — 
lest  any  poor  man  should  say — '  If  I  have  nothing  at  all,  I  cannot  be  perfect,' — Peter 
inquires,  in  order  that  )'ou  may  learn  that,  though  poor,  you  are  not  the  worse  for 
that.  Peter  inquires,  so  that,  learning  from  Peter,  you  may  not  be  in  doubt  on  this 
point,  while  yet  imperfect  and  devoid  of  the  graces  of  the  Spirit, — but,  receiving  this 
explanation  from  Peter,  as  from  a  teacher,  may  rejoice  in  hope.  For  even  as  we  do, 
when,  in  disputing  on  behalf  of  others,  we  often  make  their  cause  our  own, — so  did 
the  apostle  in  presenting  this  inquiry  on  behalf  of  the  v;^hole  world.  From  what 
was  before  said,  it  is  manifest  that  he  must  have  understood  these  things  perfectly,  as 
far  as  regarded  himself;  for  having  already  received  the  keys  of  heaven,  much  more 
might  he  have  confidence  as  to  what  was  in  heaven.  Observe,  also,  how  exactly 
his  answer  implies  what  Christ  required.  For  he  asked  of  the  rich  man  these  two 
things — to  give  his  property  to  the  poor — and  to  follow  him.  Wherefore,  Peter  also 
mentions  these  two  things — '  leaving  all— and  following  thee;'  for  the  leaving  of  all 
things  was  for  the  sake  of  following  him;  and  while  the  following  of  him  was  made 
the  easier  for  their  having  forsaken  all,  he,  for  the  same  reason,  gave  them  occasion, 
to  hope  and  rejoice,  in  promising  them  that  they  should  sit  on  twelve  thrones,"  &c. — 
(Chrysostom.  In  Matt.  xix.  Homil.  65.— Vol.  7,  pp.  563,  564,  Ed.  Commelin.  1617.) 

The  ignorance  which  Chrysostom  here  manifests,  in  perverting  the  plain  import  of 
the  passage,  for  the  sake  of  reconciling  Peter's  apparent  simplicity  with  his  supposed 
spiritual  exaltation,  is  perfectly  characteristic  of  the  Fathers  of  the  age  in  wliicb 
this  homily  was  written.  It  is  manifest  that  the  sacred  text  contains  nothing  that 
•warrants  the  supposition  that  Peter  asked  the  question  for  the  sake  of  any  person  but 
himself  and  his  lellow-di.sciplcs ;  and  every  sound,  common-sense  rule  of  interpreta- 
tion, forbids  such  a  construction  as  Chrysostom  has  put  upon  his  motives.  Another 
important  error  in  Chrysostom's  reasoning  is  his  assertion  that  Peter  had  "  received 
the  keys  of  heaven."  Notliing  in  the  Bible  offers  the  least  shadow  of  a  support  to 
this  impious  conception.    Christ  never  gave  nor  even  promised  to  give  any  mortal 


Peter's  discipleship.  101 

**  the  kejrs  ofkeaven."  His  promise  to  Peter  was—"  I  will  give  thee  the  keys  of  the  king- 
dom of  heaven," — a  very  different  thing  from  heaven  itself.  For  in  none  of  the  words 
of  Jesus  is  this  phrase  used  in  any  sense  like  "  heaven."  "  The  kingdom  of  heaven" 
was  the  kingdom  or  reign  of  Christ  on  earth ;  it  was,  in  modern  terms,— the  Christian 
dispensation ;  and  Peter  was  individually  and  personally  entrusted  with  the  mighty 
charge  of  opening  that  kingdom  or  dispensation  to  the  Gentiles, — a  charge  which  he 
did  afterwards  actually  execute.  But  heaven  is  the  place  where  the  redeemed  and 
the  good  are  to  enjoy  tueir  eternal  reward ;  it  is  the  peculiar  home  of  God,  and  of  his 
angels, — higher  than  the  noblest  human  conception  can  reach, — vaster  than  any  space 
which  human  sight  can  glance  over.  How  daring  then  the  blasphemy  of  him  who 
claims  for  any  mortal  the  keeping  of  the  entrance  to  the  throne  of  God,  and  to  the 
happiness  which  He  has  reserved  in  his  own  good  pleasure  for  the  blessed  subjects  of 
His  grace ! 

The  DATS  of  this  journey  to  Jerusalem  is  fixed  by  Baronius  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
thirty-third,  year  of  Christ,  and  the  sevent-eenth  of  the  reign  of  Tiberius  Caesar; 
which  is  corrected  by  Antony  Pagi  to  A.  D.  31,  of  the  common  era, — corresponding 
to  the  eighteenth  oi  (hQ  reign  of  Tiberius. — Baillet  (Vies  des  Saints.  29  Juin,  col. 
343)  puts  it  in  the  latter  part  of  the  year  32;  but  his  Chronology  is  not  of  so  high  au- 
thority as  that  of  Pagi,  who  is  probably  as  near  the  truth  as  any  one  can  expect  to  be 
on  such  very  uncertain  data. 

This  conversation  took  place  just  about  as  they  were  passing 
the  Jordan,  into  the  western  section  of  Judea,  near  the  spot  where 
Joshua  and  the  Israehtish  host  of  old  passed  over  to  the  conquest 
of  Canaan.  A  little  before  they  reached  Jericho,  Jesus  took  a 
private  opportunity  to  renew  to  the  twelve  his  oft-repeated  warn- 
ing of  the  awful  events,  now  soon  to  happen  after  his  entry  into 
Jerusalem.  "  Behold,  we  go  up  to  Jerusalem ;  and  the  Son  of  Man 
shall  be  betrayed  to  the  chief  priests  and  to  the  scribes,  and  they 
shall  condemn  him  to  death.  And  they  shall  deliver  him  to  the 
heathen,  to  mock,  and  to  scourge,  and  to  crucify  him ;  and  the 
third  day  he  shall  rise  again."  Yet,  distinct  as  was  this  declara- 
tion, and  full  as  the  prediction  was  in  these  shocking  particulars, 
Luke  assures  us,  that  "  they  understood  none  of  these  things  ;  and 
this  saying  was  hid  from  them ;  neither  knew  they  the  things 
which  were  spoken."  Now,  we  cannot  easily  suppose  that  they 
believed  that  he,  to  whom  they  had  so  heartily  and  confidently 
devoted  their  lives  and  fortunes,  was  trying  their  feelings  by  an 
unnecessary  fiction,  so  painful  in  its  details.  The  only  just  sup- 
position which  we  can  make,  then,  is,  that  they  explained  all  these 
predictions  to  themselves,  in  a  way  best  accordant  with  their  own 
notions  of  the  kingdom  which  the  Messiah  was  to  found,  and  on 
the  hope  of  whose  success  they  had  staked  all.  The  account  of 
his  betrayal,  ill-treatment,  and  disgraceful  death,  they  could  not 
literally  interpret  as  the  real  doom  which  awaited  their  glorious 
and  mighty  Lord ;  it  could  only  mean,  to  them,  that  for  a  brief 
space,  the  foes  of  the  Son  of  God  were  to  gain  a  seeming  triumph 
over  the  hosts  that  were  to  marcli  against  Jerusalem,  to  seat  him 
on  the  throne  of  David.    The  traitorous  heads  of  the  Jewish  faith, 


102  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  members  of  the  great  Sanhedrim,  the  hypocritical  Pharisees, 
and  the  lying,  avaricious  lawyers,  would,  through  cowardice,  self- 
ishness, envy,  jealousy,  or  some  other  meanness,  basely  conspire 
to  support  their  compound  tyranny,  by  attempting  to  crush  the 
head  of  the  new  faith,  with  the  help  of  their  Roman  masters, 
whom  they  would  summon  to  the  aid  of  their  falling  power.  This 
unpatriotic  and  treacherous  effort  would  for  a  time  seem  to  be  per- 
fectly successful ;  but  only  long  enough  for  the  traitors  to  fill  up 
the  measure  of  their  iniquities.  Then,  vain  would  be  the  com- 
bined efforts  of  priest  and  soldier, — of  Jewish  and  of  Roman  power. 
Rising  upon  them,  like  life  from  the  dead,  the  Son  of  God  should 
burst  forth  in  the  might  of  his  Father, — he  should  be  revealed 
from  heaven  with  ten  thousand  angels,  and  recalling  his  scattered 
friends,  who  might  have  been  for  a  moment  borne  down  before 
the  iron  hosts  of  Rome,  he  should  sweep  every  foreign  master, 
and  every  domestic  religious  tyrant,  from  Israel's  heritage, — setting 
up  a  throne,  whose  sway  should  spread  to  the  uttermost  parts  of 
the  earth,  displacing  even  the  deep-rooted  hold  of  Roman  power. 
What  then  would  be  the  fate  of  the  faithful  Galileans,  who,  though 
few  and  feeble,  had  stood  by  him  through  evil  and  good  report, 
risking  all  on  his  success  ?  When  the  grinding  tyranny  of  the  old 
Sanhedrim  had  been  overthrown,  and  chief  priests,  scribes,  Phari- 
sees, lawyers,  and  all,  displaced  from  the  administration,  the  chosen 
ones  of  his  own  early  adoption,  his  countrymen,  and  intimate  com- 
panions for  years,  would  be  rewarded,  sitting  on  twelve  thrones, 
judging  the  ransomed  and  victorious  twelve  tribes  of  Israel.  Could 
they  doubt  their  Lord's  ability  for  this  glorious,  this  miraculous 
achievment  ?  Had  they  not  seen  him  maintain  his  claim  for  au- 
thority over  the  elements,  over  diseases,  over  the  dark  agencies  of 
the  demoniac  powers,  and  over  the  mighty  bonds  of  death  itself? 
And  could  not  the  same  power  achieve  the  still  less  wonderful  vic- 
tory over  the  opposition  of  these  unworthy  foes  7  It  was  natural 
then,  that,  with  the  long  cherished  hopes  of  these  dazzling  tri- 
umphs in  their  minds,  the  twelve  apostles,  though  so  often  and  so 
flilly  warned  of  approaching  evils,  should  thus  unsuspectingly 
persist  in  their  mistake,  giving  every  terrible  word  of  Jesus  such 
a  turn  as  would  best  confirm  their  baseless  hopes.  Even  Peter, 
already  sternly  rebuked  for  his  forward  effort  to  exalt  the  ambition 
of  Jesus  above  even  the  temporary  disgrace  which  he  seemed  to 
foreordain  for  himself, — and  so  favored  with  the  private  instruc- 
tions and  counsels  of  his  master,  thus  erred  j — even  James  and 


Peter's  discipleship.  103 

John,  also  sharers  in  the  high  confidence  and  favor  of  Jesus, 
though  thus  favored  and  taught,  were  immediately  after  brought 
under  his  deserved  censure  for  their  presumptuous  claims  for  the 
ascendency,  which  so  moved  the  wrath  of  the  jealous  apostles, 
who  were  all  alike  involved  in  this  monstrous  and  palpable  mis- 
conception. Nor  yet  can  we  justly  wonder  at  the  infatuation  to 
which  they  were  thus  blindly  given  up,  knowing  as  we  do,  that  in 
countless  instances,  similar  error  has  been  committed  on  similar 
subjects,  by  men  similarly  influenced.  What  Biblical  commentary, 
interpretation,  introduction,  harmony,  or  criticism,  from  the  earliest 
Christian  or  Rabbinic  fathers,  to  the  theological  schemer  of  the 
latest  octavo,  does  not  bear  sad  witness  on  its  pages,  to  the  won- 
derful infatuation  which  can  force  upon  the  plainest  and  clearest 
declaration,  a  version  elaborately  figurative  or  painfully  literal, 
just  as  may  most  comfortably  cherish  and  confirm  a  doctrine,  or 
notion,  or  prejudice,  which  the  writer  would  fain  "  add  to  the 
things  which  are  written  in  the  book?"  Can  it  be  reasonably 
hoped,  then,  that  this  untaught  effort  to  di'aw  out  the  historical 
truth  of  the  gospel,  will  be  an  exception  to  this  harshly  true  judg- 
ment on  the  good,  the  learned,  and  the  critical  of  past  ages  ? 

THE  ENTRY  INTO  THE  CITY. 

With  these  fruitless  admonitions  to  his  followers,  Jesus  passed 
on  through  Jericho  to  Bethphage,  on  the  verge  of  the  Holy  city. 
Here,  the  enthusiastic  and  triumphant  rejoicings,  which  the  pre- 
sence of  their  Master  called  forth  from  the  multitudes  who  were 
then  swarming  to  Jerusalem  from  all  parts  of  Palestine,  must  have 
lifted  up  the  hearts  of  the  apostles,  with  high  assurance  of  the 
nearness  of  the  honors  for  which  they  had  so  long  looked  and 
waited.  Their  irrepressible  joy  and  exultation  burst  out  in  songs 
of  triumph,  as  Jesus,  after  the  manner  of  the  ancient  judges  of 
Israel,  rode  into  the  royal  seat  of  his  fathers.  And  as  he  went 
down  the  descent  of  the  Mount  of  Olives,  to  go  into  the  city,  the 
whole  train  of  the  disciples  began  to  rejoice  and  praise  God,  with 
a  loud  voice,  for  all  the  mighty  works  which  they  had  seen ;  say- 
ing, "  Blessed  be  the  King  of  Israel,  that  cometh  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord !  Peace  in  heaven !  Glory  in  the  highest !  Blessed  be  the 
kingdom  of  our  father  David !  Hosanna !"  These  acclamations 
were  raised  by  the  disciples,  and  heartily  joined  in  by  the  multi- 
tudes who  knew  his  wonderful  works,  and  more  especially  those 
who  were  acquainted  with  the  very  recent  miracle  of  raising  Laza- 


104  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

nis.  A  great  sensation  of  wonder  was  created  throughout  the 
city,  by  such  a  burst  of  shouts  from  a  multitude,  sweeping  in  a 
long,  imposing  train,  with  palm  branches  in  their  hands,  down  the 
mountain,  on  which  they  could  have  been  seen  all  over  Jerusalem. 
As  he  entered  the  gates,  all  the  city  was  moved  to  ask — "  Who  is 
this  ?"  And  the  rejoicing  multitude  said — "  This  is  Jesus,  the  pro- 
phet of  Nazareth  in  Galilee,"'  What  scorn  did  not  this  reply 
awaken  in  many  of  the  haughty  aristocrats  of  Jerusalem,  to  learn 
that  all  this  solemn  parade  had  been  got  up  for  no  better  purpose 
than  merely  to  honor  a  dweller  of  that  outcast  region  of  mongrels, 
Galilee !  And  of  all  places,  that  this  prophet,  so  called,  should 
have  come  from  Nazaretli !  A  prophet  from  Galilee,  indeed  !  Was 
it  from  this  half-heathen  district,  that  the  favored  inhabitants  of  the 
capital  of  Judaism  were  to  receive  a  teacher  of  religion  ?  Were 
the  strict  faith,  and  the  rigid  observances  of  their  learned  and  de- 
vout, to  be  displaced  by  the  presumptuous  reformations  of  a  self- 
taught  prophet,  from  such  a  country  ?  Swelling  with  these  feel- 
ings, the  Pharisees  could  not  repress  a  remonstrance  with  Jesus, 
against  these  noisy  proceedings.  But  he,  evidently  affected  with 
pleasure  at  the  honest  tribute  thus  wrung  out  in  spite  of  sectional 
feeling,  forcibly  asserted  the  propriety  and  justice  of  this  free  of- 
fering of  praise  : — "  I  tell  you,  that  if  these  should  hold  their  peace, 
the  stones  would  immediately  cry  out." 

Amid  the  loud  hosannas  that  rung  from  the  summit  and  slope 
of  Olivet,  giving  utterance  to  the  joy  of  the  thronging  thousands 
who  roared  their  exulting  welcome  to  the  acknowledged  Lord  and 
King  of  Israel,  one  "  still,  small  voice"  was  gently  uplifted  in  tones 
of  sorrow  and  mourning ;  and  while  all  other  eyes  flashed  only 
wild  rejoicing  or  amazement,  his  were  wet  with  tears, — not  of  the 
pure  joy  that  the  good  and  the  great  may  nobly  feel  in  the  hour 
of  well-earned  triumph, — not  of  the  divine  delight  with  which  the 
just  homage  and  adoration  of  those  he  came  to  redeem  might  well 
inspire  the  Son  of  God, — still  less  of  the  baser  sympathies  of  hu- 
man pride  or  carnal  ambition ; — but  tears  of  grief,  of  compassion 
for  human  wretchedness,  dimmed  the  splendors  of  the  eye  that 
glanced  over  heaven  and  earth,  yet  saw  no  created  equal.  While 
all  "  the  mountains  round  about  Jerusalem"  were  echoing  from 
west  to  east  the  shouts  that  spoke  only  joy,  and  while  the  depths 
of  the  valley  were  sending  the  notes  of  praise  back  to  the  rock 
and  up  to  the  lofty  colonnades  of  the  temple, — he,  the  adored  of 
all  adorers,  the  joy  and  hope  of  thousands,  wept — even  for  those 


Peter's  discipleship.  105 

who  rejoiced  in  his  coming,  as  well  as  for  the  malignant  few  who 
looked  on  and  listened  with  scorn. — "  When  he  was  come  near,  he 
beheld  the  city,  and  wept  over  it,  saying — '  O  !  that  thou  hadst 
known,  even  thou,  at  least  in  this  thy  day,  the  things  that  are  for 
thy  peace ;  but  now  they  are  hidden  from  thine  eyes.  For  the 
day  shall  come  upon  thee,  when  thine  enemies  shall  draw  a  trench 
around  thee,  and  shall  encompass  thee,  and  enclose  thee  on  every 
side,  and  shall  level  thee  to  the  ground,  and  thy  children  within 
thee,  and  they  shall  not  leave  in  thee  one  stone  upon  another ;  be- 
cause thou  knewest  not  the  time  of  thy  visitation.'  "  From  the 
western  side  of  Olivet,  his  eye  glanced  on  the  Holy  city,  encir- 
cled by  the  arapliitheatric  range  of  mountains,  which  completely 
enclosed  it  from  the  distant  pilgrmi's  view,  except  where  the  lofty 
golden  roof  and  white  columns  of  the  eastern  front  of  the  temple 
flashed  with  peculiar  brightness  over  the  highths.  Jerusalem, — • 
the  desire  of  all  Israel,  the  city  of  David,  the  peculiar  dwelhng- 
place  of  God's  earthly  presence, — here  rose  on  the  pilgrim's  eye  in 
a  glory  wliich  no  distant  dream  could  ever  have  equaled.  The 
light  of  ages  illumined  the  scene ;  and  the  glory  of  the  Shechinah 
shone  in  the  column  of  incense  that  rose  over  all  in  the  smoke  of 
the  temple-sacrifice  : — all  that  antiquity  or  religion  could  brighten 
and  hallow  came  at  once  to  view.  Well  might  the  heart  of  the 
Israelite  bound  with  triumph  and  dehght  m  such  a  prospect.  W^ell 
might  his  exultation  utter  itself  in  hosannas,  as  he  hailed  the  city 
in  the  presence  of  him  who  now  came  to  bring  back  the  glories 
of  David  to  this  their  ancient  seat.  But  other  feelings  moved  the 
heart  of  him  whose  approach  was  the  inspiration  of  that  joy.  No 
human  feeling  of  patriotism  or  pride  could  overcome  in  his  mind 
the  prophetic  perception  of  the  fate  that  was  so  soon  to  dim  and 
darken  all  those  glories.  Knowing  with  a  certainty  as  clear  as 
the  remembrance  of  the  past,  the  awful  events  wliich  were  so  soon 
to  occur  within  those  walls,  desolating  its  beauty  and  defiling  its 
sanctity, — how  could  he  feel  any  other  than  mournful  sensations 
and  sympathies  for  the  place  and  the  people  ? — the  place  on  which 
such  horrible  ruin  was  about  to  fall ! — the  people  who  were  to 
bring  down  that  ruin  by  their  future  crimes  against  God  and  his 
Son,  and  were  to  sink  in  it  to  a  woe  that  even  his  mercy  could 
not  avert ! 

With  palm^branches  in  their  hands. — This  tree,  the  emblem  of  joy  and  trinmph  in 
every  part  of  the  world  where  it  is  known,  was  the  more  readily  ad.opted  on  this  oc- 
casion, by  those  who  thronged  to  swell  the  triumphal  train  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  be- 
cause the  palm  grew  along  the  way-side  where  they  passed,  and  the  whole  moxmt  was 


106  LIVES  Of  THE  APOSTLES. 

hardly  less  rich  in  this  than  in  the  far  famed  olive  from  which  it  drew  its  name.  A 
proof  of  the  abundance  of  the  palm-trees  on  Olivet  is  found  in  the  name  of  the  vil- 
lage of  Bethany,  ••3>n  n-^a,  (bet/i-hen^,)  "  house  of  dates,"  which  shows  that  the  tree  which 
bore  this  fruit  must  have  been  plentiful  there.  The  people,  as  they  passed  on  with 
Jesu^  from  this  village,  whence  he  started  to  enter  the  city,  would  therefore  find  this 
token  of  triumph  hanging  over  tKi  ;  heads,  and  shading  their  path  everywhere  with- 
in reach ;  and  the  emotions  of  joy  i  Leir  approach  to  the  city  of  God  in  the  company 
of  this  good  and  mighty  prophet,  t  impted  them  at  once  to  use  the  expressive  em- 
blems which  hung  so  near  at  hand ;  am;  '/hich  were  alike  within  the  reach  of  those 
who  journeyed  with  Jesus,  and  those  v  ).  •  came  forth  from  the  city  to  meet  and  escort 
him  in.  The  presence  of  these  triun  ■■  a1  signs  would,  of  course,  remind  them  at 
once  of  the  feast  of  the  tabernacles,  the  aay  on  which,  in  obedience  to  the  Mosaic  sta- 
tute, all  the  dwellers  of  the  city  were  accu.stomed  to  go  forth  to  the  mount,  and  bring 
home  these  branches  with  songs  of  joy.  (Levit.  xxiii.  40,  Nehem.  viii.  15,  16.)  The 
remembrance  of  this  festival  at  once  recalled  also  the  beautifully  appropriate  words 
of  the  noble  national  and  religious  hymn,  which  they  always  chanted  in  praise  of  tlie 
God  of  their  fathers  on  that  day,  (see  Kuinoel,  Rosenrntiller,  Wolf,  &c.)  and  which 
was  su  peculiarly  applicable  to  him  who  now  "  came  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,"  to 
honor  and  to  bless  his  people.     (Ps.  cxviii.  26.) — (See  Lightfoot,  Cent.  Chor.  41.) 

The  descent  of  the  Mount  of  Olives. — To  imagine  this  scene,  with  something  of  the 
force  of  reality,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  Mount  of  Olives,  so  often  mentioned 
in  the  scenes  of  Christ's  life,  rose  on  the  eastern  side  of  Jerusalem,  beyond  the  valley 
of  the  Kedron,  whose  little  stream  flowed  between  this  mountain  and  Mount  Moriah, 
on  which  the  temple  stood.  Mount  Olivet  was  much  higher  than  any  pari  of  the  city 
within  its  walls,  and  the  most  commanding  and  satisfactory  view  of  the  Hoi}''  city 
which  modern  travelers  and  draughtsmen  have  been  able  to  present  to  us  in  a  picture, 
is  that  from  the  more  than  classic  summit  of  this  mountain.  The  great  northern 
road  passing  through  Jericho  approaches  Jerusalem  on  its  northeastern  side,  and 
comes  directly  over  the  top  of  Olivet,  and  as  it  mounts  the  ridge,  it  brings  the  Holy 
city  in  all  its  glory,  directly  on  the  traveler's  view. 

Hosanna. — This  also  is  an  expression  taken  from  the  same  festal  hymn,  (Ps.  cxviii. 
25.)  Ns-njj^tt'in  (hoshia-na)  a  pure  Hebrew  expression,  as  Drusius  shows,  and  not  ^ri- 
ac,  (See  Poole's  Synopsis  on  Matt.  xxi.  9,)  but  corrupted  in  the  vulgar  pronunciation 
of  this  frequently  repeated  hymn,  into  Hosanna.  The  meaning  of  the  Hebrew  is 
"  Save  him"  or  "  Be  gracious  to  him,"  that  is,  in  connexion  with  the  words  which  fol- 
low in  the  gospel  story,  "  Be  gracious,  O  Lord,  to  the  son  of  David."  This  is  the 
same  Hebrew  phrase  which,  in  the  psalm  above  quoted,  (verse  25,)  is  translated 
"  Save  now."  The  whole  expression  was  somewhat  like  the  English  "  God  save  the 
king,"  in  its  import. 

Nazareth. — This  city,  in  particular,  had  an  odious  name,  for  the  general  low  char- 
acter of  its  inhabitants.  The  passage  in  John  i.  46,  shows  in  what  estimation  this  city 
and  its  inhabitants  were  held,  by  their  own  neighbors  in  Galilee;  and  the  great  scorn 
with  which  all  Galileans  were  regarded  by  the  Jews,  must  have  redoubled  their  con- 
tempt of  this  poor  village,  so  despised  even  by  the  despicable.  The  consequence  was 
that  the  Nazarenes  acquired  so  low  a  character,  that  the  name  became  a  sort  of  by- 
word for  what  was  mean  and  foolish.  (See  Kuinoel  on  Matt.  ii.  23,  John  i.  46.  Also 
Rosenmiiller  on  the  former  passage  and  Bloomfield  on  the  latter.) 

Galilee. — In  order  to  appreciate  fully,  the  scorn  and  suspicion  with  which  the 
Galileans  were  regarded  by  the  citizens  of  Jerusalem,  a  complete  view  of  their 
sectional  peculiarities  would  be  necessary.  Such  a  view  will  hereafter  be  given  in 
connexion  with  a  passage  which  more  directly  refers  to  those  peculiarities,  and  more 
especially  requires  illustration  and  explanation. 

The  account  of  the  weeping  of  Jesus  over  Jerusalem  is  given  only  by  Luke,  (xix. 
41 — 44.)  Those  points  in  which  the  forms  of  expression  in  Christ's  words  are 
changed  from  the  common  translation,  are  in  accordance  with  the  standard  commen- 
tators.   (See  Poole's  Synopsis,  Doddridge's  Expositor,  Kuinoel,  &c.  in  loc.) 

THE  BLIGHTING  OF  THE  FIG-TREE. 

Having  thus,  by  his  piibhc  and  triumphant  entrance  into  Jeru- 
salem,  defied  and  provoked  the  spite  of  the  higher  orders,  while 
he  secured  an  attentive  hearing  from  the  common  people,  when 


«?? 


^ 


Peter's  discipleship. 


107 


he  should  wish  to  teach  them, — Jesus  retired  at  evening,  for  the 
sake  of  quiet  and  comfort,  to  the  house  of  his  friends,  Lazarus, 
Mary,  and  Martha,  at  Bethany,  in  the  suburbs.     Tlie  next  morn- 
ing, as  lie  was  on  his  way  witli  his  disciples,  coming  back  from 
this  place  to  Jerusalem,  hungry  with  the  fatigues  of  his  long  walk, 
he  came  to  a  fig-tree,  near  the  path,  hoping  to  find  fruit  for  his  re- 
freshment, as  it  seemed  from  a  distance  flourishing  with  abun- 
dance of  leaver,  and  was  then  near  the  season  of  bearing.     But 
when  he  car:ie  near,  he  found  nothing  but  leaves  on  it,  for  it  was 
somewhat  oackward,  and  its  time  of  producing  figs  was  not  yet. 
And  Jesi^s,  seizing  the  opportunity  of  this  disappointment  to  im- 
press his<  disciples  with  his  power,  personifying  the  tree,  denounced 
destruct>ion  against  it, — "  May  no  man  eat  fruit  of  thee  hereafter, 
forever."    And  his  disciples  heard  it.     They  returned  to  Bethany, 
as  usuaH,  that  evening,  to  pass  the  night ;  but  as  they  passed,  pro- 
bably aFter  dark,  they  took  no  notice  of  the  fig-tree.    But  the  next 
mornin;  r^  as  they  went  back  to  the  city,  they  saw  that  it  had  dried 
up  froi^i  the  roots.     Simon  Peter,  always  ready  to  notice  the  in- 
stance is  of  his  Master's  power,  called  out  in  surprise  to  Jesus,  to 
witneits  the  efiect  of  his  malediction  upon  its  object.     "  Master, 
beholed,  the   fig-tree  which  thou  didst  curse,  is  withered  away." 
JesuF  to  noticing  their  amazement  at  the  apparent  efiect  of  his  words, 
in  sQejsmall  a  matter,  took  occasion  to  turn  their  attention  to  other 
and  diigher  objects  of  faith,  on  which  they  might  exert  their  zeal 
in  ardjpirit,  not  of  withering  denunciation  and  destroying  wrath, 
suci-  fsts  they  had  seen  so  tremendously  efiicient  in  this  case,  but 
in  ivne  spirit  of  love  and  forgiveness,  as  well  as  of  the  holy  energy 
thftoriaould  overthrow  and  overcomxe  difiiculties,  not  less  than  to 
uyur  aij  Mount  Olivet  from  its  everlasting  base,  and  hurl  it  into 
tlere 
pon  tl 

ioUS  n  THE  DISCUSSIONS  WITH  THE  SECTARIES. 

portabUe  disciples  steadily  remained  the  diligent  and  constant  at- 
pointsvits  of  their  heavenly  teacher,  in  his  long  and  frequent  sea- 
chosen  if  instruction  in  the  temple,  where  he  boldly  met  the  often 
mountaied  attacks  of  his  various  adversaries,  whether  Herodians, 
gloom  i,  Pharisees,  or  Sadducees ;  and  in  spite  of  their  long-trained 
There  i^ies,  beat  them  out  and  out,  with  the  very  weapons  at  which 
in  their  (hought  themselves  so  handy.     The  display  of  genius,  of 


s^ide  rolling,  distant  sea. 


which  -v^ 
who  he£ 


loiuniing,  of  ready  and  sarcastic  wit,  and  of  heart-search- 
,euess,  was  so  amazing  and  superhuman,  that  these  few 
15 


108  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

days  of  open  discussion  established  his  divinely  intellectual  supe- 
riority over  all  the  elaborate  science  of  his  accomplished  opponents, 
and  at  the  same  time  secured  the  fulfilment  of  his  destiny,  by  the 
spile  and  hatred  which  their  repeated  public  defeats  excited  in 
them.     Imagine  their  rage.     Exposed  thus  before  the  people,  by 
whom  they  had  hitherto  been  regarded  as  the  sole  depositaries  of 
learning,  and  adored  as  the  fountains  of  right,  +hey  saw  all  their 
honors  and  power,  to  which  they  had  devoted  the  Intense  study  of 
their  whole  lives,  snatched  coolly  and  easily  from  thei  ■<,  by  a  name- 
less, untaught  pretender,  who  was  able  to  hold  them  up,  baffled 
and  disgraced,  for  the  amusement  of  the  jeering  multitude.     Here 
was  ground  enough  for  hatred, — the  hatred  of  conceitea  and  in- 
tolerant false  learning,  against  the  discerning  soul  that  ha&  stripped 
and  humbled  it, — the  hatred  of  confident  ambition   agcinst  the 
heroic  energy  which  had  discomfited  it,  and  was  doing  much  to 
free  a  long  enslaved  people  from  the  yoke  which  formal  hvrpocrisy 
and  empty  parade  had  long  laid  on  them.     And  again,  t  \e  into- 
lerable thought  that  all  this  heavy  disgrace  had  been  broi  ght  on 
the  learned  body  of  Judaism  by  a  Galilean  !  a  mere  carped  iter  of 
the  lowest  orders,  who  had  come  up  to  Jerusalem  foUowe*  by  a 
select  train  of  rude  fishermen  and  outcast  publicans ;  ano  who, 
not  being  able  to  command  a  single  night's  lodging  in  th '  city, 
was  in  the  habit  of  boarding  and  lodging  in  a  paltry  sub   ['    ■'^ 
the  charity  of  some  personal  friends,  from  which  place  he  hi  ^"7 
walked  in  for  the  distance  of  two  miles  every  morning,  to  t  •   ^P"- 
over  the  palace-lodged  heads  of  the  Jewish  faith.     From   ^"^  ^ 
man,  thus  humbly  and  even  pitiably  circumstanced,  such  ci€,r^^" 
sion  and  overthrow  could  not  be  endured  ;  and  his  ruin  -^  (>»  ^- 
dered  doubly  easy  by  his  very  insignificance,  which  no^f*^^  ly-  ^ 
tuted  the  chief  disgrace  of  their  defeat.     Never  was  co^  w 
closely  followed  by  its  effect,  than  this  insulted  dignity 

cruel  venereance. 

^  Tli 

THE  PROPHECY  OF  THE  TEMPLE's  RUIN,   teildil 

In  preparing  his  disciples  for  the  great  events  w  ''Ons  rfe 
take  place  in  a  few  years,  and  which  were  to  have  a  renew 
ence  on  their  labors,  Jesus  foretold  to  them  the  destr  scribe 
temple.     As  he  was  passing  out  through  the  mighty  subtle 
temple  on  some  occasion  with  his  disciples,  one  of  th<  '^'ley 
the  gorgeous  beauty  of  the  architecture  and  the  matf  *^i-''' 
tlie  proudly  exulting  devotion  of  a  patriotic  and  relig.  ing  'tdi 


soe 

beS 
ir 
l>n 
e 


Peter's  discipleship.  109 

to  hiin,  "  Master,  see  !  what  stones  and  what  buildings  !"  To  him, 
Jesus  replied  with  the  awful  prophecy,  most  shocking  to  the  na- 
tional pride  and  religious  associations  of  every  Israelite, — that  ere 
long,  upon  that  glorious  pile  should  fall  a  ruin  so  complete,  that 
not  one  of  those  splendid  stones  should  be  left  upon  another. 
These  words  must  have  made  a  strong  impression  of  wonder  on 
all  who  heard  them ;  but  no  further  details  of  the  prophecy  were 
given  to  the  disciples  at  large.  Not  long  afterwards,  however,  as 
he  sat  musingly  by  himself,  in  his  favorite  retirement,  half-way  up 
the  Mount  of  Olives,  over  against  the  temple,  the  four  most  loved 
and  honored  of  the  twelve,  Peter,  James,  John,  and  Andrew,  came 
to  him,  and  asked  him  privately,  to  tell  them  when  these  things 
should  be,  and  by  what  omen  they  should  know  the  approach  of 
the  great  and  wpful  ruin.  Sitting  there,  they  had  a  full  view  of 
the  enormous  pile  which  rose  in  immense  masses  very  near  them, 
on  the  verge  of  Mount  Moriah,  and  was  even  terraced  up,  from 
the  side  of  the  slope,  presenting  a  vast  wall,  rising  from  the  depths 
of  the  deep  ravine  of  Kedron,  which  separated  the  temple  from 
Mount  Olivet,  where  they  were.  It  was  morning  when  the  con- 
versation took  place,  as  we  may  fairly  guess,  for  this  spot  lay  on 
the  daily  walk  to  Bethany,  where  he  lodged ; — the  broad  walls, 
high  towers,  and  pillars  of  the  temple,  were  doubtless  illuminated 
by  the  full  splendors  of  the  morning  sun  of  Palestine ;  for  Olivet 
was  directly  east  of  Jerusalem,  and  as  they  sat  looking  westward 
towards  the  temple,  with  the  sun  behind  them,  the  rays,  leaving 
their  faces  in  the  shade,  would  shine  full  and  bright  on  all  which 
crowned  the  highth  beyond.  It  was  at  such  a  time,  as  the  Jewish 
historian  assures  us,  that  the  temple  was  seen  in  its  fullest  gran- 
deur and  sublimity  ;  for  the  light,  falling  on  the  vast  roofs,  which 
were  sheeted  and  spiked  with  pure  gold,  brightly  polished,  and 
upon  the  turrets  and  pinnacles  which  glittered  with  the  same  pre 
cious  metal,  was  reflected  to  the  eye  of  the  gazer  with  an  insup- 
portable brilliancy,  from  the  million  bright  surfaces  and  shining 
points  which  covered  it.  Here,  then,  sat  Jesus  and  his  four  adoring 
chosen  ojies,  with  this  splendid  sight  before  them  crowning  the 
mountain,  now  made  doubly  dazzling  by  contrast  with  the  deep 
gloom  of  the  dark  glen  below,  which  separated  them  from  it. 
There  it  was,  that,  with  all  this  brightness  and  glory  and  beauty 
in  their  view,  Jesus  solemnly  foretold  in  detail,  the  awful,  total  ruin 
which  was  to  sweep  it  all  away,  within  the  short  hves  of  those 
who  heard  him.     Well  might  such  words  sink  deep  into  their 


110  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

hearts, — words  coming  from  lips  whose  perfect  and  divine  truth 
they  could  not  doubt,  though  the  things  now  foretold  must  have 
gone  wofiilly  against  all  the  dreams  of  glory,  in  which  they  had 
made  that  sacred  pile  the  scene  of  the  future  triumphs  of  the  faith 
and  followers  of  Christ.  This  sublime  prophecy,  which  need  not 
here  be  repeated  or  descanted  upon,  is  given  at  great  length  by  all 
the  three  first  evangelists,  especially  by  Matthew. 

The  vicv)  of  the  temple. — I  can  find  no  description  by  any  writer,  ancient  or  mo- 
dern, which  gives  so  clear  an  account  of  the  original  shape  of  Mount  Moriah,  and 
of  the  modifications  it  underwent  to  fit  it  to  support  the  temple,  as  that  given  by  Jose- 
phus.  (Jew.  War,  book  V.  chap,  v.)  In  speaking  of  the  original  founding  of  the 
temple  by  Solomon,  (Ant.  book  VIII.  chap.  iii.  sec.  2,)  he  says,  "  The  king  laid  the 
foundations  of  the  temple  in  the  very  depths,  [at  the  bottom  of  the  descent.]  using 
stones  of  a  firm  structure,  and  able  to  hold  out  against  the  attacks  of  lime;  so  that 
growing  inio  a  union,  as  it  were,  with  the  ground,  they  might  be  the  basis  and  sup- 

Eort  of  the  pile  thai  was  to  be  reared  above,  and  through  their  strength  below,  easily 
ear  the  va.^^t  mass  of  the  great  superstructure,  and  the  immense  weight  of  ornament 
also ;  for  the  weight  of  those  things  which  were  contrived  for  beauty  and  magnificence 
was  not  less  than  that  of  the  materials  which  contributed  to  the  highth  and  lateral  di- 
mension." In  the  full  description  which  he  afterwards  gives  in  the  place  first  quoted, 
of  the  latter  temple  as  perfected  by  Herod,  which  is  the  building  to  which  the  account 
in  the  text  refers,  he  enters  more  fully  into  the  mode  of  shaping  the  ground  to  the 
temple.  "  The  temple  was  founded  upon  a  peaked  hill ;  but  in  the  first  beginning  of 
the  structure  there  was  scarcely  flat  ground  enough  on  the  top  for  the  sanctuary  and 
the  altar,  for  it  was  abrupt  and  precipitous  all  around.  And  king  Solomon,  when 
he  built  the  sanctuary,  having  walled  it  out  on  the  eastern  side,  [tKTetxi(Tnvroi,  that  is, 
'  having  built  out  a  wall  on  that  side'  for  a  terrace,]  then  reared  upon  the  terraced 
earih  a  colonnade;  but  on  the  other  sides  the  .sanctuary  was  naked, — [that  is,  the  wall 
was  unsupported  and  unornamented  by  colonnades  as  it  was  on  the  east.]  But  in 
the  course  of  ages,  the  people  all  the  while  beating  down  the  terraced  earth  with  their 
footsteps,  the  hill  thus  growing  flat  was  made  broader  on  the  top;  and  having  taken 
down  the  wall  on  the  north,  they  gained  considerable  ground  which  was  afterwards 
enclosed  within  the  outer  court  of  the  temple.  Finally,  having  walled  the  hill  en- 
tirely around  with  three  terraces,  and  having  advanced  the  work  far  beyond  any  hope 
that  could  have  been  reasonably  entertained  at  first,  spending  on  it  long  ages,  and  all 
the  sacred  treasures  accumulated  from  the  ofl^erings  sent  to  God  from  the  ends  of  the 
world,  they  reared  around  it,  both  the  upper  courts  and  the  lower  temple,  walling  the 
latter  up,  in  the  lowest  part,  from  a  depth  of  three  hundred  cubits,  [450  feet,]  and 
in  some  places  more.  And  yet  the  whole  depth  of  the  foundations  did  not  show 
itself,  because  they  had  greatly  filled  up  the  ravines,  with  a  view  to  bring  them  to  a 
level  with  the  streets  of  the  city.  The  stones  of  this  work  were  of  the  size  of  forty 
cubits;  [60  feet;]  for  the  profusion  of  means  and  the  lavish  zeal  of  the  people  advanced 
the  improvements  of  the  temple  beyond  account;  and  a  perfection  far  above  all  hope 
was  thus  attained  by  perseverance  and  time.  (Jos.,  Jew.  War,  book  V.  chap.  v. 
sec.  1.) 

"  And  well  worthy  of  these  foundations  were  the  works  which  stood  upon  them. 
For  all  the  colonnades  were  double,  consisting  of  pillars  twenty-five  cubits  [40  feet] 
in  highth,  each  of  a  single  stone  of  the  whitest  marble,  and  were  roofed  with  fret- 
work of  cedar.  The  natural  beauty  of  these,  their  high  polish  and  exquisite  propor- 
tion, presented  a  most  glorious  show;  but  their  surface  was  not  marked  by  the  super- 
fluous embellishments  of  painting  and  carving.  The  colonnades  were  thirty  cubits 
broad,  [that  is,  forty-five  feet  from  the  front  of  the  columns  to  the  wall  behind  them ;] 
while  iheir  whole  circuit  embraced  a  range  of  six  stadia,  ("more  than  three  quarters 
of  a  mile !]  including  the  castle  of  Antonia.  And  the  whole  hypethrum  [maiOpuv,  the 
floor  of  the  courts  or  inclosures  of  the  temple,  which  was  exposed  to  the  open  air, 
there  being  no  roof  above  it]  was  variegated  by  the  stones  of  all  colors  with  which  it 
was  laid,"  [making  a  sort  of  Mosaic  pavement.]    (Sec.  2.)        *        *        •        * 

"  The  outside  of  the  sanctuary,  too,  lacked  nothing  that  could  strike  or  dazzle  the 
mind  and  eye.    For  it  was  on  all  sides  overlaid  with  massy  plates  of  gold,  so  that  in 


Peter's  discipleship.  Ill 

the  first  light  of  the.  rising  sun,  it  shot  forth  a  most  fiery  splendor,  which  turned 
away  the  eyes  of  those  who  compelled  themselves  (mid.  i3ta^oiuvi>vi)  to  gaze  on  it,  as 
from  the  rays  of  the  sun  itself.  To  strangers,  moreover,  who  were  coming  towards 
it,  it  shone  from  afar  like  a  complete  mountain  of  snow :  for  where  it  was  not  covered 
with  gold  it  was  most  dazzlingly  white,  and  above  on  the  roof  it  had  golden  spikes, 
sharpened  to  keep  the  birds  from  lighting  on  it.  And  some  of  the  stones  of  the  build- 
ing were  forty-five  cubits  long,  five  high,  and  six  broad ;"— [or  sixt}^-seven  feet  long, 
seven  and  a  half  high,  and  nine  broad.]    (Sec.  6.) 

"  The  Antonia  was  placed  at  the  angle  made  by  the  meeting  of  two  colonnades  of 
the  outer  temple,  the  western  and  the  northern.  It  was  built  upon  a  rock,  fifty  cubits 
high,  and  precipitous  on  all  sides.  It  was  the  work  of  king  Herod,  in  which,  most 
of  all,  he  showed  himself  a  man  of  magnificent  conceotions."    (Sec.  8.)     *     *    * 

In  speaking  of  Solomon's  foundation,  he  also  says,  (;  Ant.  book  VIII.  chap.  iii.  sec. 
9,)  "  But  he  made  the  outside  of  the  temple  wonderful  beyond  account,  both  in  de- 
scription and  to  sight.  For  having  piled  up  huge  terraces,  from  which,  on  account  of 
their  immense  depth,  it  was  hardly  possible  to  look  down,  and  reared  them  to  the 
highth  of  four  himdred  cubits,  [six  hundred  feet !]  he  brought  them  to  the  same  level 
with  the  hill's  top  on  which  the  sanctuary  {yaoi)  was  built,  and  thus  the  open  floor  of 
the  temple  {hpov,  or  the  outer  court's  inclosure)  was  level  with  the  saiictuary."  *  *  *i 

I  have  drawn  thus  largely  from  the  rich  descriptions  of  this  noble  and  faithful  de- 
scriber  of  the  old  glories  of  the  Holy  Land,  because  this  very  literal  new  translation 
gives  the  exact  details  of  the  temple's  aspect,  in  language  as  gorgeous  as  the  most 
high-wrought  in  which  it  could  be  presented  in  a  mere  fancy  picture  of  the  same 
scene ;  and  because  it  will  prove  that  my  conception  of  its  glory,  as  it  appeared  to 
Christ  and  the  four  disciples  who  "  sat  over  against  it  upon  the  Mount  of  Olives,"  is 
not  overdrawn,  since  it  is  thus  supported  by  the  blameless  and  invaluable  testimony 
of  him  who  saw  all  this  splendor  in  its  most  splendid  day,  and  afterwards  in  its  un- 
equaled  beauty  and  with  all  its  polished  gold  and  marble,  shining  and  sinking  amid 
the  flames,  which  swept  it  utterly  away  from  his  saddening  eves  forever,  to  a  ruin 
the  most  absolute  and  irretrievable  that  ever  fell  upon  the  works  of  man. 

This  was  the  temple  on  which  the  sons  of  Jonah  and  Zebedee  gazed,  with  the 
awful  denunciation  of  its  utter  ruin  falling  from  their  Lord's  lips,  and  such  was  the 
desolation  to  which  those  terrible  words  devoted  it.  This  full  description  of  its  loca- 
tion shows  the  manner  in  which  its  terraced  foundations  descended  with  their  vast 
fronts,  six  hundred  feet  into  the  valley  of  Kedron,  over  which  they  looked.  To  give 
as  clear  an  idea  of  the  place  where  they  sat,  and  its  relations  to  the  rest  of  the  scene, 
I  extract  from  Conder's  Modem  Traveler  the  following  descriptions  of  Mount 
Olivet. 

"  The  Mount  of  Olives  forms  a  part  of  a  ridge  of  limestone  hills,  extending  to  the 
north  and  the  southwest.  Pococke  describes  it  as  having  four  summits.  On  the 
lowest  and  most  northerly  of  these,  which,  he  tells  us,  is  called  Sulrrmn  Tashy,  the 
stone  of  Solomon,  there  is  a  large  domed  sepulchre,  and  several  other  Muhammedan 
tombs.  The  ascent  to  this  point,  which  is  to  the  northeast  of  the  city,  he  describes  as 
very  gradual,  through  pleasant  corn-fields  planted  with  olive-trees.  The  second 
summit  is  that  which  overlooks  the  city :  the  path  to  it  rises  from  the  ruined  gardens 
of  Gethsemane,  which  occupy  part  of  the  valley.  About  half-way  up  the  ascent  is  a 
ruined  monastery,  built,  as  the  monks  tell  us,  on  the  spot  where  the  Savior  wept  over 
Jerusalem.  From  this  point  the  spectator  enjoys,  perhaps,  the  best  view  of  the  Holy- 
City."    (Here  Jesus  sat,  in  our  scene.)  i.  .n.. 

"  The  valley  of  Jehoshaphat,  which  lies  between  this  mountain  and  the, hills  oa 
which  Jerusalem  is  built,  is  still  used  as  a  burial-place  by  the  modern  Jews,  as  it  was 
by  their  ancestors.  It  is,  generally  speaking,  a  rocky  flat,  with  a  few  patches  of 
earth  here  and  there,  about  half  a  mile  in  breadth  from  the  Kedron  to  the  foot  of 
Mount  Olivet,  and  nearly  of  the  same  length  from  Siloa  to  the  garden  of  Gethsemane. 
The  Jews  have  a  tradition,  evidently  foimded  on  taking  literally  the  passage  in  Joel  iii. 
12,  that  this  narrow  valley  will  be  the  scene  of  the  final  judgment.  The  prophet  Je- 
remiah evidently  refers  to  the  same  valley  under  the  name  of  the  valley  of  the  son 
of  Hinnom,  or  the  valley  of  Tophet,  the  situation  being  clearly  marked  as  being  by 
the  entry  of  the  east  gate.  (Jer.  xix.  2,  6.)  Pococke  places  the  valley  of  Hinnom 
to  the  south  of  Jerusalem,  but  thinks  it  might  include  part  of  that  to  the  east.  It 
formed  part  of  the  bounds  between  the  tribes  of  Benjamin  and  Judah,  (Jos.  xv.  8. 
xviii.  16,)  but  the  description  is  somewhat  obscure."  (Mod.  Trav.  Palestine,  pp. 
168,  172.)  ^.    ,      .^.  . 

Conder,  though  usually  so  judicious  and  accurate  in  his  topographical  criticismaj 


112  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

seems  here  to  have  mistaken  the  situation  of  these  two  valleys.  The  words  of  Je- 
remiah, (xix.  6,)  describing  the  valley  of  the  son  of  Hinnom,  or  Tophet,  as  being 
"  by  the  entry  oi  the  east  gate,"  may  be  perfectly  reconciled  with  the  descriptions  of 
travelers,  who  place  this  valley  on  the  south  side  of  Jerusalem.  Fi.sk,  the  missionary, 
throws  light  on  the  difficulty,  in  describing  his  own  route  from  the  city  to  the  valley 
of  Tophet.  He  went  out  of  the  east  gate  of  the  city  into  the  valley  of  the  brook  Ke- 
dron,  (which  is  the  same  as  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat,)  and  passing  down  that  in  a 
southerly  direction,  for  a  very  short  distance,  to  the  southeastern  angle  of  the  hills 
on  which  the  city  stands,  he  "  proceeded  [from  the  brook  Siloah,  at  this  point]  in  a 
westerly  direction  to  the  valley  of  Hinnom,  called  also  Tophet ;"  and  after  going  up 
this  valley  to  its  western  end,  re-entered  the  city  at  the  "  Jaffa  gate,"  which  is  on  the 
■west  side.  The  valley  of  Hinnom,  or  Tophet,  seems  therefore  to  have  been  a  branch 
of  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat,  turning  olf  from  it  near  the  east  gate,  probably,  and 
running  east  and  west  along  the  south  side  of  Zion,  or  the  southern  section  of  the 
city;  and  the  shortest  way  to  it  being  from  the  east  gate,  and  through  that  part  of 
Jehoshaphat,  the  prophet  might  properly  describe  it,  as  he  did.  (Bond's  Life  of  Fisk, 
pp.  289,  290.)  Fisk  says  also — "  We  followed  the  bed  of  the  Kedron  at  the  fool  of 
Mount  Moriah.  The  hill  is  high  and  steep,  and  the  wall  of  the  city  stands  on  its 
brink.  On  our  left  was  Mount  Olivet,  still  covered  with  olive-trees.  ♦  *  *  The 
valley  of  Jehoshaphat  was  deep  with  steep  sides.  This  valley,  we  are  told,  runs  to 
the  Dead  Sea,  but  how  far  it  bears  the  same  name  we  do  not  know."  ''Bond's  Life 
of  Fisk,  chap.  x.  p.  289.) 


THE  LAST  SUPPER. 

Meanwhile  the  offended  and  provoked  dignitaries  of  Judaism 
were  fast  making  arrangements  to  crush  the  daring  innovator,  who 
had  done  so  much  to  bring  their  learning  and  their  power  into 
contempt.     Some  of  the  most  fiery  spirits  among  them,  were  for 
defying  all  risks,  by  seizing  the  Nazarene  openly,  in  the  midst  of 
his  audacious  denunciations  of  the  higher  orders ;  and  the  attempt 
was  made  to  execute  this  act  of  arbitrary  power ;  but  the  mere 
hirelings  sent  upon  the  errand,  were  too  much  awed  by  the  un- 
equaled  majesty  of  the  man,  and  by  the  strong  attachment  of  the 
people  to  him,  to  be  willing  to  execute  their  commission.     But 
there  were  old  heads  among  them,  that  could  contrive  safer  and 
surer  ways  of  meeting  the  evil.     By  them  it  was  finally  deter- 
mined to  seize  Jesus  when  alone  or  unattended  by  the  throngs 
which  usually  encompassed  him, — to  hurry  him  at  once  secretly 
through  the  forms  of  law  necessary  for  his  commitment,  and  then 
to  put  him,  as  a  condemned  rioter  and  rebel,  immediately  into  the 
hands  of  the  Roman  governor,  who  would  be  obliged  to  order  his 
execution  in  such  a  way  as  that  no  popular  excitement  would 
rescue  the  victim  from  the  grasp  of  the  soldiery.     This  was  the 
plan  which  they  were  now  arranging,  and  which  they  were  pre- 
pared to  execute  before  the  close  of  the  passover,  if  they  could  get 
intelligence  of  his  motions.     These  fatal  schemes  of  hate  could 
not  have  been  unknown  to  Jesus ;   yet  the  knowledge  of  them 
made  no  difference  in  his  bold  devotion  to  the  cause  for  which  he 


Peter's  discipleship.  113 

came  into  the  world.     Anxious  to  improve  the  few  fast  fleeting 
hours  that  remained  before  the  time  of  his  sufferings  should  come 
on,  and  desirous  to  join  as  a  Jew  in  this  great  national  festival, 
by  keeping  it  in  form  with  his  disciples,  he  directed  his  two  most 
confidential  apostles,  Peter  and  John,  to  get  ready  the  entertain- 
ment for  them  in  the  city,  by  an  arrangement  made  with  a  man 
already  expecting  to  receive  them.     This  commission  they  faith- 
fully executed,  and  Jesus  accordingly  ate  with  his  disciples  the 
feast  of  the  first  day  of  the  passover,  in  Jerusalem,  with  those  who 
■sought  his  life  so  near  him.     After  the  supper  was  over,  he  deter- 
mined to  use  the  brief  remncint  of  time  for  the  purpose  of  uproot- 
ing that  low  feehng  of  jealous  ambition  which  had  already  made 
so  much  trouble  among  them,  in  their  anxious  discussions  as  to 
who  should  be  accounted  the  greatest,  and  should  rank  as  the 
ruler  of  the  twelve.     To  impress  the  right  view  upon  their  minds 
most  effectually,  he  chose  the  oriental  mode  of  a  ceremony  which 
should  strike  their  senses,  and  thus  secure  a  regard  and  remem- 
brance for  his  words  which  they  might  fail  in  attaining  if  they 
were  delivered  in  the  simple  manner  of  trite  and  oft-spoken  oral 
truisms.     He  therefore  rose  after  supper,  and  leaving  his  place  at 
the  head  of  the  table,  he  laid  aside  his  upper  garments,  which, 
though  appropriate  and  becoming  him  as  a  teacher,  in  his  hours 
of  public  instruction  or  social  commimion,  were  yet  inconvenient 
in  any  active  exertion  which  needed  the  free  use  of  the  limbs. 
Being  thus  disrobed,  he  took  the  position  and  character  of  a  menial 
upon  him,  and  girding  himself  with  a  towel,  he  poured  water  into 
a  basin  and  began  to  wash  the  disciples'  feet  in  it,  wiping  them 
with  his  towel.    He  accordingly  comes  to  Simon  Peter,  in  the  dis- 
charge of  his  servile  office ;  but  Peter,  whose  ideas  of  the  majesty 
and  ripening  honors  of  his  Master  were  shocked  at  this  extraordi- 
nary action,  positively  refused  to  be  even  the  passive  instrument 
of  such  an  indignity  to  one  so  great  and  good, — first  inquiring, 
"  Lord,  dost  thou  wash  my  feet  ?"    Jesus,  in  answer,  said  to  him, 
"  What  I  do,  thou  knowest  not  now,  but  thou  shalt  know  here- 
after."    That  is — "  this  apparently  degrading  act  has  a  hidden, 
useful  meaning,  at  this  moment  beyond  your  comprehension,  but 
which  you  will  learn  in  due  time."     Peter,  however,  notwith- 
standing this  plain  and  decided  expression  of  Christ's  wise  deter- 
mination to  go  through  this  painful  ceremony,  for  the  instruction 
of  those  who  so  unwillingly  submitted  to  see  him  thus  degraded, 
— still  led  on  by  the  fiery  ardor  of  his  own  headlong  genius, — 


114  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

manfully  persisted  in  his  refusal,  and  expressed  himself  in  the 
most  positive  terms  possible,  saying  to  Jesus,  "  Thou  shalt  never 
wash  my  feet."  Jesus  answered,  "  If  I  wash  thee  not,  thou  hast 
no  part  with  me."  This  solemn  remonstrance  had  the  effect  of 
checking  Peter's  too  forward  reverence,  and  in  a  tone  of  deeper 
submission  to  the  wise  will  of  his  Master,  he  yielded,  replying, 
however,  "  Lord,  wash  not  my  feet  only,  but  also  my  hands  and 
my  head."  Since  so  low  an  office  was  to  be  performed  by  one  so 
venerated,  he  would  not  have  the  favor  of  his  blessed  touch  con- 
fined to  the  baser  limbs,  but  desired  that  the  nobler  parts  of  the 
body  should  share  in  the  holy  ablution.  But  the  high  purpose  of 
Jesus  could  not  accommodate  itself  to  the  whims  of  his  zealous 
disciple ;  for  his  very  object  was  to  take  the  humblest  attitude  be- 
fore them,  by  performing  those  personal  offices  which  were  usually 
committed  to  slaves.  He  therefore  told  Peter — "  He  that  is  washed 
needs  not,  save  to  wash  his  feet,  but  is  clean  in  every  part ;" — a 
very  familiar  and  expressive  illustration,  alluding  to  the  circum- 
stance that  those  who  have  been  to  a  bath  and  there  washed  them- 
selves, will  on  their  return  find  themselves  wholly  clean,  except 
such  dust  as  may  cling  to  their  feet  as  they  have  passed  through 
the  streets  on  their  route.  And  any  one  may  feel  the  force  of 
the  beautiful  figure,  who  has  ever  gone  into  the  water  for  the  pur- 
poses of  cleanliness  and  refreshment,  on  a  warm  summer's  day  in 
this  country,  and  has  found  by  experience  that,  after  all  possible 
ablution,  on  coming  out  and  dressing  himself,  his  wet  feet  in  con- 
tact with  the  srround  have  become  loaded  with  dirt  which  demands 
new  diligence  to  remove  it ;  and  as  all  who  have  tried  it  know,  it 
requires  many  ingenious  efforts  to  return  with  feet  as  clean  as  they 
came  to  the  washing ;  and  in  spite  of  all,  after  the  return,  an  in- 
spection may  forcibly  illustrate  the  truth,  that  "  he  that  is  washed, 
though  he  is  clean  in  every  part,  yet  needs  to  wash  his  feet."  Such 
was  the  figure  with  which  Jesus  expressed  to  his  simple-minded 
and  unlettered  disciples,  the  important  truth,  that  since  they  had 
been  already  wash3d,  (baptized  by  John  or  himself,)  if  that  wash- 
ing had  been  effectual,  they  could  need  the  repurification  only  of 
their  feet — the  cleansing  away  of  such  of  the  world's  impure 
thoughts  and  feelings  as  had  clung  to  them  in  their  journeyings 
through  it.  So,  after  he  had  washed  their  feet,  and  had  taken  his 
garments  and  sat  down  again,  he  said  to  them,  "  Know  ye  what  I 
have  done  to  you  ?  Ye  call  me  Master  and  Lord  ;  and  ye  say  well, 
for  so  I  am.    If  I  then,  your  Lord  and  Master,  have  washed  your 


Peter's  discipleship.  115 

feet,  ye  also  ought  to  wash  one  another's  feet.  For  I  have  given 
you  this  as  an  example,  that  ye  should  do  as  I  have  done  to  you. 
Truly  the  servant  is  not  greater  than  his  lord,  neither  is  the  em- 
bassador greater  than  him  that  sent  him.  If  ye  know  these  things, 
happy  are  ye  if  ye  do  them ;" — a  charge  so  clear  and  simple,  and 
so  full,  that  it  needs  not  a  word  of  conmient  to  show  any  reader 
the  full  force  of  this  touching  ceremony. 

Shortly  after,  in  the  same  place  and  during  the  same  meeting, 
Jesus  speaking  to  them  of  his  near  departure,  affectionately  and 
sadly  said,  "  Little  children,  but  a  little  while  longer  am  I  with 
you.  Ye  shall  seek  me ;  and  as  I  said  to  the  Jevvs,  'whither  I  go, 
ye  cannot  come,' — so  now  I  say  to  you."  To  this  Simon  Peter 
soon  after  replied  by  asking  him,  "  Lord,  whither  goest  thou  ?" 
Jesus  answered  him,  "  Whither  I  go,  thou  canst  not  follow  me 
now,  but  thou  shalt  follow  me  afterwards."  Peter  perhaps  begin- 
ning to  perceive  the  mournful  meaning  of  this  declaration,  replied, 
still  urging,  "  Lord,  why  cannot  I  follow  thee  now  ?  I  will  lay 
down  my  life  for  thy  sake."  Jesus  answered,  "  Wilt  thou  lay 
down  thy  life  for  my  sake  ?  I  tell  thee  assuredly,  the  cock  shall 
not  crow  till  thou  hast  denied  me  thrice."  Soon  after,  at  the  same 
time  and  place,  noticing  the  confident  assurance  of  this  chief  dis- 
ciple, Jesus  again  warned  him  of  his  danger  and  his  coming  fall. 
"  Simon  !  Simon !  behold,  Satan  has  desired  to  have  you,  {all,)  that 
he  may  sift  you  as  wheat ;  but  I  have  prayed  for  thee,  (especially,) 
that  thy  faith  fail  not ;  and  when  thou  art  converted,  strengthen 
thy  brethren."  Never  before  had  higher  and  more  distinctive  favor 
been  conferred  on  this  chief  apostle,  than  by  this  sad  prophecy  of 
danger,  weakness,  and  sin,  on  which  he  was  to  fall,  for  a  time,  to  his 
deep  disgrace ;  but  on  him  alone,  when  rescued  from  ruin  by  his 
Master's  peculiar  prayers,  was  to  rest  the  task  of  strengthening  his 
brethren.  But  his  Master's  kind  warning  was  for  the  present  lost 
on  his  immovable  self-esteem ;  he  repeated  his  former  assurance 
of  perfect  devotion  through  every  danger  : — "  Lord,  I  am  ready  to 
go  with  thee  into  prison  and  to  death."  Where  was  affectionate 
and  heroic  devotion  ever  more  affectingly  and  determinedly  ex- 
pressed ?  What  heart  of  common  man  would  not  have  leaped  to 
meet  such  love  and  fidelity  1  But  He,  with  an  eye  still  clear  and 
piercing,  in  spite  of  the  tears  with  which  affection  might  dim 
it,  saw  through  the  veil  that  would  have  blinded  the  sharpest 
human  judgment,  and  coldly  met  these  protestations  of  burning 
zeal  with  the  chilhng  prediction  again  uttered: — "  I  tell  thee,  Peter, 


il6 


LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


the  cock  shall  not  crow  this  day,  before  thou  shalt  thrice  deny 
that  thou  knowest  me."  Then  making  a  sudden  transition,  to 
hint  to  them  the  nature  of  the  dangers  which  would  soon  try  their 
souls,  he  suddenly  reverted  to  their  former  security.  "  When  I 
sent  you  forth  without  purse,  or  scrip,  or  shoes,  did  ye  need  any 
thing  ?"  And  they  said,  "  Nothing."  Then  said  he  to  them,  "  But 
now,  let  him  that  has  a  purse,  take  it,  and  likewise  his  scrip }  and 
let  him  that  has  no  sword  sell  his  cloak  and  buy  one."  They 
had  hitherto  in  their  wanderings,  everywhere  found  friends  to 
support  and  protect  them ;  but  now  the  world  was  at  war  with 
them,  and  they  must  look  to  their  own  resources  both  for  supply- 
ing their  wants  and  guarding  their  lives.  His  disciples  readily 
apprehending  some  need  of  personal  defense,  at  once  bestirred 
themselves  and  mustered  what  arms  they  could  on  the  spot,  and 
told  him  that  they  had  two  swords  among  them ;  and  of  these  it 
appears  that  one  was  in  the  hands  of  Peter.  It  was  natural  enough 
that  among  the  disciples  these  few  arms  were  found,  for  they  were 
all  Galileans,  who,  as  Josephus  tells  us,  were  very  pugnacious 
in  their  habits ;  and  even  the  followers  of  Christ,  notwithstanding 
their  peaceful  calling,  had  not  entirely  laid  aside  their  former 
weapons  of  violence,  which  were  the  more  needed  by  them,  as  the 
journey  from  Galilee  to  Jerusalem  was  made  very  dangerous  by 
robbers,  who  lay  in  wait  for  the  defenseless  traveler  wherever  the 
nature  of  the  ground  favored  such  an  attack.  Of  this  character 
was  that  part  of  the  road  between  Jerusalem  and  Jericho,  alluded 
to  in  the  parable  of  the  wounded  traveler  and  the  good  Samari- 
tan,— a  region  so  wild  and  rocky  that  it  has  always  been  danger- 
ous, for  the  same  reasons,  even  to  this  day  •,  of  which  a  sad  in- 
stance occurred  but  a  few  years  ago,  in  the  case  of  an  eminent 
English  traveler,  who,  going  down  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho,  fell 
among  thieves  and  was  wounded  near  the  same  spot  mentioned 
by  Christ,  in  spite  of  the  defenses  with  which  he  was  provided. 
It  was  in  reference  to  such  dangers  as  these,  that  two  of  his  dis- 
ciples had  provided  themselves  with  hostile  weapons ;  and  Peter 
may  have  been  instigated  to  carry  his  sword  into  such  a  peaceful 
feast,  by  the  suspicion  that  the  danger  from  the  chief  priests,  to 
which  Christ  had  often  alluded,  might  more  particularly  threaten 
them  while  they  were  in  the  city  by  themselves,  without  the  safe- 
guard of  their  numerous  friends  in  the  multitude.  The  answer 
of  Jesus  to  this  report  of  their  means  of  resistence  was  not  in  a 
tone  to  excite  them  to  the  very  zealous  use  of  them.     He  simply 


Peter's  discipleship.  117 

said — "  It  is  enough ;"  a  phrase  which  was  meant  to  quiet  them,  by- 
expressing  his  httle  regard  for  such  a  defense  as  they  were  able  to 
offer  to  him,  with  this  contemptible  armament. 

Some  have  conjectured  that  this  washing  of  the  feet  (page  113)  was  a  usual  rite  at 
the  Paschal  feast.  So  Scaliger,  Beza,  Baronius,  Casaubon,  and  other  learned  men 
have  thought.  (See  Poole's  Synopsis,  on  John  xiii.  5.)  But  Buxtorf  has  clearly 
shown  the  falsity  of  their  reasons,  and  Lightfoot  has  also  proved  that  it  was  a  per- 
fectly unusual  thing,  and  that  there  is  no  passage  in  all  the  Rabinnical  writings  whioh 
refers  to  it  as  a  custom.  It  is  manifest  indeed,  to  a  common  reader,  that  the  whole 
peculiar  force  of  this  ablution,  in  this  instance,  consisted  in  its  being  an  entirely  un- 
usual act-  and  all  its  beautiful  aptness  as  an  illustration  of  the  meaning  of  Jesus, — 
that  thej''  should  cease  their  ambitious  strife  for  precedence, — is  lost  in  making  it  any 
thing  else  than  a  perfectly  new  and  original  ceremony,  whose  impressiveness  mainly 
consisted  in  its  singularity.  Lightfoot  also  illustrates  the  design  of  Jesus  still  farther, 
by  several  interesting  passages  from  the  Talmudists,  showing  in  what  way  the  ablu- 
tion would  be  regarded  by  his  disciples,  who,  like  other  Jews,  would  look  upon  it  as 
a  most  degraded  action,  never  to  be  performed  except  by  inferiors  to  superiors. 
These  Talmudic  authorities  declare,  that  "  Among  the  duties  to  be  performed  by  the 
wife  to  her  husband,  this  was  one, — that  she  should  wash  his  face,  his  hands,  and  his 
feet."  {3Iaimonidcs  on  the  duties  of  wovien.)  The  same  office  was  due  from  a  son. 
to  his  father, — from  a  slave  to  his  master — as  his  references  show ;  but  he  says  he  can 
find  no  precept  that  a  disciple  should  perform  such  a  duty  to  his  teacher,  imless  it  be 
included  in  this,  "  The  teacher  should  be  more  honored  by  his  scholar  than  a 
father." 

He  also  shows  that  the  feet  were  never  washed  separately,  with  any  idea  of  legal 
purification,— though  the  Pharisees  washed  their  hands  separately  with  this  view, 
and  the  priests  washed  their  hands  and  feet  both,  as  a  form  of  purification,  but  never 
the  feet  alone.  And  he  very  justly  remarks  upon  all  this  testimony,  that  "  the  farther 
this  action  of  Christ  recedes  from  common  custom,  the  higher  its  fitness  for  their  in- 
struction,— being  performed  not  merely  for  an  example,  but  for  a  precept.  (Light- 
foot's  Hor.  Heb.  in  ev.  Joh.  xiii.  5.) 

Laid  aside  Ids  garments. — The  simple  dress  of  the  races  of  western  Asia,  is  always 
distinguishable  into  two  parts  or  sets  of  garments, — an  inner,  which  covered  more  or 
less  of  the  body,  fitting  it  tightly,  but  not  reaching  far  over  the  legs  or  arms,  and  con- 
sisted either  of  a  single  cloth  folded  round  the  loins,  or  a  tunic  fastened  with  a  girdle ; 
sometimes  also  a  covering  for  the  thighs  was  subjoined,  making  something  like  the 
rudiment  of  a  pair  of  breeches.  (See  Jahn  Arch.  Bib.  §  120.)  These  were  the  perma- 
nent parts  of  the  dress,  and  were  always  required  to  be  kept  on  the  body,  by  the  com- 
mon rules  of  decency.  But  the  second  division  of  the  garments,  ("  superindiimenta," 
Jahn,)  throuTi  loosely  over  the  inner  ones,  might  be  laid  aside  on  any  occasion,  when 
active  exertion  required  the  most  unconstrained  motion  of  the  limbs.  One  of  these 
was  a  simple  oblong,  broad  piece  of  cloth,  of  various  dimensions,  but  generally  about 
three  yards  long  and  two  broad,  which  was  wrapped  around  the  body  like  a  mantle, 
the  two  upper  corners  being  dra'^Ti  over  the  shoulders  in  front,  and  the  rest  hanging 
down  the  back,  and  falling  around  tne  front  of  the  body,  without  any  fastenings  but 
the  folding  of  the  upper  corners.  This  garment  was  called  by  the  Hebrews  n'?DB'  or 
Tfohv,  {sivilah  or  salmak,)  and  sometimes  nJ3,  {begedh;) — by  the  Greeks,  iitanov,  {hi- 
moAion.)  Jahn,  Arch.  Bib.  This  is  the  garment  which  is  always  meant  by  this  Greek 
word  in  the  New  Testament,  when  used  in  the  singular  number,— translated  "  cloak" 
in  the  common  English  version,  as  in  the  passage  in  the  text  above,  where  Jesus  ex- 
horts him  that  has  no  sword  to  sell  his  clouk  and  buy  one.  When  this  Greek  word 
occurs  in  the  plural,  (i/iUTia,  himatia,)  it  is  translated  "  garments,"  and  it  is  notice- 
able that  in  most  cases  where  it  occurs,  the  sense  actually  requires  that  it  should  be 
understood  only  of  the  outer  dress,  to  which  I  have  referred  it.  As  in  Matt.  xxi.  8 
where  it  is  said  that  the  people  spread  their  garments  in  the  way, — of  course  only 
their  outer  ones,  which  were  loose  and  easily  thrown  off,  without  indecent  exposure. 
So  in  Mark  xi.  7,  8-,  Luke  xix.  35.  There  is  no  need  then  of  supposing,  as  Origen 
does,  that  Jesus  took  off  all  his  clothes,  or  was  naked,  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  term. 
A  variety  of  other  outer  garments  in  common  use  both  among  the  earlv  and  the  later 
Jews,  are  described  as  minutely  by  Jahn  in  his  Archaeologia  Biblica,  §  122.  I  shall 
have  occasion  to  describe  some  of  these,  in  illu.stralion  of  other  passages. 

My  exegesis  of  the  passage, "  He  that  is  washed,  needs  not,"  &c.  may  strike  some  as 


118  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

rather  bold  in  its  illustration,  yet  if  great  authorities  are  necessary  to  support  the  view 
I  have  taken,  I  can  refer  at  once  to  a  legion  uf  commentators,  both  ancient  and  mo- 
dern, who  all  offer  the  same  general  explanation,  though  not  exactly  the  same  illus- 
tration. Poole's  Synopsis  is  rich  in  references  to  such.  Among  these  Vatablus  re- 
marks on  the  need  of  washing  the  feet  of  one  already  washed,  "  soil,  viae  c-ansa." 
Medonachus  says  of  the  feet,  "  quos  calcata  terra  iterum  inquinat."  Hammond  says, 
"  he  that  hath  been  initiated,  and  entered  into  Christ,  &c.  is  whole  dean,  and  haih  no 
need  to  be  so  washed  again,  all  over.  All  that  is  needful  to  him  is  the  daily  minis- 
tering of  the  word  and  grace  of  Clirist,  to  cleanse  and  wash  off  the  frailties,  and  im- 
perfections, and  lapses  of  our  weak  nature,  those  feet  of  the  soul."  Grotius  says, 
"  Hoc  tantum  opus  ei  est,  ut  ab  iis  se  purget  quae  ex  occasione  nascuntur.  Simili- 
tudo  sumpta  ab  nis  qui  a  balnco  nudis  pedUnis  abeunt."  Besides  these  and  many  others 
largely  quoted  by  Poole,  Lampe  also  (in  com.  in  ev.  Joh.)  goes  very  fully  into  the 
same  view,  and  quotes  many  others  in  illustration.  Woltius  (in  Cur.  Philol.)  gives 
various  illustrations,  differing  in  no  important  particular,  that  I  can  see,  from  each 
other,  nor  from  that  of  Kuinoel,  who  calls  them  "  contortas  exposiliones,"  but  gives 
one  which  is  the  same  in  almost  every  part,  but  is  more  fully  illustrated  in  detail,  by 
reference  to  the  usage  of  the  ancients,  of  going  to  the  bath  before  coming  to  a  feast, 
which  the  disciples  no  doubt  had  done,  and  made  themselves  clean  in  all  parts  except 
their  feet,  which  had  become  dirtied  on  the  way  from  the  bath.  This  is  the  same 
view  which  Wolf  also  quotes  approvingly  from  Eisner.  Wetstein  is  also  on  this 
point,  as  on  all  others,  abundantly  rich  in  illustrations  from  classic  usage,  to  which 
he  refers  in  a  great  number  of  quotations  from  Lucian,  Herodotus,  Plato,  Terence, 
and  Plutarch. 

Sift  ymt,  as  wheat. — The  word  aivia^u  (^siniazo)  refers  to  the  process  of  winnmving 
the  wheat  after  threshing,  rather  than  sifting  in  the  common  application  of  the  term, 
•which  is  to  the  operation  of  separating  the  flour  from  the  bran.  In  oriental  agriculture 
the  operation  of  winnowing  is  performed  without  any  machinery,  by  simply  taking 
up  the  threshed  wheat  in  a  large  shovel,  and  shaking  it  in  such  a  way  that  the  grain 
may  fall  out  into  a  place  prepared  on  the  ground,  while  the  wind  blows  away  the  chaff. 
The  whole  operation  is  well  described  in  the  fragments  appended  to  Taylor's  editions 
of  Calmet's  dictionary,  (Hund.  i.  No.  48,  in  Vol.  III.)  and  is  there  illustrated  by  a 
plate.  The  phrase  then,  was  highly  expressive  of  a  thorough  trial  of  character,  or 
of  utter  ruin,  by  violent  and  overwhelming  misfortune,  and  as  such  is  often  used  in 
the  Old  Testament.  As  in  Jer.  xv.  7,  "  I  will  fan  them  with  a  fan,"  &c.  Also  in 
li.  2.  In  Ps.  cxxxix.  2,  "  Thou  winnowest  my  path."  &c. ;  com.  trans.  "  Thou  com- 
passesl  my  path."  The  same  figure  is  effectively  used  by  John  the  Baptist,  in  Matt, 
iii.  12,  and  Luke  iii.  17. 

Galilean  'pugnacitij.—lose^^m.s,  who  was  very  familiar  with  the  Galileans  by  his 
military  service  among  them,  thus  characterizes  them.  "  The  Galileans  are  fighters 
even  from  infancy,  and  are  everywhere  numerous  j  nor  are  they  capable  of  fear." 
Jew.  War,  book  HI.  chap.  iii.  sec.  2. 

From  Jerusalem  to  Jericho. — The  English  traveler  here  referred  to,  is  Sir  Frederic 
Henniker,  who,  in  the  year  1820,  met  wath  this  calamity,  which  he  thus  describes  in 
his  travels,  pp.  284—289. 

"  The  route  is  over  hills,  rocky,  barren,  and  uninteresting;  we  arrived  at  a  foun- 
tain, and  here  my  two  attendents  paused  to  refresh  themselves ;  the  day  was  so  hot 
that  I  was  anxious  to  finish  the  journey,  and  hurried  forwards.  A  ruined  building 
situated  on  the  summit  of  a  hill  was  now  within  sight,  and  I  urged  my  horse  towards 
it;  the  janissary  galloped  by  me,  and  making  signs  for  me  net  to  precede  him,  he 
rode  into  and  roimd  the  building,  and  then  motioned  me  to  advance.  We  next  came 
to  a  hill,  through  the  very  apex  of  which  has  been  cut  a  passage,  the  rocks  overhang- 
ing it  on  either  side.  (Quaresmius,  (lib.  vi.  c.  2,)  quoting  Brocardus,  200  years  past, 
mentions  that  there  is  a  place  horrible  to  the  eye,  and  full  of  danger,  called  Abdomin, 
■which  signifies  blood ;  where  he,  descending  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho,  fell  among 
thieves.)  I  was  in  the  act  of  passing  through  this  ditch,  when  a  bullet  whizzed  by, 
close  to  my  head ;  I  saw  no  one,  and  had  scarcely  time  to  think,  when  another  was 
fired  some  distance  in  advance.  I  could  yet  see  no  one,— the  janissary  was  beneath 
the  brow  of  the  hill,  in  his  descent;  I  looked  back,  but  my  servant  was  not  yet  within 
sight.  I  looked  up,  and  within  a  few  inches  of  my  head  were  three  muskets,  and 
three  men  taking  aim  at  me.  Escape  or  resistence  were  alike  impossible.  I  got  off 
my  horse.  Eight  men  jumped  down  from  the  rocks,  and  commenced  a  scramble  for 
me;  I  observed  also  a  party  running  towards  Nicholai.  At  this  moment  the  janis- 
sary galloped  among  us  with  Lis  sword  drawn.        ****** 


Peter's  discipleship.  119 

"  A  sudden  panic  seized  the  janissary;  he  called  on  the  name  of  the  Prophet,  and 
galloped  away.  As  he  passed,  I  caught  at  a  rope  hanging  from  his  saddle.  I  had 
hoped  to  leap  upon  his  horse,  but  found  myself  unable ;— my  feet  were  dreadfully 
lacerated  by  the  honey-combed  rocks— nature  would  support  me  no  longer — I  fell, 
but  still  clung  to  the  rope.  In  this  manner  I  was  drawn  some  few  yards,  till,  bleed- 
ing from  my  ancle  to  my  shoulder,  I  resigned  myself  to  my  fate.  As  soon  as  I  stood 
up,  one  of  my  pursuers  took  aim  at  me,  but  the  other  casually  advancing  between  us, 
prevented  his  firing ;  he  then  ran  up  and  with  his  sword  aimed  such  a  blow  as  would 
not  have  required  a  second ;  his  companion  prevented  its  full  effect,  so  that  it  merely 
cut  my  ear  in  halves,  and  laid  open  one  side  of  my  face ;  they  then  stripped  me 
naked.  ********** 

"  It  was  now  past  mid-day,  and  burning  hot;  I  bled  profusely, — and  tw^o  vultures, 
■whose  business  it  is  to  consume  corpses,  were  hovering  over  me.  I  should  scarcely 
have  had  strength  to  resist,  had  they  chosen  to  attack  me.  *  *  At  length  we  arrived, 
about  3  P.  M.,  at  Jericho. — My  servant  was  unable  to  lift  me  from  the  ground;  the 
janissary  was  lighting  his  pipe,  and  the  soldiers  were  making  preparations  to  pursue 
the  robbers ;  not  one  person  would  assist  a  half-dead  Christian.  After  some  minutes 
a  few  Arabs  came  up  and  placed  me  by  the  side  of  the  horse-pond,  just  so  that  I  could 
not  dip  my  finger  into  the  water.  This  pool  is  resorted  to  by  every  one  in  search  of 
water,  and  that  employment  falls  exclusively  upon  females ; — they  surrounded  me, 
and  seemed  so  earnest  in  their  sorrow,  that,  notwithstanding  their  veils,  I  almost 
felt  pleasure  at  my  wound.  One  of  them  in  particular  held  her  pitcher  to  my  lips, 
till  she  was  sent  away  by  the  Chous ; — I  called  her,  she  returned,  and  was  sent  away 
again;  and  the  third  time,  she  was  turned  out  of  the  yard.  She  wore  a  red  veil,  (the 
sign  of  not  being  married,)  and  therefore  there  was  something  unpardonable  in  her 
attention  to  any  man,  especially  to  a  Christian ;  she  however  returned  with  her  mo- 
ther, and  brought  me  some  milk.  I  believe  that  Mungo  Park,  on  some  dangerous 
occasion  during  his  travels,  received  considerable  assistance  from  the  compassion- 
ate sex." 

THE    SCENES    OF    GETHSEMANE. 

After  much  more  conversation  and  prayer  with  his  disciples  in 
the  supper-room,  and  having  sung  the  hymn  of  praise  which 
usually  concluded  the  passover  feast  among  the  Jews,  Jesus  went 
out  with  them  west  of  the  city,  over  the  brook  Kedron,  at  the 
foot  of  the  Olive  mount,  where  there  was  a  garden,  called 
Gethsemane,  to  which  he  had  often  resorted  with  his  disciples, — 
it  being  retired  as  well  as  pleasant.  While  they  were  on  the  way, 
a  new  occasion  happened  of  showing  Peter's  self-confidence, 
which  Jesus  again  rebuked  with  the  prediction  that  it  would  too 
soon  fail  him.  He  was  telling  them  all,  that  events  would  soon 
happen  that  would  overthrow  their  present  confidence  in  him,  and 
significantly  quoted  to  them  the  appropriate  passage  in  Zecha- 
riah, — "  I  will  smite  the  shepherd,  and  the  sheep  shall  be  scattered." 
Peter,  glad  of  a  new  opportunity  to  assert  his  steadfast  adherence 
to  his  Master,  again  assured  him  that,  though  all  should  be  of- 
fended or  lose  their  confidence  in  him,  yet  would  not  he ;  but 
though  alone,  would  always  maintain  his  present  devotion  to  him. 
The  third  time  did  Jesus  reply,  in  the  circumstantial  prediction  of 
his  near  and  certain  fall, — "  This  day,  even  this  night,  before  the 
cock  crow  twice,  thou  shalt  deny  me  thrice."     This  repeated  dis- 


120  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

trustful  and  reproachful  denunciation,  became,  at  last,  too  much 
for  Peter's  warm  temper ;  and  in  a  burst  of  offended  zeal,  he  de- 
clared the  more  vehemently — "  If  I  should  die  with  thee,  I  will  not 
deny  thee  in  any  wise"  To  this  soleimi  protestation  against  the 
thought  of  defection,  all  the  other  apostles  present  gave  their  word 
of  hearty  assent. 

They  now  reached  the  garden,  and  when  they  had  entered  it, 
Jesus  spoke  to  all  the  disciples  present,  except  his  three  chosen 
ones,  saying — "  Sit  ye  here,  while  I  go  and  pray  yonder."  He  re- 
tired accordingly  into  some  recess  of  the  garden,  with  Peter  and 
the  two  sons  of  Zebedee,  James  and  John  ;  and  as  soon  as  he  was 
alone  with  them,  begun  to  give  utterance  to  feelings  of  deep  dis- 
tress and  depression  of  spirits.  Leaving  them,  with  the  express 
injunction  to  keep  awake  and  wait  for  him,  he  went  for  a  short 
time  still  farther,  and  there,  in  secret  and  awful  wo,  that  wrung 
from  his  bowed  head  the  dark  sweat  of  an  unutterable  agony,  yet 
in  submission  to  God,  he  prayed  that  the  horrible  suffering  and 
death  to  which  he  had  been  so  sternly  devoted,  might  not  light 
on  him.  Returning  to  the  three  appointed  watchers,  he  found 
them  asleep  !  Even  as  amid  the  lonely  majesty  of  Mount  Hermon, 
human  weakness  had  borne  down  the  willing  spirit  in  spite  of  the 
sublime  character  of  the  place  and  the  persons  before  them ;  so 
here,  not  the  groans  of  that  beloved  suffering  Lord,  for  whom  they 
had  just  expressed  such  deep  regard,  could  keep  their  sleepy  eyes 
open,  when  they  were  thus  exhausted  with  a  long  day's  agitating 
incidents,  and  were  rendered  still  more  dull  and  stupid  by  the 
chilliness  of  the  evening  air,  as  well  as  the  lateness  of  the  hour  of 
the  night ;  for  it  was  near  ten  o'clock.  At  this  sad  instance  of 
the  inability  of  their  minds  to  overcome  the  frailties  of  the  body, 
after  all  their  fine  protestations  of  love  and  zeal,  he  mildly  and 
mournfully  remonstrates  with  Peter  in  particular,  who  had  been 
so  far  before  the  rest  in  expressing  a  peculiar  interest  in  his  Mas- 
ter. And  he  said  to  Peter — "  Simon  !  sleepest  thou  7  What !  could 
ye  not  watch  with  me  one  hour  ?  Watch  ye  and  pray,  lest  ye 
enter  into  temptation.  The  spirit  indeed  is  willing,  but  the  flesh 
is  weak."  Well  might  he  question  thus  the  constancy  of  the  fiery 
zeal  which  had  so  lately  inspired  Peter  to  those  expressions  of 
violent  attachment.  What  !  could  not  all  that  warm  devotion,  that 
high  pride  of  purpose,  sustain  his  spirit  against  the  efiects  of  fa- 
tigue and  cold  on  his  body  1  But  they  had,  we  may  suppose,  crept 
into   some  shelter  from  the  cold  night  air,  where  they  uncon- 


PETER^S  DISCIPLESHIP.  121 

sciously  forgot  themselves.  After  having  half-roused  them  with 
this  fruitless  appeal,  he  left  them,  and  again  passed  through  anoth- 
er dreadful  struggle  between  his  human  and  divine  nature.  The 
same  strong  entreaty, — the  same  mournful  submission — were  ex- 
pressed as  before,  in  that  moment  of  solitary  agony,  till  again  he 
burst  away  from  the  insupportable  strife  of  soul,  and  came  to  see 
if  yet  sympathy  in  his  sorrows  could  keep  his  sleepy  disciples 
awake.  But  no ;  the  gentle  rousing  he  had  before  given  them 
had  hardly  broken  their  slumbers.  For  a  few  moments  the  voice 
of  their  Master,  in  tones  deep  and  mournful  with  sorrow,  might 
have  recalled  them  to  some  sense  of  shame  for  their  heedless  stu- 
pidity ;  and  for  a  short  time  their  wounded  pride  moved  them  to 
an  effort  of  self-control.  A  few  mutual  expostulations  in  a  sleepy 
tone,  would  pass  between  them, — an  effort  at  conversation  per- 
haps, about  the  incidents  of  the  day,  and  the  prospect  of  coming 
danger  which  their  Master  seemed  to  hint, — some  wonderings 
probably,  as  to  what  could  thus  lead  him  apart  to  dark  and  lonely 
devotion, — very  likely,  too,  some  complaint  about  the  cold, — a 
shiver, — then  a  movement  to  find  some  warmer  attitude,  and  a 
wrapping  closer  in  mantles, — then  the  conversation  languishing, 
repUes  coming  slower  and  duller,  the  attitude  meanwhile  declining 
from  the  perpendicular  to  the  horizontal,  till  at  last  the  most  wake- 
ful waits  in  vain  for  an  answer  to  one  of  his  drowsy  remarks,  and 
finds  himself  speaking  to  deaf  ears, — and  finally,  overcome  with 
impatience  at  them  and  himself,  he  sinks  down  into  his  former 
deep  repose,  with  a  half-murmured  reproach  to  his  companions  on 
his  lips.  In  short,  as  every  one  knows  who  has  passed  through 
such  trials,  three  sleepy  men  will  hardly  keep  awake  the  better 
for  each  other's  company ;  but  so  far  from  it,  on  the  contrary,  the 
force  of  sympathy  will  increase  the  difficulty,  and  the  very  sound 
of  drowsy  voices  will  serve  to  lull  all  the  sooner  into  slumber.  In 
the  case  of  the  apostles,  too,  who  were  mostly  men  accustomed  to 
an  active  life,  and  who  were  in  the  habit  of  going  to  bed  as  soon 
as  it  was  night,  whenever  their  business  allowed  them  to  rest,  all 
their  modes  of  life  served  to  hasten  the  slumbers  of  men  so  little 
inured  to  self-control  of  any  kind.  On  this  occasion  these  causes 
were  sufiicient  to  enchain  their  senses,  in  spite  of  the  repeated  ex- 
hortations of  Jesus ;  for  on  his  coming  to  them  a  second  time,  and 
saying  in  a  warning  voice — "  Rise  and  pray,  lest  ye  enter  into 
temptation  ;  why  sleep  ye  ?" — they  wist  not  what  to  answer  him,  for 
their  eyes  were  very  heavy,  and  they  slept  for  sorrow.    Still  again 


122  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

he  retired  about  a  stone's  throw  from  them,  as  before,  and  there, 
prone  on  the  ground,  he  renewed  the  strife  with  his  feehngs. 
Alone,  without  the  sympathy  of  friends,  did  the  Redeemer  of  men 
endure  the  agonies  of  that  hour,  yet  not  wholly  alone  nor  unsup- 
ported ;  for,  as  Luke  assures  us,  there  appeared  to  him  an  angel 
from  heaven,  strengthening  him.  At  last  the  long  struggle  ceased. 
Distant  voices  coming  over  the  glen  through  the  stillness  of  the 
night,  and  the  glare  of  torches  flashing  from  the  waters  of  the 
Kedron  through  the  shades  of  the  garden,  gave  him  notice  that 
those  were  near  who  came  to  drag  him  to  a  shameful  death.  Yet 
that  repugnance  of  nature  with  which  his  late  strife  had  been  so 
dreadful,  was  now  so  overcome  that  he  shrank  not  from  the  ap- 
proaching death,  but  calmly  walked  to  meet  it.  Coming  forward 
to  his  sleeping  disciples,  he  said  to  them — "  Sleep  on  now  and  take 
your  rest ;  behold,  the  time  is  at  hand  when  the  son  of  man  is  be- 
trayed into  the  hands  of  sinners.  Arise,  let  us  be  going."  The 
rush  of  the  armed  bands  of  the  temple  guards  followed  his  words, 
and  when  the  apostles  sprung  to  their  feet,  their  drowsiness  was 
most  effectually  driven  off  by  the  appalling  sight  of  a  crowd  of 
fierce  men,  filling  the  garden  and  surrounding  them.  As  soon  as 
the  leaders  of  the  throng  could  overcome  the  reverence  which 
even  the  lowest  of  their  followers  had  for  the  majestic  person  of 
the  Savior,  they  brought  them  up  to  the  charge ;  and  a  retainer  of 
the  high  priest,  by  name  Malchus,  with  the  forward  ofiiciousness  of 
an  insolent  menial,  laid  hold  of  Jesus.  Now  was  the  time  for 
Galilean  pugnacity  to  show  itself  The  disciples  around  instantly 
asked,  "  Lord,  shall  we  smite  with  the  sword  ?"  But  without  wait- 
ing for  an  answer,  Peter,  though  amazed  by  this  sudden  and  fright- 
ful attack,  as  soon  as  he  saw  the  body  of  his  adored  Master  pro- 
faned by  the  rude  hands  of  base  hirelings,  readiest  in  action  as  in 
word,  regardless  of  numbers,  leaped  on  the  assailants  with  drawn 
sword,  and  with  a  movement  too  quick  to  be  shunned,  he  gave  the 
foremost  a  blow,  which,  if  the  darkness  had  not  prevented,  might 
have  been  fatal.  As  it  was,  there  could  not  have  been  a  more 
narrow  escape  ;  for  the  sword  lighting  on  the  head  of  the  priest's 
zealous  servant,  just  grazed  his  temple  and  cut  off  his  ear.  But 
this  display  of  courage  was,  after  all,  fruitless ;  for  he  was  sur- 
rounded by  a  great  body  of  men,  armed  in  the  expectation  of  this 
very  kind  of  resistence ;  and  in  addition  to  this,  the  remonstrance 
of  Jesus  must  have  been  sufficient  to  damp  the  most  fiery  valor. 
He  said  to  his  zealous  and  fierce  defender — "  Put  up  thy  sword 


Peter's  discipleship.  123 

again  into  its  sheath,  for  they  that  take  the  sword  shall  perish  by 
the  sword.  The  cup  which  my  Father  hath  given  me  shall  1  not 
drink  )  Thinkest  thou  that  if  I  should  now  pray  to  my  Father,  he 
would  not  instantly  send  me  twelve  legions  of  angels  at  a  word  ? 
But  how  then  shall  the  scriptures  be  fulfilled,  which  say  that  it 
must  be  thus  ?"  Having  thus  stopped  the  ineffectual  and  dangerous 
opposition  of  his  few  followers,  he  quietly  gave  himself  up  to  his 
captors,  interceding  however  for  his  poor,  friendless,  and  unpro- 
tected disciples.  "  I  am  Jesus  of  Nazareth ;  if  therefore  you  seek 
me,  let  these  go  their  way."  This  he  said  as  it  were  in  refer- 
ence to  a  literal  and  corporeal  fulfilment  of  the  words  which  he 
had  used  in  his  last  prayer  with  his  disciples, — "  Of  them  whom 
thou  gavest  me  I  lost  none."  The  disciples,  after  receiving  from 
Jesus  such  a  special  command  to  abstain  from  resistence,  and  per- 
ceiving how  utterly  desperate  was  the  condition  of  affairs,  without 
waiting  the  decision  of  the  question,  all  forsaking  him,  fled ;  and 
favored  by  darlmess  and  their  familiar  knowledge  of  the  grounds, 
they  escaped  in  various  directions. 

Gethsemane. — This  place  has  already  been  alluded  to  in  the  description  of  Mount 
Olivet.  (Note  on  p.  111.)  From  the  same  source  I  extract  a  further  brief  notice  of 
the  present  aspect  of  this  most  holy  ground.  "  Proceeding  along  the  valley  of  Kedron, 
at  the  foot  of  Mount  Olivet,  is  the  garden  of  Gethsemane :  an  even  plat  of  ground, 
not  above  fifty-seven  yards  square,  where  are  shown  some  old  olive-trees,  supposed 
to  identify  the  spot  to  which  our  Lord  was  wont  to  repair.  John  xviii.  1,  2."  (Mod. 
Trav.  Palestine,  p.  156.)  It  is  also  remarked  by  Dr.  Richardson,  (p.  78  of  the  same 
work,)  that  "  the  gardens  of  Gethsemane  are  still  in  a  sort  of  a  ruined  cultivation ; 
the  fences  are  broken  down,  and  the  olive-trees  decaying,  as  if  the  hand  that  dressed 
and  fed  them  was  withdrawn." 

I  know  of  no  traveler  who  has  better  represented  the  relative  situation  of  these 
places  than  Fisk,  the  missionary,  who  seems  always  to  have  plainly  described  things 
just  as  he  saw  them,  and  has  therefore  been  remarkably  successful  in  giving  cor- 
rect impressions  of  localities.  He  thus  describes  the  path  which  he  took  in  going 
over  the  same  ground  which  was  traversed  by  Jesus  on  that  eventful  night. — "  We 
went  out  at  Stephen's  gate,  which  is  sometimes  called  the  sheep-gate, — [on  the  east 
side  of  the  city,  towards  Olivet.]  We  then  descended  the  hill,  passed  the  bed  of  the 
brook  Kedron,  which  contains  no  water  except  in  the  rainy  season,  and  then  came 
to  the  garden  of  Gethsemane,  one  of  the  most  affecting  and  interesting  spots  on  earth. 
It  is  a  small  plat  of  ground,  with  a  low  enclosure  of  stones.  In  it  stand  eight  venerable- 
looking  olives,  which  seem  as  if  they  might  have  remained  there  from  time  immemo- 
rial. The  side  of  the  hill  was  full  of  armed  Turks  of  fierce  appearance,  occasionally 
firing  off  their  muskets  for  amusement."    (Bond's  Life  of  Fisk,  chap.  x.  p.  289.) 

The  etymology  and  meaning  of  the  name  Gethsemane  are  given  by  Lightfoot,  (Cen- 
tur.  Chorog.  in  Matt.  cap.  41.)  The  name  is  derived  from  the  product  of  the  tree 
which  was  so  abundantly  raised  there,  and  which  gave  name  also  to  the  mountain. 
Gethsemane  is  compounded  of  nj,  {gath,)  "  a  press,"  and  nrnm,  {shemena,^  "  olive  oil," 
— "  an  oil-press ;"  because  the  oil  was  pressed  out  and  manufacturea  on  the  spot 
where  the  olive  was  raised. 

Ten  o'clock. — This  I  conclude  to  have  been  about  the  time,  because  (in  Matt.  xivi. 
20)  it  is  said  that  it  was  evening  already,  (that  is,  about  6  o'clock,)  when  Jesus  sat 
down  to  supper  with  his  disciples,  and  allowing  time  on  the  one  hand  for  the  events 
at  the  supper- table  and  on  the  walk,  as  well  as  those  in  the  garden, — and,  on  the  other 
hand,  for  those  which  took  place  before  midnight,  (cock-crowing,)  we  must  fix  the 
time  as  I  have  above. 


124  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

The  glare  of  torches.— John  (xviii.  3)  is  the  only  evangelist  who  brings  this  highly 
picturesque  circumstance  of  the  equipment  of  the  band  with  the  means  of  searching 
ihe  dark  shades  and  bowers  of  the  garden. 

The  armed  bands,  tf-c. — It  has  been  supposed  by  some  that  this  armed  force  was  a 
part  of  the  Roman  garrison  which  was  always  kept  in  Castle  Antonia,  close  by  the 
temple;  (see  note  on  p.  Ill ;)  but  there  is  nothing  in  the  expressions  of  either  of  the 
evangelists  which  should  lead  us  to  think  so;  on  the  contrary,  their  statement  most 
distinctly  specifies,  that  those  concerned  in  the  arrest  were  from  a  totally  different 
quarter.  Matthew  (xxvi.  47)  describes  them  as  "  a  great  throng,  with  swords  and 
staves,  from  the  chief  priests  and  elders  of  the  people."  The  whole  expression  im- 
plies a  sort  of  half-mob  of  low  fellows,  servants  and  followers  of  the  members  of  the 
Sanhedrim,  accompanying  the  ordinary  temple-guard,  which  was  a  mere  band  of 
Levite  peace-officers  under  the  priests,  whose  business  it  was  to  keep  order  in  the 
courts  of  the  temple — a  duty  hardly  more  honorable  than  that  of  a  sweeper  or  "  door- 
keeper in  the  house  of  the  Lord,"  from  which  oflice,  indeed,  it  was  probably  not  dis- 
tinct. These  watchmen  and  porters,  for  they  were  no  better,  were  allowed  by  the 
Roman  government  of  the  city  and  kingdom,  a  kind  of  contemptuous  favor  in  bear- 
ing swords  to  defend  from  profane  intrusion  their  holy  shrine,  which  Gentile  soldiers 
could  not  approach  as  guards,  without  violating  the  sanctity  of  the  place.  Such  a 
body  as  these  men  and  their  chance  associates,  are  therefore  well  and  properly  de- 
scribed by  Matthew,  as  a  "  throng  with  swords  and  clubs;"  but  what  intelligent  man 
would  ever  have  thought  of  characterizing  in  this  way  a  regular  detachment  of  the 
stately  and  well-armed  legion,  which  maintained  the  dignity  and  power  of  the  Roman 
governor  of  Judea  1  Mark  (xiv.  43)  uses  precisely  the  same  expression  as  Matthew, 
to  describe  them:  Luke  (xxii.  52)  represents  Jesus  as  speaking  to  "the  chief  priests 
and  captains  uf  the  temple  and  the  elders,  who  had  come  against  him,  saying — '  Have 
you  come  out  as  against  a  thief,  with  swords  and  clubs'?'  "  John  (xviii.  3)  speaks  of 
the  band  as  made  up  in  part  of  the  servants  of  "  the  chief  priests  and  Pharisees," 
&c.  So  that  the  whole  matter,  unquestionably,  was  managed  and  executed  entirely 
by  the  Jews;  and  the  progress  of  the  story  shows  that  they  did  not  call  in  the  aid  of  the 
heathen  secular  power,  until  the  last  bloody  act  required  a  consummation  which  the 
ordinances  of  Rome  forbade  to  the  Jews,  and  then  only  did  they  summon  the  aid  of 
the  governor's  military  force.  Indeed,  they  were  too  careful  in  preserving  their  few 
peculiar  secular  privileges  still  left,  to  give  up  the  smallest  power  of  tyrannizing, 
permitted  by  their  Roman  lords, 

HIS  THREE-FOLD  DENIAL. 

Peter,  however,  had  not  so  soon  forgot  his  zealous  attachment 
to  Jesus,  as  to  leave  him  in  such  hands,  without  further  know- 
ledge of  his  fate  ;  but  as  soon  as  he  was  satisfied  that  the  pursuit 
of  the  disciples  was  given  up,  he  in  company  with  John,  follow- 
ed the  band  of  officers  at  safe  distance,  and  ascertained  whither 
they  were  carrying  the  captive.  After  they  had  seen  the  train 
proceed  to  the  palace  of  the  high  priest,  they  went  directly  to 
the  same  place.  Here  John,  being  known  to  the  high  priest, 
and  having  friends  in  the  family,  went  boldly  in,  feeling  secure 
by  his  friendship  in  that  quarter,  against  any  danger  in  conse- 
quence of  his  connexion  with  Jesus.  Being  known  to  the  ser- 
vant girl  who  kept  the  door,  as  a  friend  of  the  family,  he  got  in 
without  difficulty,  and  had  also  influence  enough  to  get  leave  to 
introduce  Peter,  as  a  friend  of  his  who  had  some  curiosity  to  see 
what  was  going  on.  Peter,  who  had  stood  without  the  door  wait- 
ing for  the  result  of  John's  maneuvre,  was  now  brought  into  the 
palace,  and  walked  boldly  into  the  hall  where  the  examination  of 


Peter's  discipleship.  125 

Jesus  was  going  on,  probably  hoping  to  pass  unnoticed  by  keep- 
ing in  the  dinily  hghted  parts  of  the  hall,  by  which  he  would  be 
secure,  at  the  same  time  that  he  would  the  better  see  what  was 
going  on  near  the  lights.  Standing  thus  out  of  the  way  in  the 
back  part  of  the  room,  he  might  have  witnessed  the  whole  with- 
out incurring  the  notice  of  anybody.  But  the  servants  and 
others,  who  had  been  out  over  the  dark  valley  of  the  Kedron  feel- 
ing chilled  with  the  walk,  (for  the  long  nights  of  that  season  are 
in  Jerusalem  frequently  in  strong  contrast  with  the  warmth  of 
mid-day,)  made  up  a  good  fire  of  coal  in  the  back  part  of  the  hall, 
where  they  stood  looking  on.  Peter  himself  being,  too,  no  doubt 
thoroughly  chilled  with  his  long  exposure  to  the  cold  night  air, 
very  naturally  and  unreflectingly  came  forward  to  the  fire,  where 
he  sat  down  and  warmed  himself  among  the  servants  and  soldiers. 
The  bright  light  of  the  coals  shining  directly  on  his  anxious  face, 
those  who  stood  by,  noticing  a  stranger  taking  such  interest  in  the 
proceedings,  began  to  scrutinize  him  more  narrowly.  At  last,  the 
servant  girl  who  had  let  him  in  at  the  door,  with  the  inquisitive 
curiosity  so  peculiarly  strong  in  her  sex,  knowing  that  he  had  come 
in  "with  John  as  his  particular  acquaintance,  and  concluding  that 
he  was  like  him  associated  with  Jesus,  boldly  said  to  him — "  Thou 
also  art  one  of  this  man's  disciples."  But  Peter,  (like  a  true  Gali- 
leein,  as  ready  to  lie  as  to  fight,)  thinking  only  of  the  danger  of  the 
recognition,  at  once  denied  him,  forgetting  the  lately  ofiensive  pre- 
diction in  his  sudden  alarm.  He  said  before  them  all — "  Woman,  1 
am  not ! — I  know  him  not ;  neither  do  I  understand  what  thou 
sayest."  This  bold  and  downright  denial  silenced  the  impertinence 
of  the  girl,  and  for  a  time  may  have  quieted  the  suspicions  of  those 
around.  Peter,  however,  startled  by  this  sudden  attack,  all  at 
once  perceived  the  danger  into  which  he  had  unthinkingly  thrust 
himself;  and  drawing  back  from  his  prominent  station  before  the 
fire,  which  had  made  him  so  unfortunately  conspicuous,  he  went 
out  into  the  porch  of  the  building,  notwithstanding  the  cold  night 
air, — preferring  the  discomfort  of  the  exposure,  to  the  danger  of 
his  late  position.  As  he  walked  there  in  the  open  air,  he  heard 
the  note  of  the  cock,  sounding  clear  through  the  stillness  of  mid- 
night, announcing  the  beginning  of  the  third  watch.  The  sound 
had  a  sad  import  to  him,  and  must  have  recalled  to  his  mind  some 
thought  of  his  Master's  warning ;  but  before  it  could  have  made 
much  impression,  it  was  instantly  banished  altogether  from  his 
mind,  by  a  new  alarm  from  the  inquisitiveness  of  some  of  the  re- 


126  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

tainers  of  the  palace,  who,  seeing  a  stranger  lurking  in  a  covert 
manner  about  the  building  at  that  time  of  night,  very  naturally- 
felt  suspicious  enough  of  him  to  examine  his  appearance  narrowly. 
Among  those  who  came  about  him,  was  another  of  those  pert  dam- 
sels who  seem  to  have  been  so  forward  about  the  house  of  the  head 
of  the  Jewish  liiith.  She,  after  a  satisfactory  inspection  of  the 
suspicious  person,  very  promptly  informed  those  that  were  there 
also  about  him — "  This  fellow  also  was  with  Jesus  of  Nazareth." 
Peter's  patience  being  worn  out  with  these  spiteful  annoyances,  he 
not  only  flatly  contradicted  the  positive  assertion  of  the  girl,  but  back- 
ed his  words  with  an  oath,  which  seems  to  have  had  the  decisive  ef- 
fect of  hushing  his  female  accusers  entirely,  and  he  considered  him- 
self to  have  turned  off  suspicion  for  a  time  so  effectually,  that,  after 
cooling  himself  sufficiently  in  the  porch,  being  distracted  with 
anxiety  about  the  probable  fate  of  his  beloved  Master,  he  at  last  ven- 
tured again  into  the  great  hall  of  the  palace,  where  the  examina- 
tion of  Jesus  was  still  going  on.  Here  he  remained  a  deeply  in- 
terested spectator  and  auditor  for  about  an  hour,  without  being  dis- 
turbed, when  some  of  the  bystanders  who  were  not  so  much  inter- 
ested in  the  affair  before  them  as  to  be  prevented  by  it  from  looking 
about  them,  had  their  attention  again  drawn  to  the  stranger  who 
had  been  an  object  of  such  suspicion.  There  were  probably  more 
tian  one  that  recognized  the  active  and  zealous  follower  of  the  Na- 
zarene,  as  Peter  had  been  in  such  constant  attendence  on  him 
throughout  his  whole  stay  in  Jerusalem.  But  no  one  seems  to  have 
cared  to  provoke  an  irascible  Galilean,  by  an  accusation  which  he 
might  resent  in  the  characteristic  manner  of  his  countrymen ;  till 
another  of  the  servants  of  the  high  priest,  a  relation  of  Malchus, 
whose  ear  Peter  had  cut  off,  after  looking  well  at  him,  and  being 
provoked  by  the  singular  boldness  of  his  thrusting  himself  into 
the  home  of  the  very  man  whom  he  had  so  shockingly  muti- 
lated and  nearly  murdered,  determined  to  bring  the  offender  to 
punishment;  and  speaking  to  his  fellow-servants,  he  indignantly 
and  confidently  affirmed — "  This  fellow  was  also  with  him,  for  he 
is  a  Galilean."  And  turning  to  Peter,  whom  he  had  seen  in  Geth- 
semane,  when  engaged  at  the  time  of  the  capture  of  Jesus,  he  impe- 
riously asked  him — "  Did  I  not  see  thee  in  the  garden  with  him?" 
And  others,  joining  in  the  charge,  said  decidedly  to  him,  "  Surely 
thou  art  one  of  them  also  :  for  thy  very  speech,  thy  accent,  unques- 
tionably shows  thee  to  be  a  Galilean."  Peter  began  at  last  to  see 
that  his  situation  was  growing  quite  desperate  j  and  finding  that 


Peter's  discipleship.  127 

his  distress  about  his  Lord  had  brought  him  within  a  chance  of 
the  same  fate,  determined  to  extricate  himself  by  as  unscrupulously 
usinof  hii  tonofue  in  his  own  defense  as  he  had  before  used  his 
sword  for  his  Master.  Besides,  he  had  already  told  two  flat  lies 
within  about  three  hours,  and  it  was  not  for  a  Galilean  in  such  a 
pass  to  hesitate  about  one  more,  even  though  seconded  by  a  perjury. 
For  he  then  began  to  curse  and  to  swear,  saying — "  Man,  I  know  not 
what  thou  sayest.  I  know  not  the  man  of  whom  ye  speak."  And 
immediately,  while  he  was  yet  speaking,  the  cock  crew  the  second 
time.  At  that  moment,  the  Lord  turned  and  looked  upon  Peter, 
and  at  the  same  sound  the  conscience-stricken  disciple  turning  to- 
wards his  Lord,  met  that  glance.  And  what  a  look  !  He  who 
cannot  imagine  it  for  himself,  cannot  conceive  it  from  the  ideal  pic- 
ture of  another  ;  but  its  effect  was  sufficiently  dramatic  to  impress 
the  least  picturesque  imagination.  As  the  Lord  turned  and  looked 
upon  him,  Peter  remembered  the  word  of  the  Lord,  how  he  had 
said  to  him — "  Before  the  cock  shall  crow  twice  this  night,  thou 
shalt  deny  me  thrice."  And  thinking  thereon,  he  went  out, 
and  wept  bitterly.  Tears  of  rebuked  conceit — of  self-humbled 
pride,  over  fallen  glory  and  sullied  honor — flowed  down  his 
manly  cheeks.  Where  was  now  the  fiery  spirit  once  in  word  so 
ready  to  brave  death,  with  all  the  low  malice  of  base  foes,  for  the 
sake  of  Jesus  ?  Where  was  that  unshaken  steadiness,  that  daunt- 
less energy  that  once  won  for  him,  from  the  lips  of  his  Master, 
when  first  his  searching  eye  fell  on  him,  the  name  of  the  rock, — 
that  name  by  which  again  he  had  been  consecrated  as  the  mighty 
foundation-RocK  of  the  church  of  God  7  Was  this  the  chief  of 
the  apostles  ? — the  keeper  of  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ? 
— binding  and  loosing  on  earth  what  should  be  bound  or  loosed 
in  heaven  ?  Where  were  the  brave,  high  hopes  of  eaithly  glory 
to  be  won  under  the  warlike  banners  of  his  kingly  Master  ?  Where 
was  that  Master  and  Lord  ?  The  hands  of  the  rude  were  now  laid 
on  him,  in  insult  and  abuse, — his  glories  broken  and  faded, — his 
power  vain  for  his  own  rescue  from  sufferings  vastly  greater  than 
those  so  often  relieved  by  him  in  others, — his  followers  dispirited 
and  scattered, — disowning  and  casting  out  as  evil  the  name  they 
had  so  long  adored.  The  haughty  lords  of  Judaism  were  now 
exulting  in  their  cruel  victory,  re-established  in  their  dignity,  and 
strengthened  in  their  tyranny  by  this  long-wished  triumph  over 
their  foe.  He  wept  for  bright  hopes  dimmed, — for  crushed  ambi- 
tion ; — ^but  more  than  all.  for  broken  faith, — for  trampled  truth, — 


128  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

and  for  the  three-fold  and  perjured  denial  of  his  betrayed  and  for- 
saken Lord.     Well  might  he  weep — 

"  There's  bliss  in  tears, 

When  he  who  sheds  them  inly  feels 
Some  lingering  slain  of  early  years 

Effaced  by  every  drop  that  steals. 
The  fruitless  showers  of  worldly  wo 

Fall  dark  to  earth  and  never  rise ; 
While  tears  that  from  repentance  flow, 

In  bright  exhalement  reach  the  skies." 

The  long  night?  in  contrast  with  the  heat  of  the  day. — It  should  be  remembered,  that 
according  to  a  just  calculation,  these  events  happened  in  the  month  of  March,  when 
the  air  of  Palestine  is  uncomfortably  cold.  Conder,  in  his  valuable  topographical 
compilation,  says,  "  during. the  months  of  May,  June,  July,  and  August,  the  sky  is 
for  the  most  part  cloudless ;  but  during  the  night,  the  earth  is  moistened  with  a  co- 
pious dew.  Sultry  days  are  not  unfrequently  succeeded  by  intensely  cold  nights.  To 
these  sudden  vicissitudes,  references  are  made  in  the  Old  Testament.  Gen.  xxxi. 
40:  Ps.  cxxi.  6."    (Mod.  Trav.  Palestine,  p.  14.) 

The  cold  season,  (iip  Qor,)  immediately  following  the  true  winter,  (sin  Hhorcph,) 
took  in  the  latter  part  of  the  Hebrew  month  Shebeth,  the  whole  of  Adar,  and  the 
former  half  of  Nisan;  that  is,  in  modern  divisions  of  time, — from  the  beginning  of 
February  to  the  beginning  of  April,  according  to  the  Calendarium  Palestinae  in  the 
Critica  Biblica,  Vol.  III. :  but  according  to  Jahn,  (Arch.  Bib.  §  21,)  from  the  middle 
of  February  to  the  middle  of  April,  the  two  estimates  varying  with  the  different 
views  about  the  dates  of  the  ancient  Hebrew  months. 

Galilean,  ready  to  lie  as  to  fight. — This  may  strike  some,  as  rather  too  harsh  a 
sentence  to  pass  upon  the  general  character  of  a  whole  people,  but  I  believe  I  am 
borne  out  in  this  seeming  abuse,  by  the  steady  testimony  of  most  authorities  to  which 
I  can  readily  refer.  Josephus,  whom  I  have  already  quoted  in  witness  of  their  pug- 
nacity, (on  page  118,)  seems  to  have  been  so  well  pleased  with  this  trait,  and  also 
with  their  "  industry  and  activity,"  which  he  so  highly  commends  in  them,  as  well 
as  the  richness  of  the  natural  resources  of  the  country;  all  which  characteristics,  both 
of  the  people  and  the  region,  he  made  so  highly  available  in  their  defense  during  the 
war  with  the  Romans,  that  he  does  not  think  it  worth  while  to  criticise  their  morals, 
to  which,  indeed,  the  season  of  a  bloody  war  gives  a  sort  of  license,  that  made  such 
defects  less  prominent,  being  apparently  rather  characteristic  of  the  times  than  the 
people.  But  there  is  great  abundance  of  condemnatory  testimony,  which  shows  that 
the  Galileans  bore  as  bad  a  character  among  their  neighbors,  as  my  severest  remark 
could  imply.  Numerous  passages  in  the  Gospels  and  Acts  show  this  so  plainly  as  to 
convey  this  general  impression  against  them  very  decidedly.  Kuinoel  (on  Matt.  ii. 
23)  speaks  strongly  of  their  proverbially  low  moral  character.  "  All  the  Galileans 
were  so  despised  by  the  dwellers  of  Jerusalem  and  Judea,  that  when  they  wished  to 
characterize  a  man  as  a  low  and  outcast  wTetch,  they  called  him  a  Galilean."  On 
other  passages,  also,  (as  on  John  vii.  52,  and  Matt.  iv.  17,)  he  repeats  this  intellectual 
and  moral  condemnation  in  similar  terms.  Beza  and  Grolius,  also,  in  commenting 
on  these  passages,  speak  of  Galilee  as  "  contempta  regio."  Rosenmixller,  also,  (on 
John  vii.  52,)  says,  "  NuUus,  aiunt,  Galilaeus  unquam  a  Deo  donatus  est  spiritu  pro- 
phetjco :  gens  est  Deo  despeda."  That  is,  "  What  they  mean  is — that  no  Galilean  was 
ever  indued  with  a  spirit  of  prophecy :  they  are  a  people  despised  bij  God"  (as  refer- 
red to  in  John  vii.  49.)  I  might  quote  at  great  length  from  many  commentators  to 
the  same  effect ;  but  these  will  serve  as  a  specimen.  It  should  be  remarked,  however, 
that  the  Galileans,  though  they  might  be  worse  than  most  Jews  in  their  general  char- 
acter, were  not  very  peculiar  in  their  neglect  of  truth ;  for  from  the  time  of  Abra- 
ham, Isaac,  and  Jacob,  to  the  present  moment,  the  Asiatic  races,  generally,  have  been 
infamous  for  falsehood,  and  there  are  many  modern  travelers  who  are  ready  to  tes- 
tify that  almost  any  Oriental,  when  asked  an  indifferent  question,  will  tell  a  lie  at  a 
venture,  anless  he  sees  some  special  personal  advantage  likely  to  result  to  him  from 
telling  the  truth. 

Yet  in  minute  legal  observances,  the  Galileans  were,  for  the  most  part,  much  more 
rigid  in  interpreting  and  following  the  law  of  Moses,  than  the  inhabitants  of  Judea, 
as  is  abundantly  showTi  by  Lightfool  in  his  numerous  Talmuttic  quotations,  {Cent. 


Peter's  discipleship.  129 

Char.  cap.  86,)  where  the  comparison  is,  on  many  accounts,  highly  favorable  to  such 
of  the  Galileans  as  pretended  to  observe  and  follow  the  Jewish  law  at  all. 

Thy  accent  shows'^l.hec. — Li^htfoot  is  very  rich  in  happy  illustrations  of  this  pas- 
sage, (Cent.  Chor.  cap.  87.)  "He  has  drawn  very  largely  here  from  the  Talmudic 
writers,  who  are  quite  amusing  in  the  instances  which  they  give  of  the  dialectic  dif- 
ferences between  the  Galileans  and  the  Judeans.  Several  of  the  puns  which  they 
give,  would  not  be  accounted  dull  even  in  modern  times,  and,  indeed,  the  Galilean 
brogue  seems  to  have  been  as  M'ell  marked,  and  to  have  given  occasion  for  nearly  as 
much  wit  as  that  of  Ireland.  The  Galileans,  thus  marked  by  dialect  as  well  as  by- 
manners,  held  about  the  same  place  in  the  estimation  of  the  pure  Judean  race,  as  the 
modern  Irish  do  among  those  of  Saxon-English  tongue  and  blood;  and  we  cannot 
belter  conceive  of  the  scorn  excited  in  the  refined  Jews  by  the  idea  of  a  Galileaa 
prophet  with  his  simple  disciples,  than  by  imagining  the  sort  of  impression  that 
would  be  made,  by  an  Irish  prophet  attempting  the  foundation  of  a  new  sect  in  Lon- 
don or  Boston,  with  a  dozen  rough  and  uneducated  workmen  for  his  preachers  and 
main  supporters. 

The  bright  light  of  the  fire  shining  on  his  face,  <^c. — This  incident  is  taken  from 
Luke  xxii.  56,  where  the  expression  in  the  common  version  is,  "  a  certain  maid  saw 
him  as  he  sat  by  the  fire."  But  in  the  original  Greek  this  last  word  is  0&3?,  {phos,') 
which  means  "  light,"  and  not  "  fire ;"  and  it  is  translated  here  in  this  peculiar  man- 
ner, because  it  evidently  refers  to  the  light  of  the  fire,  from  its  connexion  with  the 
preceding  verse,  where  it  is  said  that  "  Peter  sat  down  among  them  '  before'  the  fire 
which  they  had  kindled;"  the  word  fire  in  this  passage  being  in  the  Greek  Trip,  ipnr,') 
which  is  never  translated  otherwise.  But  the  unusual  translation  of  the  word  ^Jiy, 
by  "  fire"  in  the  other  verse,  though  it  gives  a  just  idea  of  Peter's  position,  makes  a 
common  reader  lose  sight  of  the  prominent  reason  of  his  detection,  which  was,  that 
the  "  light  of  the  fire"  shone  on  his  face. 

In  speaking  of  Peter's  fall  and  its  attendant  circumstances,  Lampe  (in  ev.  John 
xviii.  17)  seems  to  be  most  especially  scandalized  by  the  means  through  which  Peter's 
ruin  was  effected.  "  Sed  ab  ancilla  Cepham  vinci,  dedecus  ejus  auget.  Quanta  in- 
constantia!  GLui  in  armatos  ordines  paulo  ante  irruperat  nimc  ad  vocem  levis  mu- 
lierculae  tremit.  Si  Adamo  probrosum,  quod  a  femina  conjuge  seductus  erat,  non. 
minus  Petro,  quod  ab  ancilla."  That  is,  "  BiU  that  Cephas  should  have  been  over- 
come by  a  girl,  increases  his  disgrace.  How  great  the  change !  He  who,  but  a  little 
before,  had  charged  an  armed  host,  now  trembled  at  the  voice  of  a  silly  woman.  If 
it  was  a  shame  to  Adam,  that  he  had  been  seduced  by  his  wife,  it  was  no  less  so  to 
Peter,  that  he  was  by  a  girl." 

The  cock  crev\ — By  this  circumstance,  the  time  of  the  denial  in  all  its  parts  is  weL 
ascertained.  The  first  cock-crowing  after  the  first  denial  marked  the  hour  of  mid- 
night, and  the  second  cock-crowing  announced  the  first  dawn  of  day.  As  Lampe 
says — "  Altera  haec  erat  oKtKTpixpdvia,  praenuncia  lucis,  non  tantum  in  terra,  sed  etin. 
corde  Petri,  tenebris  spississimis  obsepto,  mox  iterum  orilurae."  "  This  was  the  se- 
cond cock-crowing,  the  herald  of  light,  soon  to  rise  again,  not  only  on  earth,  but  also 
in  the  heart  of  Peter,  now  overspread  Avith  the  thickest  darkness." 

And  thinking  thereon,  he  wept. — This  expression  is  taken  from  Mark  xiv.  72,  and 
accords  with  our  common  translation,  though  very  different  from  many  others  that 
have  been  proposed.  The  word  thus  variously  rendered,  is  in  the  original  Greek, 
i~i(ia\i>v,  (epibalon,)  and  bears  a  great  variety  of  definitions  which  can  be  determined 
only  by  its  connexions,  in  the  passages  where  it  occurs.  Campbell  says,  "  there  are 
not  many  words  in  scripture  which  have  undergone  more  interpretations  than  this 
term ;"  and  truly  the  array  of  totally  diverse  renderings,  each  ably  supported  by  many 
of  the  most  learned  Biblical  scholars  that  ever  lived,  is  quite  appalling  to  the  inves- 
tigator. (1.)  Those  who  support  the  common  English  translation  are  Kypke,  Wet- 
stein,  Campbell,  and  Bloomfield,  and  others  quoted  by  the  latter. — (2.)  Another  tran.s- 
lation  which  has  been  ably  defended,  is  "he  began  to  weep."  This  is  the  expre-ssiott 
in  the  common  German  translation,  (Martin  Luther's,)  "  f.r  hob  .\n  zu  weinen."  It 
is  also  the  version  of  the  Vulgate,  ("  Coepit  flere,")  the  Syriac,  Gothic,  Persian,  and 
Armenian  translations,  as  Kuinoel  and  Heinsius  observe,  who  also  maintain  this 
rendering. — (3.)  Another  is  "  He  proceeded  to  weep,"  ("  Addens  flevit,")  which  is  that 
of  Grotius,  Le  Clerc,  Simon,  Petavius,  and  others. — (4.)  Another  is,  "  covering  his 
head,  he  wept."  This  seems  to  have  begim  with  Theophylact,  who  has  been  followed 
by  a  great  number,  among  whom  Salmasius,  Wolf,  Suicer,  and  Macknight,  and 
Krebs,  are  the  most  prominent. — (5.)  Another  is  "  rushing  out,  he  wept."  This  is 
maintained  by  Beza,  RosenmuUer^  Schleusner,  Bretschneider,  and  Wahl. — (6.)  Aa- 


130  LIVES   OF  THE  APCBTLES. 

Other  is  "  Having  looked  at,  him"  (Jesus,)  "  he  wept."  This  is  the  version  of  Ham- 
mond and  Palairet. — "  Who  shall  decide  when  so  many  "  doctors  disagree  V  I 
should  feel  safest  in  leaving  the  reader,  as  Parkhurst  does,  to  "  consider  and  judge" 
for  himself;  but  in  defense  of  my  own  rendering,  I  would  simply  observe,  that  the 
common  English  version  is  that  which  is  most  in  accordance  with  the  rules  of  gram- 
mar, and  is  best  supported  by  classic  usage,  while  the  second  and  third  are  justly  ob- 
jected to  by  Bloomlield  and  Campbell  as  ungrammatical  and  unsupported  by  truly 
parallel  passages,  notwithstanding  the  array  of  classical  quotations  by  Bp.  Blomfield 
and  others;  and  the  fourth  and  fifth  equally  deserve  rejection  for  the  very  tame  and 
cold  expression  which  they  make  of  it;  the  fourih  also  being  ungrammatical  like  the 
second  and  "third.  The  sixth  definition  also  may  be  rejected  on  grammatical  grounds, 
as  well  as  for  lack  of  authorities  and  clasr.ic  usage  to  support  such  an  elliptical  trans- 
lation.— For  long  and  numerous  discussions  of  all  these  points,  see  any  or  every  one 
of  the  writers  whose  names  1  have  cited  in  this  note. 

Christ's  crucifixion. 

From  that  moment  we  hear  no  more  of  the  humbled  apostle, 
till  after  the  fatal  consummation  of  his  Redeemer's  sufferings. 
Yet  he  must  have  been  a  beholder  of  that  awful  scene.  When 
the  multitude  of  men  and  women  followed  the  cross-bearing  Re- 
deemer down  the  vale  of  Calvary,  mourning  with  tears  and  groans, 
Peter  could  not  have  sought  to  indulge  in  solitary  grief.  And 
since  the  son  of  Zebedee  stood  by  the  cross  during  the  whole 
agony  of  Jesus,  (and  the  other  apostles  probably  had  no  more  cause 
of  fear  than  John,)  Peter  also  might  have  stood  near,  among  the 
crowd,  without  any  danger  of  being  further  molested  by  those 
whom  he  had  offended ;  for  they  now  looked  on  their  triumph  as 
too  complete  to  need  any  minor  acts  of  vengeance,  to  consummate 
it  over  the  fragments  of  the  brolcen  Nazarene  sefct.  Still,  it  was 
in  silent  sorrow  and  horror  that  he  gazed  on  this  sight  of  wo ; 
and  the  deep  despair  which  now  overwhelmed  his  bright  dreams 
of  glory  was  no  longer  uttered  in  the  violent  expressions  to  which 
his  loquacious  genius  prompted  him.  He  now  had  time  and  rea- 
son enough  to  apprehend  tlie  painfully  literal  meaning  of  the  oft- 
repeated  predictions  of  Christ  about  these  sad  events,— predictiohs 
which  were  once  so  wildly  unheeded  or  perversely  misconstrued, 
as  best  suited  the  ambitious  disciples'  hopes  of  a  power,  which  was 
to  be  set  up  over  all  the  civil,  religious,  and  military  tyrants  of 
Palestine,  and  of  which  they  were  to  be  the  chief  partakers. 
These  hopes  all  went  out  with  the  last  breath  of  their  crucified 
Lord,  and  when  they  turned  away  from  that  scene  of  hopeless 
wo,  after  taking  a  last  look  of  the  face  that  had  so  long  been  the 
source  of  light  and  truth  to  them,  now  fixed  and  ghastly  in  the 
last  struggle  of  a  horrible  death,  they  must  have  felt  that  the  de- 
lusive dream  of  years  was  now  broken,  and  that  they  were  but 
forlorn  and  desperate   outcasts   in  the   land  which  their   proud 


Peter's  discipleship.  131 

thoughts  once  aspired  to  rule.  What  despairing  anguish  must 
have  been  theirs,  as,  cHmbing  the  hill-side  with  sad  and  slow  steps, 
they  looked  back  from  its  top  down  upon  the  cross,  that  might 
still  be  seen  in  the  dark  valley,  though  dim  with  the  shades  of 
falling  night !  Their  Lord,  their  teacher,  their  guide,  their  friend, 
— hung  there  between  the  heaven  and  the  earth,  among  thieves,  the 
victim  of  triumphant  tyranny  ;  and  they,  owing  their  safety  only  to 
the  contemptuous  forbearance  of  his  murderers,  must  now,  stran- 
gers in  a  strange  land,  seek  a  home  among  those  who  scorned 
them. 

The  VALE  of  Calvary. — This  expression  will  no  doubt  excite  vast  surprise  in  the 
minds  of  many  readers,  who  have  all  their  lives  heard  and  talked  oi  Moiint  Calvary, 
without  once  taking  the  pains  to  find  out  whether  there  ever  was  any  such  place. 
Such  persons  will,  no  doubt,  liud  their  amazement  still  farther  increased,  on  learn- 
ing that  no  Mount  Calvary  is  mentioned  in  any  part  of  the  Bible,  nor  in  any  ancient 
author. 

The  whole  account  given  of  this  name  in  the  Bible,  is  in  Luke  xxiii.  33,  where  in 
the  common  translation  it  is  said  that  Christ  was  crucified  in  "  the  place  called  Cal- 
vary." In  the  parallel  passages  in  the  other  gospels,  the  Hebrew  name  only  is  given, 
Golgotha,  which  means  simply  "a  skull."  (Matt,  xxvii.  33  :  Mark  xv.  22  :  John 
xix.  17.)  This  particular  place  does  not  seem  to  be  named  and  designated  in  any 
part  of  the  Old  Testament;  but  a  very  clear  idea  of  its  general  situation  can  be  ob- 
tained, from  the  consideration  of  the  fact,  that  there  was  a  place  beyond  the  walls  of 
Jerusalem,  where  all  the  dead  were  buried,  and  whither  all  the  unclean  carcasses  of 
animals  were  carried  and  left  to  molder.  This  was  that  part  of  the  valley  of  the 
Kedron  which  was  called  the  valley  of  Tophet,  or  the  vale  of  the  son  of  Hinnom. 
This  is  often  alluded  to  as  the  place  of  dead  bodies.  (Jer.  vii.  32,  &c.)  Besides,  all 
reason  and  analogy  utterly  forbid  the  supposition,  that  dead  carcasses  would  be  piled 
up  on  a  "  mount"  or  hill,  to  rot  and  send  their  effluvia  all  over  the  city  in  every  fa- 
vorable wind  ;  while  on  the  other  hand,  a  deep  valley  like  that  of  Hinnom  would  be 
a  most  proper  place  for  carrying  such  ofiensive  matters.  Josephus,  in  his  description 
of  the  temple,  very  particularly  notices  the  fact,  that  all  the  blood  and  filth  which 
flowed  from  the  numerous  sacrifices,  was  conveyed  by  a  subterraneous  channel  or 
drain  to  this  very  valley.  A  moment's  thought  will  satisfy  any  one,  that  a  valley  is 
the  most  proper  place  for  such  a  receptacle  of  dead  animal  matter ;  and  nobody  could 
ever  have  thought  of  removing  carcasses  from  a  city  to  a  hill  "  nigh  to  the  city  ;"  for 
thus  John  (xix.  20)  describes  "the  locality  of  Golgotha, — making  it  apparent  that,  if 
the  spot  was  an  elevation,  the  carrion  on  it  must  have  been  constantly  and  most  of- 
fensively conspicuous  to  all  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem,  whose  religion,  as  well  as 
natural  decency,  required  them  to  avoid  all  pollution  from  the  dead. 

The  real  locality  of  Golgotha,  Calvary,  or  the  place  of  crucifixion,  I  should,  there- 
fore be  disposed  to  fix  in  "  the  valley  of  the  son  of  Hinnom,"  otherwise  called  "  the 
valley  of  Tophet;"  and  probably  at  that  part  of  it  where  it  opened  into  the  valley  of 
Jehoshaphat;  for  John  says  that  the  garden,  in  which  was  the  tomb  where  Joseph  of 
Arimathea  and  Nicodemus  laid  the  body  of  Jesus,  "  was  in  the  place  where  he  was 
crucified,"  and  that  "  the  sepulchre  was  nigh  at  hand."  Now  it  cannot  be  supposed 
that  any  religious  and  respectable  Jew,  like  Joseph,  would  have  a  new  tomb  and  a 
garden  prepared  for  himself,  with  so  much  pains  and  expense,  in  the  midst  of  the 
filth,  bones,  and  abominations  that  filled  the  depths  of  the  valley  of  Hinnom.  The 
valley  of  Jehoshaphat  was  the  proper  place  of  tombs,  and  was  used  as  such  both  by 
ancient  and  modern  Jews.  But  supposing  the  place  of  crucifixion  to  have  been  in 
the  openingof  the  valley  of  Hinnom  into  that  of  Jehoshaphat,  and  supposing  also  that 
Joseph's  new  tomb  was  in  that  part  of  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat  immediately  adjacent, 
both  might  properly  be  said  to  be  in  the  same  place,  and  were  probably  in  sight  of 
each  other,  though  in  parts  of  the  great  vale  nominally  diflerent.  (See  note  on 
page  111.) 

As  to  all  the  bdocless  modem  inventions  of  Moivnt  Calvary,  retailed  by  the  idol- 


132  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

atrons  Christians  of  Jerusalem  to  Ecnropean  travelers,  and  by  many  of  these  travelers 
to  their  readers, — not  one  of  them  deserves  the  slightest  notice  in  this  topographical 
criticism.  It  is  enough  to  say,  that  what  is  now  shown  in  Jerusalem  as  Momit  Cal- 
vary, is  known  to  be  a  pile  of  masonry, — a  mere  mass  of  stone  and  mortar  from  top 
to  bottom — and  that  the  notion  of  the  crucifixion  having  occurred  in  that  part  of  Je- 
rusalem is  just  as  modern  a  fable  as  that  of  the  hole  in  which  the  cross  stood,  and 
•was  invented  at  the  same  lime,  for  the  same  purpose,  namely,  to  impose  on  pilgrims ; 
— nobody  having  then  the  means  of  settling  the  true  localities.  (See  Conder,  for  a  full 
refutation  of  these  fables,  in  Modern  Traveler,  vol.  I.  p.  128.) 

It  should  be  noticed,  that  the  name  "  Calvary"  does  not  occur  in  the  original  Greek 
of  the  Testament  at  all,  but  is  a  mere  Latin  translation  of  the  Greek  word  Kpaviov, 
{Kranio?i)  "  a  skull .-" — Latin,  Calvaria,  the  same  meaning.  This  word  was  that  very 
properly  given  by  Jerome,  in  his  Latin  (or  Vuli^ale)  translation  of  the  New  Testament ; 
but  our  English  translators,  finding  that  by  long  use  of  this  as  the  standard  version, 
the  word  had  so  generally  acquired  the  force  of  a  proper  name,  adopted  it  as  such, 
instead  of  translating  the  original  Greek  and  Hebrew  words  into  the  English  word 
"  SKULL,"  as  they  should  have  done,  if  they  did  not  choose  to  adopt  Kranion,  or  Golgo- 
tha, as  proper  names. 

THE  RESURRECTION. 

With  such  feelings  they  returned  to  Jerusalem,  where  the 
eleven,  who  were  all  Galileans,  found  places  of  abode  with  those 
of  Christ's  followers  who  were  dwellers  in  the  city.  Here  they 
passed  the  Sabbath  heavily  and  sorrowfully,  no  doubt;  and  their 
thoughts  must  now  have  reverted  to  their  former  business,  to 
which  it  now  became  each  one  of  them  to  return,  since  he  who 
had  called  them  from  their  employments  could  no  more  send 
them  forth  on  his  errands  of  love.  On  the  day  after  the  Sabbath, 
while  such  thoughts  and  feelings  must  still  have  distressed  them, 
almost  as  soon  as  they  had  risen,  some  of  them  received  a  sudden 
and  surprising  call  from  several  of  the  alarmed  women,  who  hav- 
ing faithfully  ministered  to  all  the  necessities  of  Jesus  during  his 
life,  had  been  preparing  to  do  the  last  sad  offices  to  his  dead  body. 
The  strange  story  brought  by  these  was,  that  having  gone  early 
in  the  morning  to  the  sepulchre,  in  the  vale  of  crucifixion,  with 
this  great  object,  they  had  been  horror-struck  to  find  the  place  in 
which  the  body  had  been  deposited  on  Sabbath  eve,  now  empty, 
notwithstanding  the  double  security  of  the  enormous  rock  which 
had  closed  the  mouth  of  the  cave,  and  the  stout  guard  of  Roman 
soldiers  who  were  posted  there  by  request  of  the  Jews,  to  pre- 
vent expected  imposition.  On  hearing  this  strange  story,  Peter 
and  John,  followed  by  Mary  of  Magdala,  started  at  once  for  the 
sepulchre.  As  they  made  all  possible  haste,  the  youth  of  John 
enabled  him  to  reach  the  place  before  his  older  companion  ;  but 
Peter  arrived  very  soon  after  him,  and,  outdoing  his  <^,ompanion 
now  in  prompt  and  diligent  examination,  as  he  had  before  been 
outdone  in  bodily  speed,  he  immediately  made  a  much  more  tho- 
rough search  of  the  spot,  than  John  in  his  hurry  and  alarm  had 


Peter's  discipleship.  133 

thought  of.  He  had  contented  himself  with  looking  down  into 
the  sepulchre,  and  having  distinctly  seen  the  linen  clothes  lying 
empty  and  alone,  he  went  not  in.  But  when  Simon  Peter  came 
following  him,  he  went  into  the  sepulchre  and  saw  the  linen 
clothes  lie  ;  and  the  napkin  that  was  about  his  head  not  lying 
with  the  other  clothes,  but  folded  up  carefully  in  a  place  by  itself. 
Having  thus  made  a  thorough  search,  as  this  shows,  into  every 
nook  and  corner,  he  satisfied  himself  perfectly  that  the  body  had 
in  some  way  or  other  been  actually  removed,  and  on  his  report- 
ing this  to  his  companion,  he  also  came  down  into  the  cave,  and 
made  a  similar  examination  with  the  same  result.  The  only 
conclusion  to  which  these  appearances  brought  their  minds,  was 
that  some  person,  probably  with  the  design  of  further  insult  and 
injury,  had  thus  rifled  the  tomb,  and  dragged  the  naked  body  from 
its  funeral  vestments.  For,  as  yet,  they  understood  not  the  scrip- 
ture, nor  the  words  of  Christ  himself,  that  he  must  rise  from  the 
dead.  The  two  disciples,  therefore,  overwhelmed  with  new  dis- 
tress, went  away  again  to  their  own  temporary  home,  to  consult  with 
the  rest  of  the  disciples,  leaving  Mary  behind  them,  lingering  in 
tears  about  the  tomb. 

The  Sepul.chre  in  the  Vale  of  Crucifixion. — This  is  the  fair  expression  of  the  mean- 
ing of  John,  (xix.  41.)  "  Now  in  the  place  where  he  was  crucified  there  was  a  gar- 
den, and  IN  the  garden  a  sepulchre,"  &c.  The  place  which  Joseph  of  Arimathea  had 
chosen  for  a  costly  sepulchre,  was  no  doubt  near  that  part  of  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat, 
where,  at  this  day,  are  to  be  seen  the  famous  "  tombs  of  the  kings,"  among  which  some 
have  pretended  to  find  those  of  David  and  Solomon.  These  are  large  apartments 
cut  out  of  the  solid  rock,  with  niches  in  their  sides,  in  which  the  dead  were  to  be  de- 
posited. They  are  remarkable  for  the  structure  of  the  door,  which  is  a  single  massy 
slab  of  stone,  made  to  turn  on  a  corresponding  portion  of  the  rock  in  which  the  whole 
is  excavated.  This  seems  to  agree  with  the  account  of  the  maimer  in  which  the  sep- 
ulchre of  Jesus  was  closed  by  "  a  great  stone,"  requiring  the  strength  of  a  man  to  roll 
or  turn  it  back.  (Matt,  xxvii.  60,  xxviii.  2.  Mark  xv.  46,  xvi.  3,  4,  &c.)  For  a 
fuller  account  of  these  "  sepulchres  of  the  kings,"  see  Conder's  Modern  Traveler, 
Palestine,  pp.  121—128.) 

Some  time  after  their  return,  but  before  they  had  been  able  to 
explain  these  strange  appearances,  Mary  followed  them  home, 
?ind  as  soon  as  she  found  them,  added  to  their  amazement  im- 
mensely, by  a  surprising  story  of  her  actually  having  seen  Jesus 
himself,  alive,  in  bodily  form,  who  had  conversed  with  her,  and 
had  distinctly  charged  her  to  tell  his  disciples,  and  Peter  espe- 
cially, that  he  would  go  before  them  into  Galilee,  where  he  would 
meet  them.  When  she  came  and  told  them  this,  they  were 
mourning  and  weeping.  But  when  they  had  heard  that  he  was 
alive,  though  the  story  was  confirmed  with  such  a  minute  detail 
of  attendent  circumstances,  and  though  assured  by  J'er  that  she 


134  LIVES  OF  THE  APuSTLES. 

had  personally  seen  him,  they  yet  believed  not.  So  dark  were  their 
minds  about  even  the  possibility  of  his  resurrection,  that  after- 
wards, when  two  of  their  own  number,  who  had  gone  about  seven 
miles  into  the  country,  to  Emmaus,  returned  in  great  haste  to  Je- 
rusalem, and  told  the  disciples  that  they  too  had  seen  Jesus,  and 
had  a  long  talk  with  him,  they  would  not  believe  even  this  addi- 
tional proof ;  but  supposed  that  they,  in  their  credulous  expecta- 
tion, had  suffered  themselves  to  be  imposed  on  by  some  one  re- 
sembling Jesus  in  person,  who  chose  to  amuse  himself  by  making 
them  believe  so  palpable  a  falsehood.  Yet  some  of  them,  even 
then,  suffering  their  longing  hopes  to  get  the  better  of  their  prudent 
skepticism,  were  beginning  to  express  their  conviction  of]  the  fact, 
saying — "  The  Lord  has  risen  indeed,  and  has  appeared  unto  Si- 
mon." Of  this  last-mentioned  appearance,  no  farther  particulars  are 
anywhere  given,  though  it  is  barely  mentioned  by  Paul ;  and  it  is 
impossible  to  give  any  certain  account  of  the  circumstances.  While 
assembled  at  their  evening  meal,  and  thus  discussing  the  various 
strange  stories  brought  to  their  ears  in  such  quick  succession,  after 
they  had  closed  the  doors  for  security  against  interruption  from  the 
Jews,  all  at  once,  without  any  previous  notice,  Jesus  himself  ap- 
peared standing  in  the  midst,  and  said — "Peace  be  unto  you." 
They,  seeing  the  mysterious  object  of  their  conversation,  so  strange- 
ly and  suddenly  present  among  them,  while  they  were  just  dis- 
cussing the  possibility  of  his  existence,  were  much  frightened,  and 
in  the  alarm  of  the  moment  supposed  that  they  were  beholding  a 
disembodied  spirit.  But  he  soon  calmed  their  terrors,  and  changed 
their  fear  into  firm  and  joyful  assurance,  that  he  was  indeed  the 
same  whom  they  had  so  long  known  ;  and  to  prove  that  the  body 
now  before  them  was  the  same  which  they  had  two  days  before 
seen  fastened  expiring  to  the  cross,  he  showed  them  his  hands,  his 
feet,  and  his  side,  with  the  very  marks  which  the  nails  and  spear  had 
made  in  them.  And  while  yet  they  could  not  soberly  believe  for  joy, 
and  stood  wondering,  he,  to  show  them  that  his  body  still  performed 
the  functions  of  life,  and  required  the  same  support  as  theirs,  asked 
them  for  a  share  of  the  food  on  the  table  ;  and  taking  some  from 
their  hands,  he  ate  it  before  them.  He  then  upbraided  them  with 
their  unbelief  and  stupidity  in  not  believing  those  who  had  seen 
him  after  he  was  risen  from  the  dead.  He  recalled  to  their  ixiinds 
his  former  repeated  warnings  of  these  very  events,  literally  as  they 
had  been  brought  to  pass.  He  said  to  them — "  These  are  the  words 
which  I  spake  to  you  while  I  was  yet  with  you.  that  all  things 


Peter's  discipleship.  135 

must  be  fulfilled  which  are  written  in  the  law  of  Moses,  and  in  the 
prophets,  and  in  the  psalms,  concerning  me."  Then  opened  he 
their  understandings,  that  they  might  understand  the  scriptures. 
Then  it  was,  that  at  last  burst  upon  them  the  light  so  long  shut 
out ;  they  Imew  their  own  past  blindness,  and  they  saw  in  the  clear 
distinctness  of  reality,  all  his  repeated  predictions  of  his  humiliation, 
suffering,  death,  resurrection,  and  of  their  cowardice  and  desertion, 
brought  before  them  in  one  glance,  and  made  perfectly  consistent 
with  each  other,  and  with  the  result.  So  that,  amid  the  rejoicings 
of  new  hope  born  from  utter  despair,  at  the  same  time  expired  their 
vain  and  idle  notion  of  earthly  glory  and  power  under  his  reign. 
Their  Master  had  passed  through  all  his  anguish  and  disgrace,  and 
come  back  to  them  from  the  grave ;  yet,  though  thus  vindicating 
his  boundless  power,  he  did  not  pretend  to  use  the  least  portion  of 
it  in  avenging  on  his  foes  all  the  cruelties  which  he  had  suffered 
from  their  hands.  They  could  not  hope,  then,  for  a  better  fate, 
surely,  than  his  ;  they  were  to  expect  only  sirnilar  labors,  rewarded 
with  similar  sufferings  and  death. 
Mentioned  by  Paul. — In  his  account  of  the  resurrection,  in  1  Cor.  xv.  5. 

THE  MEETING  ON  THE  LAKE. 

After  this  meeting  with  him,  they  saw  him  again  repeatedly ; 
but  no  incident,  relating  particularly  to  the  subject  of  this  memoir, 
occurred  on  either  of  these  occasions,  except  at  the  scene  on  lake 
Tiberias,  so  fully  and  graphically  given  by  John,  in  the  last  chap- 
ter of  his  gospel.  It  seems  that  at  that  time,  the  disciples  had,  in 
accordance  with  the  earliest  command  of  Jesus  after  his  resurrec- 
tion, gone  into  Galilee  to  meet  him  there.  The  particular  spot 
where  this  incident  look  place  was  probably  near  Capernaum  and 
Bethsaida,  among  their  old  familiar  haunts.  Peter  at  this  time  re- 
siding at  his  home  in  Capernaum,  it  would  seem,  very  naturally, 
while  waiting  for  the  visit  which  Christ  had  promised  them,  sought 
to  pass  the  time  as  pleasantly  as  possible  in  his  old  business,  from 
which  he  had  once  been  called  to  draw  men  into  the  grasp  of  the 
gospel.  With  him,  at  this  time,  were  Thomas,  or  Didymus,  and 
Nathanael,  and  the  sons  of  Zebedee,  and  two  other  disciples, 
whether  of  the  eleven  or  not,  is  not  known.  On  his  telling-  them 
that  he  was  going  out  a  fishing,  they,  allured  also  by  old  habits 
and  a  desire  to  amuse  themselves  in  a  useful  way,  declared  that 
they  also  would  go  with  him.  They  went  forth  accordingly,  and 
taking  the  fishing^boat,  pushed  off  in  the  evening  as  usual, — the 


136  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

night  being  altogether  the  best  time  for  catching  the  fish,  because 
the  lake  not  then  being  constantly  disturbed  by  passing  vessels^ 
the  fish  are  less  disposed  to  keep  themselves  in  the  depths  of  the 
waters,  but  feeling  bolder  in  the  stillness,  rise  to  the  surface  within 
reach  of  the  watchful  fisherman.  But  on  this  occasion,  from 
something  peculiar  in  the  state  of  the  air  or  water,  the  fish  did 
not  come  within  the  range  of  the  net ;  and  that  night  they  caught 
nothing.  Having  given  up  the  fruitless  effort,  they  were  towards 
morning  heavily  working  in  towards  the  shore,  and  were  about  a 
hundred  yards  from  it,  when  they  noticed  some  person  who  stood 
on  the  land  ;  but  in  the  gray  light  of  morning  his  person  could  not 
be  distinguished.  This  man  called  to  them  in  a  friendly  voice,  as 
soon  as  they  came  within  hailing  distance,  crying  out  in  a  free  and 
easy  way,  "  Young  men  !  have  you  any  thing  to  eat?"  To  which 
they  answered,  "  No."  The  unknown  friend  then  called  to  them 
in  a  confident  tone,  telling  them  to  cast  the  net  on  the  right  side 
of  the  ship,  and  they  should  find  plenty.  They  cast  accordingly, 
and  on  closing  and  drawing  the  net,  were  not  able  to  pull  it  in, 
for  the  weight  of  the  fishes  taken  in  it.  In  a  moment  flashed  on 
the  ready  mind  of  John,  the  remembrance  of  the  former  similar 
prodigy  wrought  at  the  word  of  Jesus  near  the  same  spot ;  and 
he  immediately  recognized  in  the  benevolent  stranger,  his  Lord. 
Turning  to  Simon,  therefore,  who  had  been  too  busy  tugging  at 
the  net  to  think  of  the  meaning  of  the  miracle,  he  said  to  him, 
"  It  is  the  Lord."  Conviction  burst  on  him  with  equal  certainty 
as  on  his  companion,  and  giving  way  to  his  natural  headlong 
promptitude  in  action,  he  leaped  at  once  into  the  water,  after  gird- 
ing his  great-coat  around  him ;  and  by  partly  swimming  and  partly 
wading  through  the  shallows,  he  soon  reached  the  shore,  where 
his  loved  and  long-expected  Master  was.  At  the  same  time,  with 
as  little  delay  as  possible,  the  rest  of  them,  leaving  their  large 
vessel,  probably  on  account  of  the  shallows  along  that  part  of  the 
coast,  came  ashore  in  a  Uttle  skiff",  dragging  the  full  net  behind 
them.  In  this  they  showed  their  considerate  prudence ;  for  had 
they  all  in  the  first  transport  of  impatience  followed  Peter,  and  left 
boat  and  net  together  at  that  critical  moment,  the  net  would  have 
loosened  and  the  fishes  have  escaped,  thus  making  the  kind  mira- 
cle of  no  effect  by  their  carelessness.  As  soon  as  they  were  come 
to  land,  they  saw  Jesus  placed  composedly  by  a  fire  of  coals  which 
he  had  made,  and  on  which  he  had  deigned  to  cook  for  their 
common  entertainment,  some  fish  previously  caught,  dished  with 


Peter's  discipleship.  137 

some  bread.  Jesus  without  ceremony  ordered  them  to  come  and 
bring  some  of  the  fish  they  had  just  caught.  Simon  Peter,  now 
mindful  of  his  late  heedless  desertion  of  his  comrades  in  the  midst 
of  their  worst  labor,  stej^ed  forward  zealously,  and  dragged  the 
heavy  net  out  of  the  water ;  and  though  on  opening  it  they  found 
one  hundred  and  fifty-three  large  fishes  in  it,  notwithstanding  the 
weight,  the  net  was  not  broken.  When  they  had  obeyed  his  com- 
mand, and  supplied  the  place  of  the  fish  already  cooked  on  the 
fire,  by  fresh  ones  from  the  net,  Jesus  in  a  kind  and  hearty  tone 
invited  them  to  come  and  breakfast  with  him  on  what  he  had  pre- 
pared. The  disciples,  notwithstanding  the  readiness  with  which 
they  had  come  ashore  to  their  Master,  still  seem  to  have  felt  some- 
what shy ;  not,  however,  because  they  had  any  solid  doubt  as  to 
his  really  being  the  person  they  had  supposed  him,  for  no  man 
durst  say  to  him — "  who  art  thou  ?" — knowing  him  to  be  the  Lord. 
Perhaps  it  was  not  yet  full  daylight,  which  may  account  for  their 
shyness  and  want  of  readiness  in  accepting  his  invitation.  But 
Jesus,  in  order  fully  to  assure  them,  comes  and  takes  bread,  and 
puts  it  into  their  hands,  with  a  share  of  fish  likewise  to  each. 
They  now  took  hold  heartily,  and  without  scruple  sat  down 
around  the  fire  to  breakfast  with  him.  When  they  had  done  break- 
fast, as  men  who  have  spent  the  night  in  watching  are  best  disposed 
to  converse  after  eating,  he  addressed  himself  to  Peter  in  words  of 
reproof,  warning,  and  commission.  He  first  inquired  of  him — 
"  Simon,  son  of  Jonah  !  lovest  thou  me  more  than  these?"  To  this 
Peter  readily  replied — "  Yea,  Lord  !  thou  knowest  that  I  love  thee." 
Jesus  then  said  to  him — "  Feed  my  lambs."  Peter  had  learned 
some  humility  by  his  late  fall  from  truth  and  courage.  Before,  he 
had  boldly  professed  a  regard  for  Christ,  altogether  surpassing  in 
extent  and  permanency  the  affection  which  the  other  disciples  felt 
for  him,  and  had,  in  the  fullness  of  his  self-sufficiency,  declared 
that  though  all  the  rest  should  forsake  him,  yet  would  he  abide  by 
him,  and  follow  him  even  to  prison  and  to  death.  But  now,  that 
high  self-confidence  had  received  a  sad  fall,  and  the  remembrance 
of  his  late  disgraceful  conduct  was  too  fresh  in  his  mind  to  allow 
him  any  more  to  assume  that  tone  of  presumption.  He  therefore 
modestly  confined  his  expression  of  attachment  to  the  simple  and 
humble  reference  to  the  all-knowing  heart  of  his  divine  Master,  to 
which  he  solemnly  and  affectingly  appealed  as  his  faithful  witness 
in  this  assertion  of  new  and  entire  devotion  to  him,  whom  he  had 
once  so  weakly  denied  and  deserted.     No  more  high-toned  boast- 


13S  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

ings — no  more  arrogant  assertion  of  superior  pretensions  to  fidelity 
and  firmness ;  but  a  humble,  submissive,  beseeching  utterance  of 
devoted  love,  that  sought  no  comparisons  to  enhance  its  merit,  but 
in  lowly  confidence  appealed  to  the  sealcher  of  hearts  as  the  un- 
deceivable  testifier  of  his  honesty  and  truth.  Nor  was  his  deep 
and  renewed  affection,  thus  expressed,  disregarded ;  but  Jesus  ac- 
cepting his  purified  self-sacrifice,  at  once  in  the  same  words  both 
offered  him  the  consoling  pledge  of  his  restoration  to  grace,  and 
again  charged  him  with  the  high  commission,  which,  while  it 
proved  his  Lord's  confidence,  gave  him  the  means  of  showing  to 
all  mankind  the  sincerity  and  permanency  of  his  change  of  heart. 
From  the  words  of  the  Messiah's  reply,  he  learned  that  the  solid 
proof  of  his  deserved  restoration  should  be  seen  in  his  devotion  to 
the  work  which  that  Messiah  had  begun ;  that  by  guiding,  guard- 
ing, and  feeding  the  young  and  tender  of  Christ's  flock,  when  left 
again  without  their  Master,  he  might  set  forth  his  new  love.  Al 
ready  had  Jesus,  before  that  sad  trial  of  their  souls,  in  his  parting, 
warning  words  to  his  near  and  dear  ones,  told  them,  "  If  ye  keep 
my  commandments  ye  shall  abide  in  my  love.  Ye  are  my  friends 
if  ye  do  whatsoever  I  command  you.  By  this  shall  all  men  know 
that  ye  are  my  disciples, — if  ye  have  love  one  to  another."  And 
here,  in  practical  comment  on  that  former  precept,  did  he  give  his 
restored  apostle  this  test  of  unchanged  love.  So  harmoniously 
and  beautifully  does  the  sacred  record  make  precept  answer  and 
accord  with  precept.  In  the  minute  detail  of  mere  common  inci- 
dent, we  may  wander  and  stagger  bewildered  among  insignificant 
differences  and  difficulties ;  but  the  rule  of  action,  the  guide  of 
life,  leads  steadily  and  clearly  through  every  maze,  uneftaced  by 
the  changes  of  order,  time,  and  place. 

"FoMMg mm."— The  Greek  word  here  {traiSia,  paidia)'has  a  neuter  termination, and  is 
applicable  to  persons  of  both  sexes,  like  the  English  ■word  "  childrcti,"  which  is  here 
given  in  the  common  version.  But  Jerome's  Latin  translation  (the  Vulgate)  gives 
"  pue/i"  "boys,"  and  he  is  right!  The  expression  which  I  have  used  seems  more 
in  accordance  with  the  famliiar  diminutive,  (jraiSia,)  than  the  one  given  in  the  com- 
mon English  version,  or  the  harsher  term  "  Boys." 

Grcal-coat. — This  I  consider  as  giving  a  better  idea  of  the  garment  called  in  the 
Greek  UcvSiTr,v,  {ependuten,)  which  is  derived  from  a  verb  which  means  "  putting  on 
over  another  garment,"  and  is  of  course  described  with  more  justice  to  the  original 
by  the  English  "great-coat"  or  "over-coat,"  than  by  "Jisher's  coat,"  as  in  the  com- 
mon translation.  I  suppose  it  was  a  rough  outer  dress,  designed  as  a  protection 
against  rain  and  spray,  and  which  he  put  on  in  such  a  way  that  he  might  wade  in  it 
without  the  inconvenience  of  its  hanging  about  his  legs.  It  must  have  been  a  sort 
of"  over-all."  that  he  had  pulled  off  while  at  work,  and  put  on  to  wade  in  the  water; 
for  the  verb  (nii^mxuviii  {diazonnvmi)  has  also  that  meaning  as  well  as  "  gird  about;" 
and  his  object  in  thus  "  putting  on  his  over-alls"  may  have  been  to  keep  himself  dry, 
by  covering  both  his  legs  and  i)ody  from  the  water :  for  it  may  have  come  down  over 
the  legs  like  a  sort  of  outside  trowsers,  and  being  tied  tight,  would  make  a  very 


Peter's  discipleship.  139 

comfortable  protection  against  cold  -water.  (See  Poole  and  Kuinoel  on  this  passage, 
John  xxi.  7.) 

Luther,  in  his  German  translation,  has  very  queerly  expressed  this  word,  "  gijer- 
TETE  ER  DAS  HEMDE  UM  sicH,"  "  hc  girt  Ms  $hirt  aSout  him;"  being  led  into  this  error, 
probably,  by  taking  the  following  sentence  in  too  strong  a  sense,  concluding  that  he 
was  perfecily  Tiaked.  But  1  have  already  alluded  (note  on  page  117)  to  the  peculiar 
force  of  this  word  in  the  Bible,  nor  can  it  mean  any  thing  but  thai  he  was  without 
his  outer  garments ;  and  it  implies  no  more  indecent  exposure  than  in  the  case  of 
Christ,  when  laying  aside  his  garments  to  wash  his  disciples'  feet.  Besides,  1  have 
shown  that  the" etymology  of  firtidurr/s  {epcndutes)  will  not  allow  any  meaning  to  it, 
but  that  of  an  "  cniler  garment"  vorn  over  other  clothes.  De  Wette  has,  in  his  cor- 
rect German  translation  of  the  Bible,  noticed  and  amended  this  expression.  Instead 
of  "  HEMDE,"  he  very  properly  gives  "  oberkleid" — "  outer-garment,"  '•  over-coat." 
The  Dutch  is  also  accurate — "  opperkleed." 

A  little  skiff. — The  Greek  word  here  is  TrXoiafiioi/,  (jploiarion,)  and  means  "  a  small 
boat,"  and  is  the  diminution  of  ttAoTo^,  (ploion,)  the  word  used  in  the  third  verse  of 
the  same  chapter,  as  the  name  of  the  larger  vessel  in  which  they  sailed,  and  which 
drew  too  much  water  to  come  close  to  the  shore  in  this  part  of  the  lake,  where  it  was 

f)robably  shallow,  so  as  to  make  it  necessary  for  them  to  haul  the  net  ashore  with  this 
ittle  skiff,  which  seems  to  have  been  a  sort  of  drag-boat  to  the  larger  vessel,  kept  for 
landing  in  such  places. 

"  Come  and  breakfast." — This  is  certainly  a  vast  improvement  on  the  common 
English  version,  which  here  gives  the  word  "  dine."  For  it  must  strike  an  ordinary 
reader  as  a  very  early  dinner  at  that  time  of  the  morning;  (John  xix.  4;)  and  what 
settles  the  question  is,  that  the  Greek  word  here  is  doicTncaTe,  {aristesate,)  which  pri- 
marily and  almost  always  was  applied  only  to  the  eating  of  the  earliest  meal,  or 
breakfast,  being  derived  "from  HpioTov,  "  breakfast,"  the  first  meal  in  the  day,  accord- 
ing to  Homer  and  Xenophon. 

Are  best  disposed  to  converse  after  eating.  This  is  a  remark  of  the  learned  and 
pious  Hugo  Grotius.  (Comm.  in  Joh.  xxi.  15.)  "  '  Cum  prandissent' — Q,uod  tempus 
est  colloquendi."    (See  also  Poole,  in  loc.) 

Many  other  unrecorded  words  of  wisdom  and  love  must  have 
been  spoken  at  this  time,  in  the  course  of  which,  Jesus  again  took 
occasion  to  put  this  meaning  and  moving  question, — "  Simon,  son 
of  Jonah,  lovest  thou  me  ?"  The  first  answer  of  Peter  had  suffi- 
ciently shown,  that  he  had  no  more  of  that  disposition  to  claim  a 
merit  superior  to  his  fellow  disciples ;  and  Jesus  did  not  again 
urge  upon  him  a  comparison  with  them,  but  merely  renewed  the 
inquiry  in  a  simple,  absolute  form.  Again  Peter  earnestly  ex- 
pressed his  love,  with  the  same  appeal  to  Christ's  own  knowledge 
of  his  heart  for  the  testimony  of  his  loyalty, — "  Yea,  Lord,  thou 
knowest  that  I  love  thee."  He  saith  to  him — '•  Feed  my  slieep." 
If  thou  lovest  me,  show  that  love,  by  supplying  the  place  of  my 
earthly  care,  to  those  whom  I  love.  Love  and  feed  those  for 
whom  I  have  bled  and  died. — "VYhat  could  be  more  simple  and 
clear  than  this  question  ?  What  more  earnest  and  honest  than  the 
answer  ?  "What  more  abiding  than  the  impression  made  by  this 
charge  ?  Yet  did  not  the  far-seeing  Savior  desist  from  trying  his 
disciple  with  these  questions.  Once  more  was  it  solemnly  re- 
peated— "  Simon,  son  of  Jonah,  lovest  thou  me  ?"  Peter  was  grieved 
that  he  asked  him  the  third  time — "  lovest  thou  me  ?"    He  saw 


140  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

at  last  the  reproachful  meaning  of  the  inquiry.  Three  times  had 
this  same  apostle,  by  his  false-hearted  denial,  renounced  all  love 
and  interest  in  his  Master  ;  and  three  times  did  that  injured  and 
forgiving  Master  call  upon  him  to  pledge  again  his  forfeited  faith 
and  affection.  He  thus  pointed  out  the  past  weakness  of  Peter, 
and  showed  the  means  of  maintaining  and  insuring  future  fidel- 
ity. Peter  again  still  more  movingly  avowed  his  honest  attach- 
ment, half-remonstrating  at  this  repetition  of  the  question  by  one 
who  must  already  know  the  heart  of  the  answerer  too  fully  for 
words  to  inform  him  anew : — "  Lord,  thou  knowest  all  things  ;  thou 
knowest  that  I  love  thee."  Jesus  said  to  him — "  Feed  my  sheep." 
He  now  passed  on  to  a  new  prediction  of  his  future  fortunes,  in 
the  service  to  which  he  had  in  these  words  devoted  him ;  making 
known  to  him  the  earthly  reward  which  his  services  would  at  last 
receive.  "  I  soleimily  say  to  thee,  when  thou  wast  young,  tliou 
girdedst  thyself  and  walkedst  whither  thou  wouidest ;  but  when 
thou  shalt  be  old,  thou  shalt  stretch  forth  thy  hands,  and  another 
shall  gird  thee,  and  carry  thee  whither  thou  wouidest  not."  This 
he  said,  to  signify  to  him  by  what  sort  of  death  he  should  glorify 
God.  That  is,  he  in  these  words  plainly  foretold  to  him  that  he 
should,  through  all  his  toils  and  dangers  in  his  Master's  service, 
survive  to  old  age  ;  and  he  also  alludes  to  the  loss  of  free 
agency  in  his  own  movements  ;  but  the  circumstances  are  so 
darkly  alluded  to,  that  the  particular  mode  of  his  death  could  never 
be  made  to  appear  clearly  from  the  prediction.  The  particular 
meaning  of  the  expressions  of  this  prophecy,  can  of  course  be 
best  shown  in  connexion  with  the  circumstances  of  his  death,  as 
far  as  they  are  known ;  and  to  that  part  of  his  history  the  expla- 
nations are  deferred. 

After  this  solemn  prediction,  he  said  to  him — "  Follow  me."  This 
command  seems  not  to  have  any  connexion,  as  some  have  sup- 
posed, with  the  preceding  words  of  Jesus  referring  to  his  future 
destiny ;  but  to  be  a  mere  direction  to  follow  him  on  his  return 
from  the  lake,  either  back  to  Capernaum,  or  to  the  mountain  ap- 
pointed for  his  meeting  with  the  great  body  of  his  disciples.  From 
what  comes  after  this  in  the  context,  indeed,  this  would  seem  to 
be  a  fair  construction ;  for  it  is  perfectly  plain  that  as  Christ  said 
these  words,  he  turned  and  walked  away ;  and  that  not  only  Peter 
followed  at  the  direction  of  Christ,  but  also  John  of  his  own  ac- 
cord,— and  it  is  perfectly  natural  to  suppose  that  the  greater  part 
of  the  disciples  would  choose  to  walk  after  Jesus,  when  they  had 


Peter's  discipleship.  141 

met  under  such  delightful  and  unexpected  circumstances ;  only 
leaving  somebody  to  take  care  of  the  boats  and  fish.  Peter  fol- 
lowing his  Lord  as  he  was  commanded,  turned  around  to  see  who 
was  next  to  him,  and  seeing  John,  was  instantly  seized  with  a  de- 
sire to  loiow  the  future  fortunes  of  this  apostle,  who  shared  with 
him  the  highest  confidence  of  his  Master,  and  was  even  before  him 
in  his  personal  affections.  He  accordingly  asked — "  Lord  !  what 
shall  become  of  this  man  ?"  But  the  answer  of  Jesus  was  not  at 
all  calculated  to  satisfy  his  curiosity,  though  it  seemed,  in  checking 
his  inquiries,  to  intimate  darkly,  that  this  young  apostle  would 
outlive  him,  and  be  a  witness  of  the  events  which  had  been  pre- 
dicted in  connexion  with  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  and  the 
second  coming  of  Christ,  in  judgment  on  his  Jewish  foes.  This 
interesting  scene  here  abruptly  closes, — the  Savior  and  his  follow- 
ers passing  off  this  spot  to  the  places  where  he  remained  with 
them  during  the  rest  of  the  few  days  of  his  appearance  after  his 
resurrection. 

The  mountain  appointed  for  his  meeting,  <f-c. — It  would  be  hard  to  settle  the  local- 
ity of  this  mountain  with  so  few  data  as  we  have  ;  but  a  guess  or  two  may  be  worth 
offering.  Grotius  concludes  it  to  have  been  Mount  Tabor,  "  where,"  as  he  says, 
"Jesus  formerly  gave  the  three  a  taste  of  his  majesty,"  but  I  have  fully  shown  on 
much  belter  authority,  that  Tabor  was  not  the  moimt  of  the  transfiguration ;  nor  can 
we  value  highly  the  fact,  that  "  habet  veteris  famae  auctoritatcm"  for  we  have  abun- 
dant reason  to  think  that  in  such  matters,  "  the  authority  of  ancient  tradition"  is  not 
worth  much. 

There  are  better  reasons,  however,  for  believing  Tabor  to  have  been  the  mountain 
in  Galilee,  where  Christ  met  his  disciples.  These  are,  the  fact  that  it  was  near  the 
lake  where  he  seems  to  have  been  just  before,  and  was  in  the  direction  of  some  of  his 
former  places  of  resort,  and  was  near  the  homes  of  his  disciples.  None  of  the  objec- 
tions that  I  brought  against  its  being  the  mount  of  the  transfiguration,  can  bear  against 
this  supposition,  but  on  similar  grounds  I  now  agree  with  the  common  notion. 

Paulus  suggests  Mount  Carmel,  as  a  very  convenient  place  for  such  a  meeting  of 
so  many  persons  who  wished  to  assemble  unseen, — it  being  full  of  caverns,  in  which 
they  might  assemble  out  of  view ;  while  Tabor  is  wholly  open  (ganz  offen)  and 
exposed  to  view  ;  for  it  is  evident  that  many  of  the  exhibitions  of  Christ  to  his  disci- 
ples after  his  resurrection,  were  very  secret.  For  this  reason  Rosenmiiller  remarks, 
that  Jesus  probably  appointed  some  mountain  which  was  lonely  and  destitute  of  inha- 
bitants, for  the  meeting.  But  Tabor  is,  I  should  think,  sufficiently  retired  for  the  pri- 
vacy which  was  so  desirable,  and  certainly  is  capable  of  accommodating  a  great  num- 
ber of  persons  on  its  top,  so  that  they  could  not  be  seen  from  below.  The  objection 
to  Carmel  is,  that  it  was  a  great  distance  off,  on  the  sea-coast,  and  should  therefore  bs 
rejected  for  the  same  reasons  which  caused  us  to  reject  Tabor  for  the  transfiguration. 

"  What  shall  become  of  this  man?" — This  is  the  proper  translation  of  the  original 
Owrof  f.l  ri ;  (Hmitos  de  ti  ?) — an  elliptical  expression,  indeed,  but  evidently  corres- 
ponding to  the  phrase  in  Acts  xii.  18,  where  iyivno  {egeneto)  is  the  verb  expressed, 
and  is  there  justly  translated  "  become"  in  the  common  English  version.  In  analogy 
with  that  passage,  and  with  the  English  as  well  as  the  Greek  idiom,  I  have  thus  va- 
ried from  the  common  translation  here.    (John  xxi.  21.) 

THE  ASCENSION. 

The  only  one  of  his  other  interviews  with  them,  to  which  we 
can  follow  them,  is  the  last, — ^when  he  stood  with  them  at  Bethany, 


142  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

■dn  the  eastern  slope  of  Mount  Olivet,  about  a  mile  from  Jerusalem, 
where  he  passed  away  from  their  eyes  to  the  glory  now  consum- 
mated by  the  complete  events  of  his  life  and  death.  Being  there 
with  them,  he  commanded  them  not  to  depart  from  Jerusalem,  but 
to  wait  for  the  promised  Comforter  from  the  Father,  of  which  he 
had  so  often  spoken  to  them  : — "  For  John  truly  baptized  with 
water,  but  you  shall  be  baptized  with  the  Holy  Ghost  not  many 
days  hence."  Herein  he  expressed  a  beautiful  figure,  powerfully 
impressive  to  them,  though  to  most  common  perceptions  perhaps 
not  so  obvious.  In  the  beginning  of  those  bright  revelations  of 
the  truth  which  had  been  made  to  that  age,  John,  the  herald  and 
precursor  of  a  greater  preacher,  had  made  a  bold,  rough  outset  in 
the  great  work  of  evangelization.  The  simple,  striking  truths 
which  he  brought  forward,  were  forcibly  expressed  in  the  cere- 
mony which  he  introduced  as  the  sign  of  conversion  ;  as  the  defile- 
ments of  the  body  were  washed  away  in  the  water,  so  were  the 
deeper  pollutions  of  the  soul  removed  by  the  inward  cleansing  ef- 
fected by  the  change  which  followed  the  full  knowledge  and  feel- 
ing of  the  truth.  The  gross  and  tangible  liquid  which  he  made 
the  sign  of  conversion,  was  also  an  emblem  of  the  rude  and  pal- 
pable character  of  the  truths  which  he  preached ;  so  too,  the  final 
token  which  the  apostles  of  Jesus,  when  at  last  perfectly  taught  and 
equipped,  should  receive  as  the  consecrated  and  regenerated  lead- 
ers of  the  gospel-host,  was  revealed  in  a  form  and  in  a  substance 
as  uncontrollably  and  incalculably  above  the  heavy  water,  as  their 
knowledge  and  faith  and  hope  were  greater  than  the  dim  foreshad- 
owing given  by  the  baptist,  of  good  things  to  come.  Water  is  a 
heavy  fluid,  capable  of  being  seen,  touched,  tasted,  weighed,  and 
poured  ;  it  has  all  the  grosser  and  more  palpable  properties  of  mat- 
ter :  but  the  air  is,  even  to  us,  and  seemed  more  particularly  to  the 
ancients,  beyond  the  apprehension  of  most  of  the  senses  by  which 
the  properties  of  bodies  are  made  known  to  man.  We  cannot  see 
it,  or  at  least  are  not  commonly  conscious  of  its  visibility ;  yet  we 
feel  its  power  to  terrify,  and  to  comfort,  and  see  the  evidences  of 
its  might  in  the  ruins  of  many  of  the  works  of  man  and  of  nature, 
which  oppose  its  movements.  The  sources  of  its  power  too,  seem, 
to  a  common  eye,  to  be  within  itself;  and  when  it  rises  in  storms 
and  whirlwind,  its  motions  seem  like  the  capricious  volitions  of  a 
sentient  principle  within  it.  But  water,  whenever  it  moves,  seems 
only  the  inanimate  mass  which  other  agents  put  in  motion.  The 
awful  dash  of  the  cataract  is  but  the  continued  fall  of  a  heavy 


Peter's  discipleship.  143 

body  impelled  by  gravity,  and  even  "  when  the  myriad  voices  of 
ocean  roar,"  the  mighty  cause  of  the  storm  is  the  unseen  power 
of  the  air,  which  shows  its  superiority  in  the  scale  of  substances, 
by  setting  in  terrible  and  overwhelming  motion  the  boundless 
deep,  that,  but  for  this  viewless  and  resistless  agency,  would  for- 
ever rest  a  level  plain,  without  a  wrinkle  on  its  face.  To  the 
hearers  of  Christ  more  particularly,  the  air  in  its  motions  was  a 
most  mysterious  agency, — a  connecting  link  between  powers  ma- 
terial and  visible,  and  those  too  subtle  for  any  thing  but  pure 
thought  to  lay  hold  of  "  The  wind  blew  where  it  would,  and 
they  heard  the  sound  thereof,  but  could  not  tell  whence  it  came 
or  whither  it  went."  They  might  know  that  it  blew  from  the 
north  toward  the  south,  or  from  the  east  toward  the  west,  or  the 
reverse  of  these  ;  but  the  direction  from  which  it  came  could  not 
point  out  to  them  the  place  Avhere  it  first  arose  in  its  unseen  power, 
to  pass  over  the  earth, — a  source  of  ceaseless  wonder,  to  the 
learned  and  unlearned  alike.  This  was  the  mighty  and  mysteri- 
ous agency  which  Jesus  Christ  now  chose  as  a  fit  emblem,  to  rep- 
resent in  language,  to  his  apostles,  that  power  from  on  high  so  often 
promised.  Yet  clear  as  was  this  image,  and  often  as  he  had 
warned  them  of  the  nature  of  the  duties  for  which  this  power  was 
to  fit  them, — in  spite  of  all  the  deep  humiliation  which  their  proud 
earthly  hopes  had  lately  sufiered,  there  were  still  in  their  hearts, 
deep-rooted  longings  after  the  restoration  of  the  ancient  dominion  of 
Israel,  in  which  they  once  firmly  expected  to  share.  So  their 
question,  on  hearing  this  charge  and  renewed  promise  of  power 
hitherto  unknown,  was — "  Lord,  wilt  thou  not  at  this  time  restore 
the  kingdom  to  Israel  ?"  Would  not  this  be  a  satisfactory  com- 
pletion of  that  triumph  just  achieved  over  the  grave,  to  which  the 
vain  malice  of  his  foes  had  sent  him  ?  Could  his  power  to  do  it 
be  now  doubted  ?  Why,  then,  should  he  hesitate  at  what  all  so 
earnestly  and  confidently  hoped  ?  But  Jesus  was  not  to  be  called 
down  from  heaven  to  earth  on  such  errands,  nor  detained  from 
higher  glories  by  such  prayers.  He  knew  that  this  last  foolish 
fancy  of  earthly  dominion  was  to  pass  away  from  their  minds  for- 
ever, as  soon  as  they  had  seen  the  event  for  which  he  had  now 
assembled  them.  He  merely  said  to  them — "  It  is  not  for  you  to 
know  the  times  or  the  seasons  which  the  Father  has  appointed, 
according  to  his  own  judgment."  Jesus  knew  that,  though  the 
minds  of  his  disciples  were  not  then  sufficiently  prepared  to  appre- 
hend the  nature  of  his  heavenly  kingdom,  3^et  they,  after  his  depart- 


144  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

ure,  becoming  better  instructed,  and  illuminated  by  a  clearer  light 
of  knowledge,  would  of  their  own  accord,  lay  aside  that  precon- 
ceived notion  about  his  earthly  reign,  and  would  then  become  fully 
impressed  with  those  things  of  which  he  had  long  before  warned 
them,  while  they  were  still  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  daily  teachings. 
Being  now  about  to  bid  them  farewell,  and  fearing  lest  by  entirely 
cutting  off  their  present  hope,  he  might  for  a  time  overwhelm 
them, — he  so  moderated  his  answer,  as  not  to  extinguish  utterly 
all  hope  of  the  kingdom  expected  by  them,  nor  yet  give  them 
reason  to  think  that  such  a  dominion  as  they  hoped  for  was  to  be 
established.  He  therefore,  to  their  inquiries  whether  he  would  at 
that  time  restore  the  ancient  kingdom  of  Israel,  replied,  that  it  was 
not  for  them  to  know  the  times  which  the  Father  had  reserved  in 
his  own  counsels,  for  the  completion  of  that  event.  But  he  went 
on  to  inform  them  of  something  which  was  for  them  to  know. 
"  You  shall  receive  power,  when  the  Holy  Ghost  shall  have  come 
upon  you  ;  and  you  shall  be  witnesses  of  these  things  for  me,  both 
in  Jerusalem,  and  in  all  Judea,  and  in  Samaria,  and  even  to  the 
farthest  parts  of  the  earth."  And  when  he  had  spoken  these 
things,  he  was  taken  away  from  them,  as  they  were  looking  at 
him, — for  a  cloud  received  him  out  of  their  sight.  And  while 
they  looked  earnestly  towards  heaven,  as  he  went  up,  behold,  two 
men  stood  by  them  in  white  apparel,  and  said — "  Ye  men  of  Gali- 
lee, why  stand  ye  gazing  up  into  heaven  ?  This  same  Jesus,  who 
is  taken  up  from  you  into  heaven,  shall  so  come  in  like  manner 
as  you  have  seen  him  go  into  heaven."  They  now  understood 
that  they  had  parted  from  their  loved  Master  forever,  in  earthly 
form ;  yet  the  consolations  afforded  by  this  last  promise  of  the  at- 
tendent  spirits,  were  neither  few  nor  small.  To  bring  about  that 
bright  return,  in  whose  glories  they  were  to  share,  was  the  great 
task  to  which  they  devoted  their  lives ;  and  they  went  back  to  Je- 
rusalem, sorrowful  indeed  for  the  removal  of  their  great  guide  and 
friend,  but  not  sorrowing  as  those  who  have  no  hope. 

To  Bethany. — This  place  was  on  the  side  of  Olivet,  not  very  far  from  its  summit, 
and  almost  within  sight  of  Jerusalem.  (See  notes  on  pp.  106 and  111.)  Conder  thus 
describes  the  place  from  the  accounts  of  travelers.  "  Bethany  is  a  small  village,  to 
the  east  of  the  Mount  of  Olives,  not  further  from  Jerusalem  than  the  pinnacle  of  the 
hill,  [about  two  miles.]  There  are  two  roads  to  it;  one  passes  over  the  Mount  of 
Olives ;  the  other,  which  is  the  shorter  and  easier,  winds  around  the  eastern  end, 
having  the  greater  part  of  the  hill  on  the  north,  or  left  hand,  and  on  the  right,  the  el- 
evation, called  by  some  writers,  the  Mount  of  Offense.  The  village  of  Bethany  is 
small  and  poor,  and  the  cultivation  of  the  soil  is  much  neglected  ;  but  it  is  a  pleasant 
and  somewhat  romantic  spot,  sheltered  by  Mount  Olivet  on  the  north,  and  abounding 
with  trees  and  long  grass.  The  inhabitants  are  Arabs."  (Modern  Traveler,  vol.  I. 
Palestine,  p.  170.) 


Peter's  discipleshik  145 

"  Baptized  wUh  the  Holy  Ghost."— The  original  Greek  here  contains  an  allusioa 
io  the  different  characters  of  the  two  natural  substances  named  as  the  symbols  of  re- 
generation,— an  allusion  which,  though  palpable,  on  a  bare  inspection,  to  a  Greek 
scholar,  can  not  be  appreciated  by  a  reader  of  the  mere  English  version,  without  a 
Uttie  explanation.  The  Greek  word,  which  is  translated  "  Spirit"  and  "  Ghost"  in 
the  New  Testament,  is  Hvevjia,  {Pneuma.)  a  word  which  primarily  means  "ivind" 
and  is  actually  thus  translated  in  many  passages  of  the  New  Testament,  and  indeed 
in  all  passages  where  there  is  not  a  palpable  reference  to  a  higher,  though  derivative 
sense.  Thus  in  John  iii.  8,  this  same  word,  though  translated  "  iciiid"  in  the  former 
part  of  the  verse,  is  rationally  translated  "  spirit"  in  the  ead  of  the  verse;  because  the 
word  is  manifestly  used  in  these  two  opposite  senses  in  the  two  places, — the  primary 
signification  thus  offering  a  happy  illustration  of  the  secondary.  So,  too,  in  this  pas- 
sage, the  two  elements,  (as  they  are  often  called,)  water  and  air,  are  made  to  illus- 
trate the  nature  of  the  two  spiritual  conditions  of  the  apostles,  before  and  after  the 
descent  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  to  represent  the  exaltation  which  was  then  to  take 

Elace  in  their  views,  hopes,  and  conceptions, — expressing,  in  short,  the  difference 
etween  their  spiritual  condition  during  their  disciplcship,  and  that  to  which  they 
rose  in  the  very  outset  of  their  true  aposlleship.  This  is  the  distinction  implied  in 
the  doubly  expressive  language  of  the  original;  and  this  is  what  I  have  endeavored 
to  present  and  defend  in  this  part  of  the  narrative. 

The  date  of  the  Ascension  is  fixed,  by  the  most  rational  calculations  that  can  be 
made  with  such  few  means,  in  the  thirty-second  year  of  the  common  Christian  era, 
corresponding  to  the  nineteenth  year  of  the  reign  of  Tiberius  Caesar.  The  time  of 
the  year  may  also  be  ascertained  with  some  degree  of  probability.  The  passover  is 
commonly  believed  to  have  been  celebrated  on  the  fourteenth  of  March.  Jesus  was 
crucified  on  the  day  before,  and  was  first  seen  again  by  his  disciples,  on  the  day  fol- 
lowing ;  which  would  be  the  fifteenth  of  the  month.  Luke  says,  he  continued  with 
them  '^  forty  days,"  (Acts  i.  3,)  which  brings  the  date  of  the  ascension  to  a  day  near 
the  end  of  April.  The  discussion  of  disputed  points  respecting  the  year,  will  be  no- 
ticed in  another  place. 

Here  ceased  their  course  of  instruction  under  their  Divine  Mas- 
ter ;  laying  down  their  character  as  Disciples,  they  now  took  up 
the  higher  dignity,  responsibihty,  and  labors  of  Apostles.  Here, 
too,  ceases  the  record  of  "Peter's  Discipleship  ;" — no  longer  a 
learner  and  follower  of  any  one  on  earth,  he  is  exalted  to  the  new 
duties  and  dangers  of  the  Apostleship,  of  which  the  still  more 
interesting  story  here  begins ;  and  he  must  henceforth  bear  the  new 
character  and  title  of  "  Peter  the  teacher  £ind  leader.''* 


146  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

II.  PETER'S  APOSTLESHIP; 

OR, 

PETER  THE  TEACHER  AND  LEADER, 


THE  PENTECOST. 


After  the  ascension,  all  the  apostles  seem  to  have  removed  their 
families  and  business  from  Galilee,  and  to  have  made  Jerusalem 
their  permanent  abode.  From  this  time,  no  more  mention  is  made 
of  any  part  of  Galilee  as  the  home  of  Peter  or  his  friends ;  and 
even  the  lake,  with  its  cities,  so  long  hallowed  by  the  presence  and 
the  deeds  of  the  Son  of  Man,  was  thenceforth  entirely  left  to  the 
low  and  vulgar  pursuits  which  the  dwellers  of  that  region  had 
formerly  followed  upon  it,  without  disturbance  from  the  preaching 
and  the  miracles  of  the  Nazarene.  The  apostles  finding  themselves 
in  Jerusalem  the  object  of  odious,  or  at  best  of  contemptuous  no- 
tice from  the  great  body  of  the  citizens, — being  known  as  Gali- 
leans and  as  followers  of  the  crucified  Jesus, — therefore  settled 
themselves  in  such  a  manner  as  would  best  secure  their  comfort- 
able and  social  subsistence.  When  they  came  back  to  the  city 
from  Galilee,  (having  parted  from  their  Master  on  the  Olive  mount, 
about  a  mile  off,)  they  went  up  into  a  chamber  in  a  private  house, 
where  all  the  eleven  passed  the  time,  together  with  their  wives, 
and  the  women  who  had  followed  Jesus,  and  with  Mary,  the  mother 
of  Jesus,  and  his  brethren.  These  all  continued  with  one  accord 
in  this  place,  with  prayer  and  supplication,  at  the  same  time,  no 
doubt,  comforting  and  instructing  one  another  in  those  things  of 
which  a  knowledge  would  be  requisite  or  convenient  for  the  suc- 
cessful prosecution  of  their  great  enterprise,  on  which  they  were 
soon  to  embark.  In  the  course  of  these  devout  and  studious  pur- 
suits, the  circumstances  and  number  of  those  enrolled  by  Christ 
in  the  apostolic  band,  became  naturally  a  subject  of  consideration 
and  discussion  ;  and  they  v/ere  particularly  led  to  notice  the  gap 
made  among  them,  by  the  sad  and  disgraceful  defection  of  Judas 
Iscariot.  This  deficiency  the  Savior,  after  his  resurrection,  had 
not  regarded  as  sufliciently  important  to  require  an  appointment 


Peter's  apostleship.  147 

immediately  from  himself,  during  the  remaining  brief  period  of 
his  stay  among  them,  when  far  more  weighty  matters  called  for  his 
attention.  It  was  their  wish,  however,  to  complete  their  number 
as  originally  constituted  by  their  Master ;  and  in  reference  to  the 
immediate  execution  of  this  pious  and  wise  purpose,  Peter,  as  their 
leader,  forcibly  and  eloquently  addressed  them,  when  not  less  than 
one  hundred  and  twenty  were  assembled.  The  details  of  his 
speech,  and  the  conclusion  of  the  business,  are  deferred  to  the  ac- 
count of  the  lives  of  those  persons  who  were  the  subjects  of  the 
transaction.  In  mentioning  it  now,  it  is  only  worth  while  to  no- 
tice, that  Peter  here  stands  most  distinctly  and  decidedly  forward, 
as  the  director  of  the  whole  affair,  and  such  was  his  weight  in  the 
management  of  a  matter  so  important,  that  his  words  seem  to  liave 
held  the  force  of  law  ;  for  without  further  discussion,  commending 
the  decision  to  God  in  prayer,  they  adopted  the  action  suggested 
by  him,  and  filled  the  vacancy  with  the  person  apparently  desig- 
nated by  God.  In  the  faithful  and  steady  confidence,  that  they 
were  soon  to  receive  (according  to  the  promise  of  their  risen  Lord) 
some  new  and  remarkable  gift  from  above,  which  was  to  be  to  them 
at  once  the  seal  of  their  divine  commission,  and  their  most  import- 
ant equipment  for  their  new  duties,  the  apostles  waited  in  Jerusa- 
lem until  the  great  Jewish  feast  of  the  pentecost.  This  feast  is  so 
named  from  a  Greek  word  meaning  '■'■  fiftieth^^  because  it  always 
came  on  the  fiftieth  day  after  the  day  of  the  passoverr feast.  Jesus 
had  finally  disappeared  from  his  disciples  about  forty  days  after  his 
resurrection, — that  is,  forty-two  days  after  the  great  day  of  the  pass- 
over,  which  will  leave  just  one  week  for  the  time  which  passed 
between  the  ascension  and  the  day  of  pentecost.  These  seven 
days  the  apostolic  assembly  had  passed  in  such  pursuits  as  might 
form  the  best  preparation  for  the  great  event  they  were  expecting. 
Assembled  in  their  sacred  chamber,  they  occupied  themselves  in 
prayer  and  exhortation.  At  length  the  great  feeist  arrived,  on  which 
the  Jews,  according  to  the  special  command  of  Moses,  commemo- 
rated the  day,  on  which  of  old,  God  gave  the  law  to  their  fathers, 
on  Mount  Sinai,  amid  thunder  and  lightning.  On  this  festal  occa- 
sion, great  numbers  of  Jews  who  had  settled  in  difierent  remote 
parts  of  the  world,  were  in  the  habit  of  coming  back  to  their 
father-land,  and  their  holy  city,  to  renew  their  devotion  in  the  one 
great  temple  of  their  ancient  faith  ;  there  to  ofier  up  the  sacrifices 
of  gratitude  to  their  fathers'  God,  who  had  prospered  them  even  in 
strange  lands  among  the  heathen.     The  Jews  were  then,  as  now, 


148  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

a  wandering,  colonizing  people,  wherever  they  went ;  yet  remained 
distinct  in  manners,  dress,  and  religion,  never  mixing  in  marriage 
with  the  people  among  whom  they  dwelt,  but  everywhere  bringing 
up  a  true  Israelitish  race,  to  worship  the  God  of  Abraham  with  a 
pure  religion,  uncontaminated  by  the  idolatries  around  them. 
There  was  hardly  any  part  of  the  world,  where  Roman  conquest 
had  planted  its  golden  eagles,  to  which  Jewish  mercantile  enter- 
prise did  not  also  push  its  adventurous  \vay,  in  the  steady  pursuit 
of  gainful  traffic.  The  three  grand  divisions  of  the  world  swarm- 
ed with  these  faithful  followers  of  the  true  law  of  God ;  and  from 
the  remotest  regions,  each  year,  gathered  a  fresh  host  of  pilgrims, 
who  came  from  afar,  many  for  the  first  time,  to  worship  the  God  of 
their  fathers  in  their  fathers'  land.  Amid  this  fast-gathering 
throng,  on  the  morning  of  that  great  feast-day,  the  feeble  band  of 
the  apostles,  unknown  and  unnoticed,  were  assembled  in  one  of 
the  oratories  which  filled  the  upper  range  of  the  inner  court  of  the 
temple,  where  they  were  employed  in  their  usual  devout  occupa- 
tions. Not  merely  the  twelve,  but  all  the  friends  of  Christ  in  Je- 
rusalem, to  the  number  of  one  hundred  and  twenty,  were  here 
awaiting,  in  prayer,  the  long  promised  Comforter  from  the  Father. 
Suddenly  the  sound  of  a  mighty  wind,  rushing  upon  the  building, 
roared  around  them,  and  filled  the  apartments  with  its  appalling 
noise, — rousing  them  from  the  religious  quiet  to  which  they  had 
given  themselves  up.  Nor  were  their  ears  alone  made  sensible  of 
the  approach  of  some  strange  event.  In  the  midst  of  the  gather- 
ing gloom  which  the  wind-driven  clouds  naturally  spread  over  ally 
flashes  of  light  were  seen  by  them  ;  and  lambent  flames,  playing 
around,  lighted  at  last  upon  them.  At  once  the  anxious  prayers 
with  which  they  had  awaited  the  coming  of  the  Comforter,  were 
hushed  ;  they  needed  no  longer  to  urge  the  fulfilment  of  their 
Master's  word;  for  in  the  awfal  rush  of  that  mighty  wind,  they 
recognized  the  voice  they  had  so  long  expected,  and  in  that  sol- 
emn sound  they  knew  the  tone  of  the  promised  Spirit.  The  ap- 
proach of  that  feast-day  must  have  raised  their  expectations  of  this 
promised  visitation  to  the  highest  pitch.  They  knew  that  this 
great  national  festival  was  celebrated  in  commemoration  of  the 
giving  of  the  old  law  on  Mount  Sinai  to  their  fathers,  through  Mo- 
ses, and  that  no  occasion  could  be  more  appropriate  or  impressive 
for  the  full  revelation  of  the  perfect  law  which  the  last  restorer  of 
Israel  had  come  to  teach  and  proclaim.  The  ancient  law  had  beeri 
given  on  Sinai,  in  storm  and  thunder  and  fire ;  when,  therefore. 


Peter's  apostleship.  149 

they  heard  the  roar  of  the  mighty  wind  about  them,  the  firm  con- 
viction of  the  approach  of  their  new  revelation  must  have  pos- 
sessed their  minds  at  once.  They  saw  too,  the  dazzhng  flcisih  of 
flame  among  them,  and  perceived,  with  awe,  strange  masses  of  Hght, 
in  the  shape  of  tongues,  settUng  with  a  tremulous  motion  on  the 
head  of  each  of  them.  The  tem.pest  and  the  fire  were  the  sym- 
bols of  God's  presence  on  Sinai  of  old  ;  and  from  the  same  signs 
ioined  with  these  new  phenomena,  they  now  learned  that  the  aid 
of  God  was  thus  given  to  equip  them  with  the  powers  and  ener- 
gies needful  for  their  success  in  the  wider  publication  of  the  doc- 
trine of  Christ.  With  these  tokens  of  a  divine  presence  around 
them,  their  feelings  and  thoughts  were  raised  to  the  highest  pitch 
of  joy  and  exultation ;  and  being  conscious  of  a  new  impulse  work- 
ing in  them,  they  were  seized  with  a  sacred  glow  of  enthusicism,  so 
that  they  gave  utterance  to  these  new  emotions  in  words  as  new  to 
them  as  their  sensations,  and  spoke  in  difierent  languages,  praising 
God  for  this  glorious  fulfilment  of  his  promise,  as  this  holy  influ- 
ence inspired  them. 

An  upper  room. — The  location  of  this  chamber  has  been  the  subject  of  a  vast  quan- 
tity of  learned  discussion,  a  complete  view  of  which  would  far  exceed  my  limits. 
The  great  point  mooted  has  been,  whether  this  place  was  in  a  private  house  or  in  the 
temple.  The  passage  in  Luke  xxiv.  53,  where  it  is  said  that  the  apostles  "  were  con- 
tinually in  the  temple,  praising  and  blessing  God,"  has  led  many  to  suppose  that  the 
same  writer,  in  this  continuation  of  the  gospel  story,  mast  have  had  reference  to 
some  part  of  the  temple,  in  speaking  of  the  upper  room  as  the  place  of  their  abode. 
In  the  Acts  ii.  46,  also,  he  has  made  a  similar  remark,  which  I  can  best  explain  whea 
that  part  of  the  story  is  given.  The  learned  Krebsius  (Obs.  in  N.  T.  e  Jos.  pp.  162 — 
164)  has  given  a  fine  argument,  most  elegantly  elaborated  with  quotations  from  Jose- 
phus,  in  which  he  makes  it  apparently  quite  certain,  from  the  grammatical  construc- 
tion, and  from  the  correspondence  of  terms  with  Josephus's  description  of  the  temple, 
that  this  upper  room  must  have  been  there.  It  is  true,  that  Josephus  mentions  par- 
ticularly a  division  of  the  inner  temple,  on  the  upper  side  of  it,  under  the  name  of 
vTrcpuiv,  (hijperoion,)  whi\:h  is  the  .word  used  by  Luke  in  this  passage;  but  Krebsius,  la 
atlempting  to  prove  this  to  be  a  place  in  which  the  disciples  might  be  constantly  as- 
sembled, has  made  several  errors  in  the  plan  of  the  later  temple,  which  I  have  not 
time  to  point  out,  since  there  are  other  proofs  of  the  impossibility  of  their  meeting 
there,  which  will  take  up  all  the  space  I  can  bestow  on  the  subject.  Krebsius  has 
furthermore  overlooked  entirely  the  following  part  of  the  text  in  Acts  i.  13,  where  ic 
is  said,  that  when  they  returned  to  Jerusalem,  "  they  went  up  into  an  upper  room 
where  they  had  been  slaying"  in  Greek,  ov  i^cav  KaTafiivovra^  {kou  esan  katamenontes,) 
com.  trans.  "  they  abode."  The  true  force  of  this  use  of  the  present  participle  with 
the  verb  of  existence  is  repeated  action,  as  is  frequently  true  of  the  imperfect  of  that 
verb  in  such  combinations.  Kuinoel  justly  gives  it  this  force, — "  itii  commorari  sive 
co7ivenire  snlebant."  But  the  decisive  proof  against  the  notion  that  this  room  was  in 
the  temple,  is  this: — in  specifying  the  persons  there  assembled,  it  is  said,  (Acts i.  14,) 
that  the  disciples  were  assembled  there  with  the  women  of  the  company.  Now  it  is 
most  distinctly  specified  in  all  descriptions  of  the  temple,  that  the  women  were  al- 
ways limited  to  one  particular  division  of  the  temple,  called  the  "  women's  court." 
Josephus  is  very  particular  in  specifying  this  important  fact  in  the  arrangements  of 
the  temple.  (Jew.  War,  V.  v.  2.)  "  A  place  on  this  part  of  the  temple  specially  de- 
voted to  the  religious  use  of  the  women,  being  entirely  separated  from  the  rest  by  a 
wall,  it  was  necessary  that  there  should  be  another  entrance  to  this.  *  *  *  There 
were  ou  the  other  sides  of  this  place  two  gates,  one  on  the  north  and  one  on  the  south, 
21 


150  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

through  which  the  court  of  the  women  was  entered ;  for  women  were  not  albwcd  to 
enter  through  any  others."  (Also  V.  v.  (i.)  "  But  women,  even  when  pure,  were  not 
allowed  to  pass  within  the  limit  before  mentioned."  This  makes  it  evident  beyond 
all  doubt,  that  women  could  never  be  allowed  to  assemble  with  men  in  this  upper 
chamber  within  the  forbidden  precincts,  to  which  indeed  it  was  impossible  for  them 
to  have  access,  entering  the  temple  through  two  private  doors,  and  using  only  one 
court,  which  was  cut  ofi'  by  an  impenetrable  wall,  from  all  communication  with  any 
other  part  of  the  sacred  inclosure. 

This  seems  to  me  an  argument  abundantly  sufficient  to  upset  all  that  has  ever  been 
said  in  favor  of  the  location  of  this  upper  apartment  within  the  temple ;  and  my  only 
wonder  is,  that  so  many  learned  critics  should  have  perplexed  themselves  and  others 
■with  various  notions  about  the  matter,  when  this  single  fact  is  so  perfectly  conclusive. 

The  upper  room,  then,  must  have  been  in  some  private  house,  belonging  to  some 
wealthy  friend  of  Christ,  who  gladly  received  the  apostles  within  his  walls.  Every 
Jewish  house  had  in  its  upper  story  a  large  room  of  this  sort,  which  served  as  a 
dining-room,  (Mark  xiv.  15:  Luke  xxii.  12,)  a  parlor,  or  an  oratory  for  private  or 
social  worship.  (See  Bloomfield's  Annot.  Acts  i.  13.)  Some  have  very  foolishly 
supposed  this  to  have  been  the  house  of  Simon  the  leper,  (Matt.  xxvi.  6;)  but  his 
house  was  in  Bethany,  and  therefore  by  no  means  answers  the  description  of  their 
entering  it  after  their  return  to  Jerusalem  from  Bethany.  Others,  with  more  proba- 
bility, the  house  of  Nicodemus,  the  wealthy  Pharisee ;  "but  the  most  reasonable  sup- 
position, perhaps,  is  that  of  Beza,  who  concludes  this  to  have  been  the  house  of  Mary, 
the  mother  of  John  Mark,  which  we  know  to  have  been  afterwards  used  as  a  place 
of  religious  assembly.  (Acts  xii.  12.)  Others  have  also,  with  some  reason,  suggested 
that  this  was  no  doubt  the  same  "upper  room  furnished,"  in  which  Jesus  had  eaten 
the  last  supper  with  his  disciples.  These  two  last  suppositions  are  not  inconsistent 
with  each  other.    (See  Poole's  Synopsis.) 

Tongues  of  fire. —  This  is  a  classic  Hebrew  expression  for  "  a  lambent  flame,"  and 
is  the  same  used  by  Isaiah,  (v.  24,)  where  the  Hebrew  is  vh  pif'r,  {leshon  esh,)  "  a 
tongue  of  fire ;" — com.  trans.,  simply  "  fire."  In  that  passage  there  seems  to  be  a  sort 
of  poetical  reference  to  the  tongue,  as  an  organ  used  in  devouring  food,  ("  as  the 
tongue  of  fire  devoureth  the  stubble,")  but  there  is  abundant  reason  to  believe  that  the 
expression  was  originally  deduced  from  the  natural  similitude  of  a  rising  flame  to  a 
tongue,  being  pointed  and  flexible,  as  well  as  waving  in  its  outlines,  and  playing 
about  with  a  motion  like  that  of  licking,  whence  the  Latin  expression  of  "a  lambent 
flame." — from  lavibo,  "  lick."  Wetstein  aptly  observes,  that  a  flame  of  fire,  in  the 
form  of  a  divided  tongue,  was  a  sign  of  the  gift  of  tongues,  corresponding  to  the 
Latin  expression  bilinguis,  and  the  Greek  iiy\u><saoi,  {diglossos,)  "  two-tongued,"  as 
applied  to  persons  skilled  in  a  plurality  of  languages.  He  also,  with  his  usual  classic 
richness,  gives  a  splendid  series  of  quotations  illustrative  of  this  idea  of  a  lambent 
flame  denoting  the  presence  of  divine  favor,  or  inspiration  imparted  to  the  person 
about  whom  the  symbol  appeared.  Bloorafield  copies  these  quotations,  and  also 
draws  illustrations  in  point,  from  other  sources. 

My  own  opinion  of  the  nature  of  this  whole  phenomenon  is  that  of  Michaelis,  Ro- 
senmiiller,  Paulus,  and  Kuinoel, — that  a  tremendous  tempest  actually  descended  at 
the  time,  bringing  down  clouds  highly  charged  with  electricity,  which  was  not  dis- 
charged in  the  usual  mode,  by  thunder  and  lightning,  but  quietly  streamed  from  the 
air  to  the  earth,  and  wherever  it  passed  from  the  air  upon  any  tolerable  conductor,  it 
made  itself  manifest  in  the  darkness  occasioned  by  the  thick  clouds,  in  the  form  of 
those  pencils  of  rays,  with  which  every  one  is  familiar  who  has  seen  electrical  ex- 
periments in  a  dark  room;  and  which  are  well  described  by  the  expression  "cloven 
tongues  of  fire."  The  temple  itself  being  covered  and  spiked  with  gold,  the  best  of 
all  conductors,  would  quietly  draw  off  a  vast  quantity  of  electricity,  which,  passing 
through  the  building,  would  thus  manifest  itself  on  those  within  the  chambers  of  the 
temple,  if  we  may  suppose  the  apostles  to  have  been  there  assembled.  These  appear- 
ances are  very  common  in  peculiar  electrical  conditions  of  the  air,  and  there  are 
many  of  my  readers,  no  doubt,  who  have  seen  them.  At  sea,  they  are  often  seen  at 
night  on  the  ends  of  the  masts  and  yards,  and  are  well  known  to  sailors  by  the  name 
which  the  Portuguese  give  them,  "  corpos  santos" — "  holy  bodies," — connecting  them 
with  some  popish  superstitions.  A  reference  to  the  large  quotations  given  by  Wet- 
stein and  Bloomfleld,  will  show  that  this  display  at  the  penlecost  is  not  the  only  occa- 
sion on  which  these  electric  phenomena  were  connected'with  spiritual  mysteries.  No 
one  would  have  the  slightest  hesitation  in  explaining  these  passages  in  other  credible 
historians,  by  this  physical  view ;  and  I  know"  no  rule  in  logic  or  common  sense, — no 


Peter's  apostleship.  151 

religions  doctrine  or  theological  principle,  which  compels  me  to  explain  two  precisely 
similar  jphenomena  of  this  character,  in  two  totally  different  ways,  because  one  of 
them  is  found  in  a  heathen  history,  and  the  other  in  a  sacred  and  inspired  record. 
The  vehicle  thus  chosen  was  not  unworthy  of  making  a  peculiar  manifestation  of 
the  presence  of  God,  and  of  the  outpouring  of  his  spirit; — nor  was  it  an  unprece- 
dented mode  of  his  display.  The  awful  thunder  which  shook  old  Sinai,  and  the 
lightnings  which  dazzled  the  eyes  of  the  amazed  Israelites,  were  real  thunder  and 
lightning,  nor  will  an  honest  and  reverent  interpretation  of  the  sacred  text  allow  us 
to  pronounce  them  acoustical  and  optical  delusions.  If  they  were  real  thunder  and 
lightning,  they  were  electrical  discharges,  and  cannot  be  conceived  of  in  any  other 
wa}^  Why  should  we  hesitate  at  the  notion  that  He  who  "  holds  the  winds  in  the 
hollow  of  his  hand,"  and  "  makes  a  way  for  the  lightning  of  thunder,"  should  use 
these  same  mighty  instruments  as  the  symbols  of  his  presence,  to  strike  awe  into  the 
hearts  of  men, — making  the  physical  the  token  of  the  moral  power,  and  accomplish- 
ing the  deep  prophetic  meaning  of  the  solemn  words  of  the  Psalmist, — "  He  walks 
upon  the  Avings  of  the  wind — he  makes  the  winds  his  messengers — the  lightnings  his 
ministers."  For  this  seems  the  just  translation  of  Ps.  civ.  4.  (See  Lowth,  Clarke, 
Whitby,  Calmet,  Thomson,  &c.)  But  Jaspis,  Bloomfield,  Stuart,  &c.,  support  the 
common  version. 

The  miracle,  in  short,  did  not  consist  in  producing  the  sensations  of  sight  and 
hearing,  without  light  and  sound  to  cause  them ;  it  was  not  the  mere  impression  on 
the  minds  of  those  who  are  said  to  have  heard  the  "  rushing  sound,"  and  to  have 
seen  ihe  "  lambent  flame ;"  but  it  was  the  wonderful  concurrence  of  these  material 
agencies,  with  the  great  moral  and  spiritual  changes  which  then  took  place  in  the 
assembly,  and  with  the  solemn  parting  prediction  of  the  ascending  Messiah.  Either 
there  was  no  real  light,  and  no  real  motion  in  the  air,  or  there  was  a  material  agency 
similar  to  what  I  have  described ;  and  such  an  illustration  of  the  occurrence  as  I 
have  offered, — so  far  from  impairing  the  miraculous  and  divine  character  of  the 
event, — must  serve  in  every  intelligent  mind,  to  support  and  enlighten  a  rational  faith 
in  the  scriptural  record,  by  showing  how  the  miracle  occurred,  without  in  the  least 
impairing  a  belief  of  the  direct  agency  of  God  in  this  event. 

Were  all  assembled,  if-c. — It  has  been  questioned  whether  this  term,  "  all"  refers 
to  the  one  hundred  and  twenty,  or  merely  to  the  apostles,  who  are  the  persons  men- 
tioned in  the  preceding  verse,  (Acts  i.  26,  ii.  1,)  and  to  whom  it  might  be  grammati- 
cally limited.  There  is  nothing  to  hinder  the  supposition  that  all  the  brethren  were 
present,  and  Chrysostom,  Jerome,  Augustin,  and  other  ancient  fathers,  confirm  this 
view.  The  place  in  which  they  met,  need  not,  of  course,  be  the  same  where  the 
events  of  the  preceding  chapter  occurred,  but  was  very  likely  some  one  of  the  thirty 
apartments,  (otVoi,  oikoi,  Jos.  Ant.  viii.  3,  2,)  which  surrounded  the  inner  court  of  the 
temple,  where  the  apostles  might  very  properly  assemble  at  the  third  hour,  which 
was  the  hour  of  morning  pra3rer.  and  which  is  shown  in  verse  15,  to  have  been  the 
time  of  this  occurrence.  Besides,  it  is  hard  to  conceive  of  this  vast  concourse  of 
persons  (verse  41)  as  occurring  in  any  other  place  than  the  temple,  in  whose  vast  and 
thronged  courts  it  might  easily  happen;  for  Josephus  says  "that  the  apartments 
around  the  courts  opened  into  each  other,"  riaav  Sia  dXXrjXaj?',  "  and  there  were  en- 
trances to  them  on  both  sides,  from  the  gate  of  the  temple,"  thus  affording  a  ready 
access  on  any  sudden  noise  attracting  attention  towards  them. 

Foreign  Jetcs  staying  in  Jerusalem. — The  phrase  "  dwelling"  (Acts  ii.  5,)  in  the 
Greek,  KaroiKowTZi,  {hatoikountes,)  does  not  necessarily  imply  a  fixed  residence,  as 
Wolf  and  others  try  to  make  it  appear,  but  is  used  in  the  Alexandrine  version,  in  the 
sense  of  temporary  residence ;  and  it  seems  here  to  be  applied  to  foreign  Jews,  who 
chose  to  remain  there,  from  the  passover  to  the  pentecost,  but  whose  home  wa.s  not  in 
Jerusalem  ;  for  the  context  speaks  of  them  as  dwellers  in  Mesopotamia,  &c.  (verse 
9.)  A  distinction  is  also  made  between  two  sorts  of  Jews  among  those  who  had  come 
from  Rome, — the  Jews  by  birth  and  the  proselytes,  (verse  10,)  showing  that  the  Mo- 
saic faith  was  flourishing,  and  making  converts  from  the  Gentiles  there. 

Peter's  sermon. 

This  wonderftil  event  took  place  in  the  chamber  of  the  temple, 
which  they  had  used  as  a  place  of  worship  ever  since  their  Lord's 
departure.     As  the  whole  temple  was  now  constantly  throngred 


152  LIVES   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

with  worshipers,  who  were  making  Iheir  offerings  on  this  great 
feast-day,  this  room  in  which  the  followers  of  Jesus  were  devoutly 
employed,  must,  as  well  as  all  the  others,  have  been  visited  by  new 
comers :  for  the  mere  prior  occupation  of  the  room  by  the  disci- 
ples, could  not  entitle  them  to  exclude  from  a  public  place  of  that 
kind  any  person  who  might  choose  to  enter.  The  multitude  of 
devotees  who  filled  all  parts  of  the  temple,  soon  heard  of  what  was 
going  on  in  this  apartment,  and  came  together  to  see  and  hear  for 
themselves.  When  the  inquiring  crowds  reached  the  spot,  they 
found  the  followers  of  Christ  breaking  out  in  loud  expressions  of 
praise  to  God,  and  of  exhortation,  each  in  such  a  language  as  best 
suited  his  powers  of  expression,  not  confining  themselves  to  the 
Hebrew,  which  in  all  places  of  public  worship,  and  especially  in 
Jerusalem  on  the  great  festivals,  was  the  only  language  of  devotion. 
Among  the  crowds  that  thronged  to  the  place  of  this  strange  oc- 
currence, were  Jews  from  many  distant  regions,  whose  language 
or  dialects  were  as  widely  various  as  the  national  names  which 
they  bore.  Parthians,  and  Medes,  and  Elamites,  those  who  dwelt 
in  Mesopotamia,  Judea,  Cappadocia,  Pontus,  Asia,  Phrygia,  Pam- 
phylia,  Egypt,  and  Africa,  and  even  some  Roman  proselytes,  were 
all  among  those  who  heard  the  spirit-moved  language  of  the  dis- 
ciples. Some  of  the  more  scrupulous  among  these  foreign  Jews, 
were,  probably,  notwithstanding  their  amazement,  somewhat  ofiend- 
ed  at  this  profanation  of  worship,  in  the  public  use  of  these  heathen 
languages  for  the  purposes  of  devotion  ;  and  with  a  mixture  of 
wonder  and  displeasure  they  asked,  "  Are  not  all  these  men  who 
are  talking  in  these  various  languages,  Galileans  ?  How  then  are 
they  able  to  show  such  an  immense  diversity  of  expression,  so 
that  all  of  us,  even  those  from  the  most  distant  countries,  hear 
them  in  our  various  languages,  setting  forth  the  praises  of  God  ?" 
And  they  were  all  surprised  and  perplexed,  and  said  one  to  anoth- 
er, "  What  will  this  come  to  ?"  But  to  some  who  were  present, 
the  whole  proceeding  was  so  little  impressive,  and  had  so  little  ap- 
pearance of  any  thing  miraculous,  that  they  were  moved  only  to 
expressions  of  contempt,  and  said,  in  a  tone  of  ridicule,  "  These 
men  are  drunk  on  sweet  wine."  This  seems  to  show,  that  to  them 
there  was  no  conclusive  evidence  of  Divine  agency  in  this  speak- 
ing in  various  languages  ;  and  they,  no  doubt,  supposed  that  among 
these  Galileans  were  foreigners  also,  from  many  other  parts  of  the 
world,  who,  mingling  with  Christ's  disciples,  had  joined  in  their 
devotions,  and  caught  their  enthusiasm.     Seeing  this  assembly 


Peter's  apostleship.  153 

thus  made  up,  now  occupied  in  speaking  violently  and  confusedly 
in  these  various  languages,  they  at  once  concluded  that  they  were 
under  the  influence  of  some  artificial  exhilarant,  and  supposed, 
that  during  this  great  festal  occasion,  they  had  been  betrayed  into 
some  unseasonable  jollity,  and  were  now  under  the  excitement  of 
hard  drinking.  Such  as  took  this  cool  view  of  the  matter,  there- 
fore, immediately  explained  the  whole,  by  charging  the  excited 
speakers  with  drunkenness.  But  Peter,  on  hearing  this  scandalous 
charge,  rose  up,  as  the  leader  and  defender  of  these  objects  of  pub- 
lic notice,  and  repelled  the  contemptuous  suggestion  that  he  and 
his  companions  had  been  abusing  the  occasion  of  rational  religious 
enjoyment,  to  the  purposes  of  intemperate  and  riotous  merriment. 
Calling  on  all  present  for  their  attention,  both  foreign  Jews  and 
those  settled  in  Jerusalem,  he  told  them  that  the  violent  emotions 
which  had  excited  their  surprise  could  not  be  caused  by  wine,  as  it 
was  then  but  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  as  they  well  knew, 
it  was  contrary  to  all  common  habits  of  life  to  suppose  that,  before 
that  early  hour,  these  men  could  have  been  exposed  to  any  such 
temptation.  They  knew  that  the  universal  fashion  of  the  devout 
Jews  was  to  take  no  food  whatever  on  the  great  days  of  public 
worship,  until  after  their  return  from  morning  prayers  in  the  tem- 
ple. How,  then,  could  these  men,  thus  devoutly  occupied  since 
rising,  have  found  opportunity  to  indulge  in  intoxicating  drinks  ? 
Peter  then  proceeded  to  refer  them  for  a  more  just  explanation 
of  this  strange  occurrence,  to  the  long  recorded  testimonies  of  the 
ancient  prophets,  which  most  distinctly  announced  such  powerful 
displays  of  religious  zeal  and  knowledge,  as  about  to  happen  in 
those  later  days,  of  which  the  present  moment  seemed  the  begin- 
ning. He  quoted  to  them  a  passage  from  Joel,  which  pointedly 
set  forth  these  and  many  other  wonders  with  the  distinctness  of 
reality,  and  showed  them  how  all  these  striking  words  were  con- 
nected with  the  fate  of  that  Jesus  whom  they  had  so  lately  sacri- 
ficed. He  now,  for  the  first  time,  publicly  declared  to  them,  that 
this  Jesus,  whom  they  had  vainly  subjected  to  a  disgraceful  death, 
had  by  the  power  of  God  been  raised  from  the  grave  to  a  glorious 
and  immortal  life.  Of  this  fact,  he  assured  them  that  all  the  dis- 
ciples were  the  witnesses,  having  seen  him  with  their  own  eyes 
after  his  return  to  life.  He  now  showed  them  in  what  manner 
the  resurrection  of  Jesus  might  be  explained  and  illustrated  by  the 
words  of  David,  and  how  the  psalm  itself  might  be  made  to  ap- 
pear in  a  new  light,  by  interpreting  it  in  accordance  with  these 


154  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

recent  events.  He  concluded  this  high-toned  and  forcible  appeal 
to  scripture  and  to  fact,  by  calling  them  imperatively  to  learn  and 
believe  : — "  Let  all  the  house  of  Israel  know,  then,  that  God  has 
made  this  Jesus,  whom  you  have  crucified,  both  Lord  and  Christ." 
This  declaration,  thus  solemnly  made  and  powerfully  supported,  in 
connexion  with  the  surprising  circumstances  Avhich  had  just  oc- 
curred, had  a  most  striking  and  convincing  effect  on  the  hearers ; 
and  almost  the  whole  nmltitude  giving  way  to  their  feelings  of  awe 
and  compunction,  being  stung  with  the  remembrance  of  the  share 
they  had  had  in  the  murder  of  Jesus,  cried  out,  as  with  one  voice, 
"  Brethren,  what  shall  we  do  ?"  Peter's  instant  reply  was,  "  Change 
your  hearts,  and  be  each  one  of  you  baptized  to  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ,  for  the  remission  of  your  sins  ;  and  you  shall  receive  the 
gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit."  That  same  divine  influence,  whose  in- 
workings  had  just  been  so  wonderfully  displayed  before  their  eyes, 
was  now  promised  to  them,  as  the  seal  of  Christ's  acceptance  of  the 
offer  of  themselves  in  the  preliminary  sign  of  baptism.  To  them 
and  to  their  children,  upon  whom,  fifty  days  before,  they  had  sol- 
emnly invoked  the  curse  of  the  murdered  Redeemer's  blood,  was 
this  benignant  promise  of  pardoning  love  now  made  ;  and  not  only 
to  them,  but  to  all,  however  far  off  in  place  or  in  feeling,  whom  their 
common  Lord  and  God  should  call  to  him.  Inspired  with  the 
glorious  prospect  of  success  now  opening  to  him,  and  moved  to 
new  earnestness  by  their  devout  and  alarmed  attention,  Peter  zeal- 
ously went  on,  and  spoke  to  them  many  other  words,  of  which  the 
sacred  historian  has  given  us  only  the  brief  but  powerful  conclud- 
ing exhortation : — "  Suffer  yourselves  to  be  saved  from  this  perverse 
generation  ;" — from  those  who  had  involved  themselves  and  their 
race  in  the  evils  resulting  to  them  from  their  wicked  rejection  of 
the  truth  offered  by  Jesus.  The  whole  Jewish  nation  stood  at  that 
time  charged  with  the  guilt  of  rejecting  the  Messiah  ;  nor  could 
any  individual  be  cleared  from  his  share  of  responsibility  for  the 
crime,  except  by  coming  out  and  distinctly  professing  his  faith  in 
Christ. 

CI  inge  your  hearts.— I  have,  in  general,  given  this  translation  of  McTavoeXre,  {Meta- 
noeite,)  as  more  minutely  faithful  to  the  etymology  of  the  word,  and  also  accordant 
with  popular  religious  forms  of  expression ;  though  the  common  translation  is  unob- 
jectionable. 

THE  church's  INCREASE. 

The  success  which  followed  Peter's  first  effort  in  preaching  the 
gospel  of  his  murdered  and  risen  Lord,  was  most  cheering.  Those 
who  heard  him  on  this  occasion,  gladly  receiving  his  words,  were 


Peter's  apostleship.  155 

baptized ;  and  on  that  same  day  converts  to  the  number  of  three 
thousand  were  added  to  the  disciples.  How  must  these  glorious 
results,  and  all  the  events  of  the  day,  liave  lifted  up  the  hearts  of 
the  apostles,  and  moved  them  to  new  and  still  bolder  efforts  in 
their  great  cause  !  They  now  knew  and  felt  the  true  force  of  their 
Master's  promise,  that  they  should  "  be  indued  with  power  from 
on  high ;"  for  what  less  than  such  power  could  in  one  day  have 
wrought  such  a  change  in  the  hearts  of  the  haughty  Jews,  as  to 
make  them  shbmissive  hearers  of  the  followers  of  the  lately  cru- 
cified Nazarene,  and  bring  over  such  immense  numbers  of  con- 
verts to  tlie  new  faith,  as  to  swell  the  small  and  feeble  band  of 
disciples  to  more  than  twenty  times  its  former  size  ?  Nor  did  the 
impression  made  on  this  multitude  prove  to  be  a  mere  transient  ex- 
citement; for  we  are  assured  that  "they  held  steadily  to  the  doctrine 
taught  by  the  apostles,  and  kept  company  with  them  in  all  their 
daily  religious  duties  and  social  enjoyments."  So  permanent  and 
complete  was  this  change,  as  to  cause  universal  astonishment 
among  those  who  had  not  been  made  the  subjects  of  it ;  and  the 
number  of  those  who  heard  the  amazing  story,  must  have  been  so 
much  the  greater  at  that  time,  as  there  was  then  at  Jerusalem  so 
large  an  assemblage  of  Jews  from  almost  every  part  of  the  civil- 
ized world.  On  this  account,  it  seems  to  have  been  most  wisely 
ordered  that  this  first  public  preaching  of  the  Christian  faith,  and 
this  great  manifestation  of  its  power  over  the  hearts  of  men,  should 
take  place  on  this  festal  occasion,  when  its  influence  might  at  once 
more  widely  and  quickly  spread  than  by  any  other  human  means. 
The  foreign  Jews  then  at  Jerusalem,  being  witnesses  of  these  won- 
derful things,  would  not  fail,  on  their  return  home,  to  give  the 
whole  affair  a  prominent  place  in  their  account  of  their  pilgrim- 
age, when  they  recounted  their  various  adventures  and  observa- 
tions, to  their  inquiring  friends.  Among  these  visiters,  too,  were 
probably  some  who  were  themselves,  on  this  occasion,  converted 
to  the  new  faith,  and  each  one  of  these  would  be  a  sort  of  mis- 
sionary, preaching  Christ  crucified  to  his  countrymen  in  his  distant 
home,  and  telling  them  of  a  way  to  God,  which  their  fathers  had 
not  known.  The  many  miracles  wrought  by  the  apostles,  as  signs 
of  their  authority,  served  to  swell  the  fame  of  the  Christian  cause, 
and  added  new  incidents  to  the  fast-traveling  and  far-spreading 
story,  which,  wherever  it  went,  prepared  the  people  to  hear  the 
apostles  with  interest  and  respect,  when,  in  obedience  to  their 


156  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

Lord's  last  charge,  they  should  go  forth  to  distant  lands,  preaching 
the  gospel. 

Peter's  prominence. 

This  vast  addition  to  the  assembly  of  the  disciples  at  Jerusalem, 
made  it  necessary  for  the  apostles  to  complete  some  farther  arrange- 
ments, to  suit  their  enlarged  circumstances ;  and  at  this  period  the 
first  church  of  Christ  in  the  world  seems  to  have  so  far  perfected 
its  organization  as  to  answer  very  nearly  to  the  modern  idea  of  a 
permanent  religious  community.  The  church  of  Jerusalem  was 
an  individual  worshiping  assembly,  that  at  this  time  met  daily  for 
prayer  and  exhortation,  with  twelve  ministers  who  officiated  as 
occasion  needed,  without  any  order  of  service,  as  far  as  we  know, 
except  such  as  depended  on  their  individual  weight  of  character, 
their  natural  abilities,  or  their  knowledge  of  the  doctrines  of  their 
Lord.  Among  these,  the  three  most  favored  by  Christ's  private 
instructions  would  have  a  natural  pre-eminence,  and  above  all,  he 
who  had  been  especially  named  as  the  rock  on  which  the  church 
should  be  built,  and  as  the  keeper  of  the  keys  of  the  kingdom,  and 
had  been  solemnly  and  repeatedly  commissioned  as  the  pastor  and 
leader  of  the  flock,  would  now  maintain  an  undisputed  pre-emi- 
nence, unless  he  should  by  some  actual  misconduct  prove  himself 
unworthy  of  the  rank.  Such  a  pre-eminence  it  is  unquestionable 
that  Peter  always  did  maintain  among  the  apostles  ;  and  so  deci- 
dedly, too,  that,  on  every  occasion  when  any  thing  was  to  be  said 
or  done  by  them  as  a  body,  Peter  invariably  stands  out  alone,  as 
the  undisputed  representative  and  head  of  the  whole  community. 
Indeed  the  whole  history  of  the  apostles,  after  the  ascension,  gives 
but  a  single  instance  in  which  the  words  of  any  one  of  the  twelve 
besides  Peter  are  recorded,  or  where  any  one  of  them,  except  in 
that  single  case,  is  named  as  having  said  any  thing  whatever.  On 
every  occasion  of  this  sort,  the  matters  referred  to  were  no  more 
the  concern  of  Peter  than  of  any  other  of  the  twelve,  yet  they 
all  seem  to  have  been  perfectly  satisfied  with  quietly  giving  up  the 
expression  of  their  views  to  him.  One  instance,  indeed,  occurs, 
in  which  some  persons  attempted  to  blame  his  conduct  when  on  a 
private  mission ;  but  even  then  his  explanation  of  his  behavior 
hushed  all  complaint.  Often  when  he  was  publicly  engaged  in 
the  company  of  John,  the  most  beloved  of  Jesus,  and  his  faithful 
witness,  it  would  seem  that  if  there  was  any  assumption  by  Peter 
of  more  than  due  importance,  this  distinguished  son  of  Zebedee 


Peter's  apostleship.  157 

or  his  equally  honored  brother  would  have  taken  such  a  share  in 
speaking  and  doing,  as  would  have  secured  them  an  equal  promi- 
nence. But  no  such  low  jealousies  ever  appear  to  have  arisen 
among  the  apostles ;  not  one  seems  to  have  had  a  thought  about 
making  himself  an  object  of  public  notice ;  but  their  common 
and  unanimous  care  was  to  advance  their  great  Master's  cause, 
without  reference  to  individual  distinctions.  Peter's  natural  force 
of  character,  and  high  place  in  his  Master's  confidence,  justi- 
fied the  ascendency  which  he,  on  all  public  occasions,  claimed 
as  his  undisputable  right,  in  which  the  rest  acquiesced  without  a 
murmur. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  COMMUNITY. 

In  the  constitution  of  the  first  church  of  Christ,  there  seems  to 
have  been  no  other  noticeable  peculiarity,  than  the  number  of  its 
ministers,  and  even  this  in  reality  amounted  to  nothing ;  for  the 
decided  pre-eminence  and  superior  qualifications  of  Peter  were 
such  as,  in  effect,  to  make  him  the  pastor  and  chief  preacher  for  s 
long  time,  while  the  other  apostles  do  not  seem  to  have  performed 
any  duty  much  higher  than  that  of  mere  assistants  to  him,  or  ex- 
horters,  and  perhaps  teachers.  Still,  not  a  day  could  pass  when 
every  one  of  them  would  not  be  required  to  labor  in  some  way 
for  the  gospel ;  and  indeed  the  sacred  historian  uniformly  speaks 
of  them  in  the  plural  number,  as  laboring  together  and  alike  in 
the  common  cause.  Thus  they  went  on  quietly  and  humbly  la- 
boring, with  a  pure  zeal  which  was  as  indifferent  to  fame  and 
earthly  honor,  as  to  the  acquisition  or  preservation  of  earthly 
wealth.  They  are  said  to  have  held  all  things  common  ;  which  is 
to  be  understood,  however,  not  as  implying  literally  that  the  rich 
renounced  all  individual  right  to  what  they  owned,  but  that  they 
stood  ready  to  provide  for  the  needy  to  the  full  extent  of  their 
property, — and  in  that  sense,  all  these  pecuniary  resources  were 
made  as  common  as  if  they  were  formally  thrown  into  one  public 
stock,  out  of  which  every  man  drew  as  suited  his  own  needs.  To 
an  ordinary  reader,  this  passage,  taken  by  itself,  might  seem  to 
convey  fully  the  latter  meaning ;  but  a  reference  to  other  passages, 
and  to  the  whole  history  of  the  primitive  Christians,  shows  clearly, 
that  a  real  and  literal  community  of  goods  was  totally  unlaiown 
to  them, — but  that,  in  the  bold  and  free  language  of  the  age  and 
country,  they  are  said  to  have  "  had  all  things  in  common  ;" — just 

as  among  us,  a  man  may  say  to  his  friend,  "  My  house  is  yours  j 
2i 


158  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

consider  every  thing  I  have  as  your  own  property  ;'■  and  yet  no 
one  would  ever  construe  this  into  a  surrender  of  his  individual 
rights  of  possession.  So  the  wealthy  converts  to  the  Christian 
faith  sold  their  estates  and  goods,  as  occasion  required,  for  the 
sake  of  having  ready  money  to  relieve  the  wants  of  those  who  had 
no  means  of  support.  Thus  provided  for,  the  apostles  steadily 
pursued  their  great  work,  passing  the  greater  part  of  every  day  in 
the  temple ;  but  taking  their  food  at  home,  they  ate  what  was  so 
freely  and  generously  provided,  with  thankful  and  unanxious 
hearts,  praising  God  and  having  favor  with  all  the  people.  In 
these  happy  and  useful  employments  they  continued,  every  day 
finding  new  sources  of  enjoyment  and  new  encouragement,  in  the 
accession  of  redeemed  ones  to  their  blessed  community. 

Taking  their  food  at  home. — This  is  my  interpretation  of  /fXwirtf  Kar'  oIkov  aprov, 
(Jclontes  kat'  oikon  arton.)  Acts  ii.  46,  com.  trans.  "  breaking  bread  from  house  to 
house,"  a  version  which  is  still  supported  by  many  names  of  high  authority ;  but  the 
attendent  circumstances  here  seem  to  justify  this  variation  from  them.  A  reference 
to  the  passage  will  show  that  the  historian  is  speaking  of  their  regular,  unanimous 
attendence  in  the  temple,  and  says,  "  they  attended  every  day  with  one  accord  in  the 
temple,"  that  is,  during  the  regular  hours  of  daily  worship;  but  as  they  would  not 
suffer  untimely  devotion  to  interfere  with  their  reasonable  conveniences,  he  adds, 
"  they  broke  bread,"  (a  Hebraistic  form  of  expression  for  simply  "  taking  food,")  "  at 
home,  and  partook  of  their  food  in  humility  and  thankfulness."  This  seems  to  me, 
to  require  a  sort  of  opposition  in  sense  between  upov,  (hieron,)  "  temple,"  and  oIkos, 
{oikos,)  "  house"  or  "  home ;"  for  it  seems  as  if  the  writer  of  the  Acts  wished  in  these 
few  words,  to  give  a  complete  account  of  the  manner  in  which  they  occupied  them- 
selves, devoting  all  their  time  to  public  devotion  in  the  temple,  except  that,  as  was 
most  seemly,  they  returned  to  their  houses  to  take  their  necessary  food,  which  they 
did  humbly  and  joyfully.  But  the  distributive  force  which  some  wish  to  put  upon 
Kar'  oiKov,  by  translating  it  "  from  house  to  house,"  is  one  which  does  not  seem  to  be 
required  at  all  by  any  thing  in  the  connexion,  and  one  which  needs  a  vast  deal  of 
speculation  and  explanation  to  make  it  appear  why  they  should  go  "  from  house  to 
house,"  about  so  simple  a  matter  of  fact  as  that  of  eating  their  victuals,  which  every 
man  could  certainly  do  to  best  advantage  at  one  steady  boarding-place.  That  the  ex- 
pression kot'  OIKOV  most  commonly  means  "  in  a  house,"  or  "  at  home,"  is  abimdantly 
proved  by  standard  common  Greek  usage,  as  shown  in  the  best  Lexicons.  But  Kara, 
in  connexion  with  a  singular  noun,  has  the  distributive  force  only  when  the  noim  it- 
self is  of  such  a  character  and  connexion  in  the  sentence  as  to  require  this  meaning. 
Thus  KOTu  jirwa.  {kata  mena)  would  hardly  ever  be  suspected  of  any  other  meaning 
than  "  monthly,"  or  "  every  month,"  or  "  from  month  to  month ;" — so  Kara  TT6\eis  {kata 
poleis)  means  "  from  city  to  city,"  but  the  singular  Kara  ttoXii',  (kata  polin,)  almost  uni- 
formly means  "  in  a  city,"  without  any  distributive  application,  except  where  the 
other  words  in  the  sentence  imply  this  idea.  (Acts  xv.  21,  xx.  23.)  But  here  the 
simple,  common  meaning  of  the  preposition  *urn,  when  governing  the  accusative, 
(that  is,  the  meaning  of  "  at"  or  "  in"  a  place,)  is  not  merely  allowed,  but  required  by 
the  other  words  in  the  connexion,  in  order  to  give  a  meaning  which  requires  no 
other  explanation,  and  which  corresponds  to  the  word  "  temple"  in  the  other  clause ; 
for  the  whole  account  seems  to  require  an  opposition  in  these  words,  as  describing 
the  two  places  where  the  disciples  passed  their  time. 

There  are  great  names,  however,  opposed  to  this  view,  which  seem  enough  to 
overpower  almost  any  testimony  that  can  be  brought  in  defense  of  an  interpretation 
■which  they  reject.  Among  these  are  Kuinoel,  Rosenmiiller,  Ernesti,  and  Bloom- 
field,  whose  very  names  will  perhaps  weigh  more  with  many,  than  the  hasty  state- 
ment of  the  contrary  view  which  I  am  able  here  to  give.  Yet  I  am  not  wholly  with- 
out the  support  of  high  authorities;  for  Oecumenius,  Grotius,  Hammond,  De  Dieu, 
Bengel,  Heinrichs,  Bretschneider,  and  A.  Clarke,  reject  the  distributive  sense  here. 


Peter's  apostleship.  159 

In  regard  to  the  application  of  the  words  »cXa)i/«y  Sprov,  {klonies  arton,)  "  breaking 
bread," — the  most  valued  commentators  have  differed  widely.  Kuinoel,  Rosenmiil- 
ler,  and  others  quoted  by  them,  have  maintained  that  the  words  refer  to  the  ministra- 
tions of  the  Agapae^  or  love-feasts,  which  were  an  ordinance  peculiar  to  the  apostolic 
days,  coiasisting  of  a  free,  common  entertainment,  furnislied  by  the  richer  members 
of  the  Christian  community  for  all  the  church,  who  partook  without  distinction. 
{Mosheim,  Ecc.  Hist.  I.  i.  2.  chap.  4.  §  7.)  This  ordinance  was  totally  distinct  from  the 
sacramental  communion  of  the  Lord's  supper,  which  had^no  connexion  with  it,  ex- 
cept as  both  were  sometimes  celebrated  consecutively  on  the  same  occasion.  Kuinoel 
and  Rosenmiiller  have  very  ably  established  this  distinction,  and  have  very  clearly 
refuted  the  notion  of  Cornelius  a  Lapide,  Tirinus,  Heinrichs,  and  others,  who  have 
considered  these  words  as  referring  to  the  sacrament.  This  opinion  has  been  main- 
tained by  various  commentators,  Scott,  Henry,  &c.,  but  has  no  critical  authority 
whatever.  But  though  rejecting  this  with  the  decisive  condemnation  which  its  char- 
acter and  the  authority  of  its  opposers  justifies,  I  have  yet  been  unable  to  accept  the 
exposition  of  Kuinoel  and  others,  who  refer  the  words  to  the  Agapae ;  because  the 
true  force  of  the  original  expression,  and  the  words  immediately  following  in  the 
context,  seem  to  require  the  far  simpler  meaning  which  I  have  given  in  the  text 
above, — "  eating,"  or  "  taking  food," — an  interpretation  sanctioned  by  the  eminent 
authority  of  Beza,  Casaubon,  Grotius,  Wolf,  Doddridge,  Adam  Clarke,  and  Barnes. 
To  the  three  latter,  in  particular,  I  would  direct  the  doubtful  reader,  for  a  very  happy 
though  brief  exposition  of  the  passage ;  and  with  more  pleasure  do  I  quote  such  au- 
thority, because  there  is  no  other  commentary  accessible  to  common  readers,  that  has 
any  merit  among  the  critical,  on  points  of  doubtful  interpretation.  Clarke  also 
gives  the  phrase — "  at  horne,'"  as  the  just  translation  of  the  intermediate  words,  and 
condemns  the  distributive  sense,  by  classic  usages.  The  words  which  next  follow — 
"  partook  of  their  food," — (com.  trans.,  "  did  eat  their  bread,") — ofier  the  best  jus- 
tification of  this  simple  and  natural  sense.  The  original  word  rpi)<j>m,(^trophes,)  trans- 
lated "  meat,"  "  food,"  which  is  here  manifestly  used  in  explanation  of  this  action, 
can  have  no  reference  to  any  sacramental  occasion,  and  must  be  applied  to  "  victuals 
taken  for  nourishment"  alone.  The  word  lurtMfiiSavnv  (^metelanibanoii)  implies  also 
far  more  than  the  common  translation  would  lead  the  reader  to  suppose.  Its  true 
sense  is — "  partook," — "  shared  with  one  another,"  and  expresses  the  free  and  open 
manner  in  which  they  divided  their  substance.  The  word  "  unanxious"  more  fully  ex- 
presses the  sense  of  the  subsequent  term,  than  the  common  translation,  "singleness  " 
which  is  the  literal  meaning.    (See  Kuinoel  in  loc.) 

THE  CURE  OF    THE  CRIPPLE. 

In  the  course  of  these  regular  religious  observances,  about  the 
same  time,  or  soon  after  the  events  just  recorded,  Peter  and  John 
went  up  to  the  temple  to  pray,  at  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
the  usual  hour  for  the  second  public  prayers.  As  they  went  in 
at  the  outer  gate  of  the  temple,  which,  being  made  of  polished 
Corinthian  brass,  was  for  its  splendor  called  the  Beautiful, 
their  attention  was  called  to  one  of  the  objects  of  pity  which 
were  so  common  on  those  great  days  of  assembly,  about  the 
common  places  of  resort.  A  man,  who,  by  universal  testimony, 
had  been  a  cripple  from  his  birth,  was  lying  in  a  helpless  attitude 
at  this  public  entrance,  in  order  to  excite  the  compassion  of  the 
crowds  who  were  constantly  passing  into  the  temple,  and  were  in 
that  place  so  much  under  the  influence  of  religious  feeling  as  to 
be  easily  moved  by  pity  to  exercise  so  prominent  a  religious  duty 
as  charity  to  the  distressed.  This  man  seeing  Peter  and  John 
passing  in,  asked  alms  of  them  in  his  usual  way.     They  both  in- 


1^  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

stantly  turned  their  eyes  towards  him,  and  looking  earnestly  on 
him,  Peter  said,  "  Look  on  us,"  The  cripple,  supposing  from  their 
manner  that  they  were  about  to  give  something  to  him,  accordingly 
yielded  them  his  interested  attention.  Peter  then  said  to  him, 
"  Silver  and  gold  have  I  none,  but  I  give  thee  what  I  have :  in  the 
name  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Nazarene,  rise  up  and  walk."  As  he 
said  this,  he  took  hold  of  the  lame  man  and  raised  him  ;  and  he 
at  once  was  able  to  support  himself  erect.  Leaping  up  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  strength,  he  stood  and  walked  with  them  into  the 
temple,  expressing  thankfulness  and  joy  as  he  went,  both  by  mo- 
tions and  words.  The  attention  of  the  worshiping  assembly  in 
the  great  courts  of  the  temple  was  at  once  directed  to  this  strange 
circumstance ;  for  all  who  had  passed  in  at  the  gate,  recognized 
this  vivacious  companion  of  the  two  apostles  as  the  man  who  had 
all  his  life  been  a  cripple,  without  the  power  of  voluntary  locomo- 
tion ;  and  they  were  utterly  amazed  at  his  present  altered  condi- 
tion and  actions.  As  the  recovered  cripple,  leaning  on  Peter  and 
John,  still  half  doubting  his  new  strength,  accompanied  them  on  to 
the  porch  of  Solomon,  the  whole  multitade  ran  after  them  thither, 
still  in  the  greatest  astonishment.  All  eyes  were  at  once  turned 
to  the  two  wonderful  men  who  had  caused  this  miraculous  change  ; 
and  the  astonishment  which  this  deed  had  inspired  must  have  been 
mingled  with  awe  and  reverence.  Here  surely  was  an  occasion 
to  test  the  honesty  and  sincerity  of  these  followers  of  Christ,  when 
they  saw  the  whole  people  thus  unhesitatingly  giving  to  them  the 
divine  honor  of  this  miraculous  cure.  What  an  opportunity  for 
a  calculating  ambition  to  secure  power,  favor,  and  renown  !  Yet, 
with  all  these  golden  chances  placed  temptingly  within  their  reach, 
they,  so  lately  longing  for  the  honors  of  an  earthly  dominion,  now 
turned  calmly  and  firmly  to  the  people,  utterly  disclaiming  the 
honor  and  glory  of  the  deed,  but  rendering  all  the  praise  to  their 
crucified  Lord.  Peter,  ever  ready  with  eloquent  words,  immedi- 
ately addressed  the  awe-struck  throngs,  who  listened  in  silence  to 
his  inspired  language  ;  and  distinctly  declared  the  merit  of  this 
action  to  belong  not  to  him  and  his  companion,  but  to  "  that  same 
Jesus,  whom  they,  but  a  short  time  before,  had  rejected  and  put  to 
death  as  an  impostor."  He  then  went  on  to  charge  them  boldly 
with  the  guilt  of  this  murder  ;  and  summing  up  the  evidences  and 
consequences  of  their  crime,  he  called  on  them  to  repent,  and  yield 
to  this  slain  and  risen  Jesus  the  honors  due  to  the  Messiah.  It 
was  his  name  which,  through  faith  in  his  name,  had  made  this 


Peter's  apostleship.  161 

lame  man  strong,  and  restored  him  to  all  his  bodily  energies,  in 
the  presence  of  them  all.  That  name,  too,  would  be  equally  pow- 
erfiil  to  save  them  through  faith,  if  they  would  turn  to  him, — the 
prophet  foretold  by  Moses,  by  Samuel,  and  all  the  prophets  that  fol- 
lowed them, — as  the  restorer  and  leader  of  Israel,  and  through 
whom,  as  was  promised  to  Abraham,  all  the  families  of  the  earth 
should  be  blest.  But  first  of  all  to  them,  the  favored  children  of 
Abraham,  did  God  send  his  prophet-son,  to  bless  them  in  turning 
away  every  one  of  them  from  their  iniquities. 

The  beautiful  gale. — The  learned  Lightfoot  has  brought  much  deep  research  to 
bear  on  this  point,  as  to  the  position  of  this  gate  and  the  true  meaning  of  its  name ; 
yet  he  is  obliged  to  annoimce  the  dubious  result  in  the  expressive  words,  "  In  bivio 
hic  stamus,"  ("  we  here  sland  at  a  fork  of  the  road.")  The  main  difficulty  consists  in 
the  ambiguous  character  of  the  word  translated  "  beautiful,"  in  Greek,  'Qpaiav,  {ho- 
raian,)  which  may  have  the  sense  of  "  splendid,  beautiful,"  or,  in  better  keeping 
with  its  root  'iipa,  (hora,)  "  time,"  it  may  be  made  to  mean  the  "  gate  of  time,  or 
the  "  gate  of  ages."  Now,  what  favors  the  latter  derivation  and  translation,  is  the  fact, 
that  there  actually  was,  as  appears  from  the  Rabbinical  writings,  a  gate  called  Hhul- 
dah,  (m^in,)  probably  derived  from  iVn  (Jiheledh)  "  age,"  "  time,"  "  life," — from  the  Ara- 
bic root  ^JLik.  {khaladh,)  "  endure,"  "  last ;"  so  that  it  may  mean  "  lasting,"  "  perma- 
nent," "  ETERNAL,"  which  would  also  be  a  just  translation  of  the  Greek  word  above 
given.  There  were  two  gates  of  this  name,  distinguished  by  the  terms^reater  and  small- 
er, both  opening  into  the  court  of  the  Gentiles  from  the  great  southern  porch  or  colon- 
nade, called  the  Royal  colonnade.  Through  these,  the  common  way  from  Jerusalem 
and  from  Zion  led  into  the  temple,  and  througn  these  would  be  the  natural  entrance  of 
the  apostles  into  it.  This  great  royal  porch,  also,  where  such  vast  numbers  were  pass- 
ing, and  which  afforded  a  convenient  shelter  from  the  weather,  would  be  a  convenient 
place  for  a  cripple  to  post  himself  in.     (Lightfoot,  Hor.  Heb.  et  Talm.  in  loc.) 

There  was,  however,  a  great  gate,  to  which  the  epithet  "  beautiful"  might  with 
eminent  justice  be  applied.  This  is  thus  described  by  Josephus,  (Jew.  War,  book 
V.  chap.  5.  sec.  3.)  "  Of  the  gates,  nine  were  overlaid  with  gold  and  silver, — *  •  * 
but  there  was  one  on  the  outside  of  the  temple,  made  of  Corinthian  brass,  which  far 
outshone  the  plated  and  gilded  ones."  This  is  the  gate  to  which  the  passage  is  com- 
monly supposed  to  refer,  and  which  I  have  mentioned  as  the  true  one  in  the  text, 
without  feeling  at  all  decided  on  the  subject,  however ;  for  I  certainly  do  think  the 
testimony  favors  the  gate  Hhuldah,  and  the  primary  sense  of  the  word  'Q,paia  seems 
to  be  best  consulted  by  such  a  construction. 

T%e  porch  of  Solomon. — 'Lroa  EuXy/jwi/T-oj,  {Stoa  Solomontos.)  This  was  the  name 
commonly  applied  to  the  great  eastern  colonnade  of  the  temple,  which  ran  along  on 
the  top  of  the  vast  terrace  which  made  the  gigantic  rampart  of  Mount  Moriah,  rising 
from  the  depth  of  six  hundred  feet  out  of  the  valley  of  the  Kedron.  (See  note  on 
page  110.)  The  Greek  word  aroa,  (stoa,)  com.  trans,  "porch,"  does  not  necessarily 
imply  an  entrance  to  a  building,  as  is  generally  true  of  our  modern  porch,  but  was 
a  general  name  for  a  "  colonnade,"  which  is  a  much  better  expression  for  its  mean- 
ing, and  would  always  convey  a  correct  notion  of  it ;  for  its  primary  and  universal 
idea  is  that  of  a  row  of  columns  running  along  the  side  of  a  building,  and  leaving 
a  broad  open  space  between  them  and  the  wall,  often  so  wide  as  to  make  room  for  a 
vast  assemblage  of  people  beneath  the  ceiling  of  the  architrave.  That  this  was  the 
case  in  this  stoa,  appears  from  Josephus's  description,  given  in  my  note  on  page  110, 
sec.  1.  The  stoa  might  be  so  placed  as  to  be  perfectly  inaccessible  from  without,  and 
thus  lose  all  claim  to  the  name  of  porch,  with  the  idea  of  an  entrance-way.  This 
was  exactly  the  situation  and  construction  of  Solomon's  stoa,  which  answers  much 
better  to  our  idea  of  a  sallery,  than  of  s.  porch.    (See  Donnegan,  sub  voc.) 

It  took  the  name  of  Solomon  from  the  fact,  thai  when  the  great  temple  of  that  mag- 
nificent king  was  burned  and  torn  dovi-n  by  the  Chaldeans,  this  eastern  terrace,  as 
originally  constructed  by  him,  was  too  vast,  and  too  deeply  based,  to  be  easily  made 
the  subject  of  such  a  destroying  visitation,  and  consequently  was  by  necessity  left  a 
lasting  monument  of  the  strength  and  grandeur  of  the  temple  which  had  stood  upon 


m 


162  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

it.  When  the  second  temple  was  rebuilt,  this  vast  terrace,  of  course,  became  again 
the  great  eastern  foundation  of  the  sacred  pile,  but  received  important  additions  to 
itself,  being  strengthened  by  higher  and  broader  walls,  and  new  accessions  of  mound- 
ed earth  ;  while  over  its  long  trampled  and  profaned  pavement,  now  beautified  and 
renewed  with  splendid  Mosaic,  rose  the  mighty  range  of  gigantic  snow-white  mar- 
ble columns,  which  gave  it  the  name  and  character  of  a  stoa  or  colonnade,  and  filled 
the  country  for  a  vast  distance  with  the  glory  of  its  pure  brightness.  (See  note  on 
page  111.  See  also  Lightfoot,  Disquisit.  Chor.  cap.  vi.§2.)  Josephus  further  describes 
it,  explaining  the  very  name  which  Luke  uses.  "And  this  was  a  colonnade  of  the 
outer  temple,  standing  over  the  verge  of  a  deep  valley,  on  walls  four  hundred  cubits 
in  highth,  built  of  hewn  stones  perfectly  white, — the  length  of  each  stone  being  twenty 
cubits,  and  the  highth  six.  It  was  the  work  of  Solomon,  who  first  built  the  whole 
temple."    (Jos.  Ant.  XX.  ix.  7.) 

THE  FIRST  SEIZURE  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

Wliile  the  apostles  were  thus  occupied  in  speaking  words  of  wis- 
dom to  the  attentive  people,  they  were  suddenly  interrupted  by  the 
entrance  of  the  guards  of  the  temple,  who,  under  the  command 
of  their  captain,  came  up  to  the  apostles,  and  seizing  them  in  the 
midst  of  their  discourse,  dragged  them  away  to  prison,  where  they 
were  shut  up,  for  examination  on  the  next  day,  before  the  civil 
and  ecclesiastical  court  of  the  Jews.  This  act  of  violence  was 
committed  by  order  of  the  priests  who  had  the  care  of  the  temple, 
more  immediately  instigated  by  the  Sadducees,  who  were  present 
with  the  priests  and  guards  when  the  arrest  was  made.  The 
reason  why  this  sect,  in  general  not  active  in  persecuting  Jesus 
and  his  followers,  were  now  provoked  to  this  act  of  unusual  hos- 
tility, was,  that  the  apostles  were  now  preaching  a  doctrine  di- 
rectly opposed  to  the  main  principles  of  Sadducism.  The  asser- 
tion that  Jesus  had  actually  risen  from  the  dead,  so  boldly  made 
by  the  apostles,  must,  if  the  people  believed  it,  entirely  overthrow 
their  confidence  in  the  Sadducees,  who  absolutely  denied  the  ex- 
istence of  a  spirit,  and  the  possibility  of  a  resurrection  of  the  dead. 
It  was  now  evening,  and  the  apostles  being  thus  dragged  away 
abruptly,  in  the  midst  of  their  discourse,  the  people  were  obliged 
to  disperse  for  the  night,  without  hearing  all  that  the  speakers  had 
intended  to  say ;  yet  even  the  fragment  of  discourse  which  they 
had  heard,  was  not  without  a  mighty  effect.  So  convincing  and 
moving  were  these  few  words  of  Peter,  and  so  satisfactory  was  the 
evidence  of  the  miracle,  that  almost  the  whole  multitude  of  hear- 
ers and  beholders  seems  to  have  come  over  in  a  mass  to  the  faith 
of  Christ ;  for  converts  to  the  astonishing  number  of  five  thousand 
are  mentioned  by  the  sacred  historian,  who  all  professed  their  be- 
lief in  Jesus,  as  the  resurrection  and  the  hie,  and  the  healing. 

The  guards  of  the  temple,  <f  c. — This  was  the  same  set  of  men  above  described,  as 
made  up  of  the  Levite  porters  and  watchmen  of  the  temple.    (See  note  on  page  124. 


Peter's  apostleship.  163 

Also  Lightfoot,  Hot.  Heb.  in  Acts  iv.  1. — RosenmuUer,  ibid,  and  Kuinoel.)  But 
Hammond  has  made  ihe  mistake  of  supposing  this  to  be  a  detachment  of  the  Roman 
garrison. 

THEIR  FIRST  TRIAL. 

The  next  morning,  the  high  court  of  the  Jewish  nation,  having 
the  absolute  control  of  all  religious  matters,  was  called  together  to 
decide  upon  the  fate  of  the  apostles,  and  probably,  also,  of  the  lame 
man  whom  they  had  cured.  This  great  court  was  the  same  whose 
members  had,  by  unwearied  exertions,  succeeded  a  few  weeks  be- 
fore, in  bringing  about  the  death  of  Jesus,  and  were  therefore  little 
disposed  to  show  mercy  to  any  who  were  trying  to  perpetuate  his 
name,  or  the  innovations  which  he  had  attempted  against  the  high 
authority  of  the  ecclesiastical  rulers  of  the  nation.  Of  these,  the 
principal  were  Annas  and  Caiaphas,  the  high  priests,  with  John 
and  Alexander,  and  many  others,  who  were  entitled  to  a  place  in 
the  council,  by  relationship  to  the  high  priests.  Besides  these, 
there  were  the  rulers  and  elders  of  the  people,  and  the  scribes,  who 
had  been  so  active  in  the  condemnation  of  Jesus.  These  all 
having  arrayed  themselves  for  judgment,  the  apostles  and  their 
poor  healed  cripple  were  brought  in  before  them,  and  sternly 
questioned,  by  what  power  and  by  what  name  they  had  done  the 
thing  for  which  they  had  been  summoned  before  the  court.  They 
stood  charged  with  having  arrogated  to  themselves  the  high  char- 
acter and  office  of  teachers,  and,  what  was  worse,  reformers  of  the 
national  religion, — of  that  religion  which  had  been,  of  old,  re- 
ceived straight  from  God  by  the  holy  prophets,  and  which  the 
wisdom  of  long-following  ages  had  secured  in  sanctity  and  purity, 
\  by  entrusting  it  to  the  watchful  guardianship  of  the  most  learned 
and  venerable  of  a  hereditary  order  of  priests  and  scholars.  And 
who  were  they  that  now  proposed  to  take  into  their  hands  the  re- 
ligion given  by  Moses  and  the  prophets,  and  to  offer  to  the  people 
a  new  dispensation  ?  Were  they  deep  and  critical  scholars  in  the 
law,  the  prophets,  the  history  of  the  faith,  or  the  stored  wisdom 
of  the  ancient  teachers  of  the  law  ?  No ;  they  were  a  set  of  rude, 
ill-taught  men,  who  had  left  their  honest  but  low  employments  in 
their  miserable  province,  and  had  come  down  to  Jerusalem  with 
their  Master,  on  the  likely  enterprise  of  overturning  the  established 
order  of  things  in  church  and  state,  and  erecting  in  its  place  an 
administration  which  should  be  managed  by  the  Nazarene  and  his 
company  of  Galileans.  In  this  seditious  attempt  their  Master  had 
been  arrested  and  punished  with  death  ;  and  they  whose  lives  were 


164  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

spared  by  the  mere  clemency  of  their  offended  lords,  were  now  so 
little  grateful  for  this  mercy,  and  so  little  awed  by  this  example  of 
justice,  that  they  had  been  publicly  haranguing  the  people  in  the 
temple,  and  imposing  on  them  with  a  show  of  miracles,  all  with 
the  view  of  raising  again  those  disturbances  which  their  Mas- 
ter had  before  excited,  but  too  successfully,  by  the  same  means, 
until  his  death.     In  this  light  would  the  two  apostles  stand  before 
their  stern  and  angry  judges,  as  soon  as  they  were  recognized  as 
the  followers  of  Jesus.     And  how  did  they  maintain  their  ground 
before  this  awful  tribunal  ?    Peter  had,  only  a  few  weeks  before, 
absolutely  denied  all  connexion  and  acquaintance  with  Jesus,  when 
questioned  by  the  mere  menials  in  attendence  on  his  Master's  trial. 
And  on  this  solemn  occasion,  tenfold  more  appalling,  did  that  once 
false  disciple  find  in  his  present  circumstances,  consolations  to 
raise  him  above  his  former  weakness  ?    Peter  was  now  changed  ; 
and  he  stood  up  boldly  before  his  overbearing  foes,  to  meet  their 
tyranny  by  a  dauntless  assertion  of  his  rights  and  of  the  truth  of 
what  he  had  preached.     Freshly  indued  with  a  courage  from  on 
high,  and  full  of  that  divine  influence  so  lately  shed  abroad,  he 
and  his  modest  yet  firm  companion  replied  to  the  haughty  in- 
quiries of  his  judges,  by  naming  as  the  source  of  their  power,  and 
as  their  sanction  in  their  work,  the  venerated  name  of  their  cruci- 
fied Master.     "  Princes  of  the  people  and  elders  of  Israel,  if  we  are 
to-day  called  to  account  for  this  good  deed  which  we  have  done 
to  this  poor  man,  and  are  to  say  in  whose  name  this  man  has  been 
cured, — be  it  known  to  you  all,  and  to  all  the  people  of  Israel,  that 
in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Nazarene,  whom  you  crucified, 
and  whom  God  raised  from  the  dead,  this  man  now  stands  before 
you,  made  sound  and  strong.     This  crucified  Jesus  is  the  stone 
which,  though  rejected  by  you  builders,  has  become  the  chief  cor- 
ner stone ;  and  in  no  other  name  is  there  salvation,  (or  healing ;) 
for  there  is  no  other  name  given  under  heaven,  among  men,  by 
which  any  can  be  saved,"  (or  healed.)     Wlien  the  judges  saw  the 
free-spoken  manner  of  Peter  and  John,  observing  that  they  were 
unlearned  men,  of  the  lower  orders,  they  were  surprised ;  and  no- 
ticing them  more  particularly,  they  recognized  them  as  the  imme- 
diate personal  followers  of  Jesus,  remembering  now  that  they  had 
often  seen  them  in  his  company.     This  recognition  made  them 
the  more  desirous  to  put  a  stop  to  their  miracles  and  preach- 
ing.   Yet  there  stood  the  man  with  them,  whom  they  had  healed ; 
and  with  this  palpable  evidence  before  their  eyes,  how  could  the 


Peter's  apostleship.  165 

members  of  the  Sanhedrim  justify  themselves  to  the  people,  for 
any  act  of  positive  violence  against  these  men  ?  These  high  dig- 
nitaries were  a  good  deal  perplexed,  and  sending  the  apostles  out 
of  the  court,  they  deliberated  one  with  another,  and  inquired — 
"  What  can  we  do  with  these  men  ?  For  there  is  a  general  im- 
pression among  all  who  are  now  in  Jerusalem,  both  citizens  and 
strangers,  that  they  have  done  a  great  miracle  ;  and  we  cannot  dis- 
prove it.  Still  we  cannot  let  these  things  go  on  so,  nor  suffer  this 
heresy  to  spread  any  farther  among  the  people  ;  and  we  will  there- 
fore charge  them  threateningly  to  use  the  name  of  Jesus  no  more 
to  the  people."  Having  come  to  this  conclusion,  they  summoned 
the  prisoners  once  more  into  the  court,  and  gave  them  a  strict 
command,  never  to  teach  any  more  nor  utter  a  word  in  the  name 
of  Jesus.  But  Peter  and  John,  undismayed  by  the  authority  of 
their  great  judges,  boldly  avowed  their  unshaken  resolution  to  pro- 
ceed as  they  had  begun.  •'  We  appeal  to  you,  to  say  if  it  is  right 
in  the  sight  of  God  to  obey  you  rather  than  God.  For  we  cannot 
but  speak  what  we  have  seen  and  heard."  The  judges,  being  able 
to  bring  these  stubborn  heretics  to  no  terms  at  all,  after  having 
threatened  them  still  farther,  were  obliged  to  let  them  go  unpun- 
ished, as  they  could  not  make  out  any  plea  against  them,  that 
would  make  it  safe  to  injure  them,  while  the  popular  voice  was  so 
loud  in  their  favor,  on  account  of  the  miracle.  For  the  man 
whom  they  had  so  suddenly  healed,  being  more  than  forty  years 
old,  and  having  been  lame  from  his  birth,  no  one  could  pretend  to 
say  that  such  a  lameness  could  be  cured  by  any  sudden  impression 
made  on  his  imagination. 

Salvation,  {or  healing.) — The  Greek  word  here  in  the  original,  E&jT/jpia,  (Soleria,) 
is  entirely  dubious  in  its  meaning,  conveying  one  or  the  other  of  these  two  ideas  ac- 
cording to  the  sense  of  the  connexion ;  and  here  the  general  meaning  of  the  passage 
is  such,  that  either  meaning  is  perfectly  allowable,  and  equally  appropriate  to  the 
context.  This  ambiguity  in  the  substantive  is  caused  by  the  same  variety  of  mean- 
ing in  the  verb  which  is  the  root,  Saw,  {Sao,)  whose  primary  idea  admits  of  its  appli- 
cation either  to  the  act  of  saving  from  ruin  and  death,  or  of  relieving  any  bodily  evil, 
that  is,  of  healing.  In  this  latter  sense  it  is  frequently  used  in  the  New  Testament, 
as  in  Matt.  ix.  21,  22,  com.  trans,  "made  whole."  Also,  Mark  v.  28,  34 :  vi.  56 :  x. 
52.  In  Luke  vii.  50,  and  in  viii.  48,  the  same  expression  occurs,  both  passages  being 
exactly  alike  in  Greek  ;  but  the  common  translation  has  varied  the  interpretation  in 
the  two  places,  to  suit  the  circumstances, — in  the  former  "  saved  thee,"  and  in  the 
latter,  "  made  thee  whole."  In  this  passage  also,  Acts  iv.  12,  the  word  is  exactly  the 
same  as  that  used  in  verse  9,  where  the  common  translation  gives  "  made  whole." 
The  close  connexion  therefore  between  these  two  verses  would  seem  to  require  the 
same  meaning  in  the  word  thus  used,  and  hence  I  should  feel  justified  in  preferring 
this  rendering  ;  but  the  general  power  of  the  verb  makes  it  very  probable  that  in  this 
second  use  of  it  here,  there  was  a  sort  of  intentional  equivoque  in  the  writer  and 
speaker,  giving  force  to  the  expression,  by  the  play  on  the  meaning  afforded  by  the 
present  peculiai'  circumstances. 


166  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


THEIR  RENEWED  ZEAL. 

The  apostleS;  as  soon  as  they  were  released  from  this  unjust 
confinement,  went  directly  to  their  own  companions,  and  reported 
all  that  the  high  priests  and  elders  had  said  to  them.  And  when 
the  disciples  heard  of  the  threats  which  these  tyrannical  hierarchs 
had  laid  on  their  persecuted  brethren,  with  one  mind  they  raised 
a  voice  to  God  in  a  prayer  of  unequaled  beauty  and  power,  in 
which  they  called  upon  the  Lord,  as  the  God  who  had  made 
heaven,  and  earth,  and  sea,  and  all  in  them,  to  look  down  upon 
them,  thus  endangered  by  their  devotion  to  his  cauSe,  and  to  give 
them  all  boldness  of  speech  in  preaching  his  word ;  and  to  vindi- 
cate their  authority  still  further,  by  stretching  out  his  hand  to 
heal,  and  by  signs  and  miracles.  No  sooner  had  they  uttered  their 
prayer  than  they  received  new  assurance  of  the  help  of  God,  and 
had  new  evidence  of  a  divine  influence.  "  The  place  where  they 
were  assembled  was  shaken,  and  they  were  all  filled  again  with 
the  Holy  Spirit,  and  spake  the  word  of  God  with  renewed  bold- 
ness." This  first  attack  upon  them,  by  their  persecutors,  so  far 
from  dispiriting  or  disuniting  them,  gave  them  redoubled  courage, 
and  bound  them  together  still  with  the  ties  of  a  common  danger 
and  a  common  helper.  "  All  those  who  believed  were  of  one 
heart  and  one  soul,"  and  were  so  perfectly  devoted  to  each  others' 
good,  that  "  none  of  them  said  that  any  of  the  things  which  he 
possessed  was  his  own,  but  held  them  as  the  common  support  of 
all."  And  in  spite  of  the  repeated  denunciations  of  the  Sadducees 
and  the  Sanhedrim,  the  apostles,  with  great  power  and  eifect,  bore 
witness  of  the  resurrection  of  their  Lord ;  and  the  result  of  their 
preaching  was,  that  they  were  all  in  the  highest  favor  with  the 
people.  Neither  was  any  one  of  them  suifered  to  want  any  com- 
fort or  convenience  of  life ;  for  many  that  owned  houses  and  lands 
at  a  distance,  turned  them  into  ready  money  by  selling  them,  and 
brought  the  money  thus  obtained  to  the  apostles,  with  whom  they 
deposited  it  in  trust,  for  distribution  among  the  needy,  according 
to  their  circumstances.  This  was  done  more  particularly  by  the 
foreign  Jews,  many  of  whom  were  converted  at  the  pentecost, 
when,  being  gathered  from  all  parts,  they  heard  for  the  first  time 
of  the  Messiah,  from  the  mouths  of  his  apostles,  and  saw  their 
words  supported  by  such  wonders.  Among  these  was  a  native  of 
Cyprus,  by  name  Joseph,  a  Levite,  who  so  distinguished  himself 
by  his  labors  of  love  among  them,  and  gave  such  promise  of  ex- 


Peter's  apostleship.  167 

cellence  as  a  teacher  of  the  new  faith  which  he  had  adopted,  that 
the  apostles  honored  him  with  a  new  name,  by  which  he  was  ever 
after  known,  instead  of  his  previous  one.  They  called  him  Bar- 
nabas, wliich  means  "  the  son  of  exhortation,"  no  doubt  referring 
to  those  talents  which  he  afterwards  displayed  as  an  eminent  and 
successful  minister  of  the  gospel. 

Raised  a  voice. — This  is  literal ;  and  can  mean  nothing  more  than  the  common 
modern  expression,  "  unite  in  prayer,"  with  which  it  is  perfectly  synonymous.  The 
judicious  Bloomfield  (Annot.  in  Acts  iv.  24)  observes,  "  We  cannot  rationally  sup- 
pose that  this  prefatory  address  was  (as  some  conjecture)  not  pronounced  ex-tempore, 
but  a  pre-composed  form  of  prayer,  since  the  words  advert  to  circumstances  not 
known  until  that  very  time ;  as,  for  instance,  the  threatenings  of  the  Sanhedrim, 
(verse  29,)  of  wiiich  they  had  been  but  just  then  informed ;  and  the  words  'aKoiaavrti 
'uifif>ini.ii,i'  ijoac  (piovhv  Will  not  allow  US  to  imagine  any  interval  between  the  report  of 
Peter  and  John,  and  the  prayer."    Kuinoel's  view  is  precisely  the  same. 

Were  ill  the  highest  favor  with  the  people. — Very  different  from  the  common  transla- 
tion, '-great  grace  was  upon  them  all."  But  the  Greek  word,  Xdpu,  {Kharis,)  like 
the  Latin  gratia,  (in  the  Vulgate,)  means  primarily  "  favor:"  and  the  only  question 
is,  whether  it  refers  to  the  favor  of  God  or  of  man.  Beza,  Whitby,  Doddridge,  &c. 
prefer  the  former,  but  Kuinoel  justly  argues  from  a  comparison  of  the  parallel  pas- 
sages, (ii.  47,  and  iv.  34,)  that  it  refers  to  their  increasing  influence  on  the  attention 
and  regard  of  the  people,  which  was  indeed  the  "great  object  of  all  their  preaching 
and  miracles.    Grotius,  RosenmuUer,  Bloomfield,  and  others,  also  support  this  view. 

Deposited  in  trust. — This  is  a  free,  but  just  version  of  triQow  irapu  rovg  iruiaq,  (^etith- 
mm  para  toics  podas,)  Acts  iv.  35,  literally  and  faithfully  rendered  in  the  common 
translation  by  "  laid  at  the  feet ;"  but  this  was  an  expression  very  common  not  only 
in  Hebrew,  but  in  Greek  and  Latin  usage,  for  the  idea  of  "  deposit  in  trust ;"  as  is 
shown  by  Rosenmiiller's  apt  quotations  from  Cicero,  "  ante  pedes  praetoris  in  fore 
expensum  estauri  pondo  centum,"  (pro  Flac.  c.  28,)  and  from  Heliodorus,  n-uira  ri 
lavT:,!-,  ridium  irapa  roii  irofiai  HaaiXiuii.  But  Kuinoel  seems  not  to  think  of  these,  and 
quotes  it  as  a  mere  Hebraism. 

Barnabas,  son  of  exhortation. — -This  is  the  translation  of  this  name,  which  seems 
best  authorized.    A  fuller  account  of  it  will  be  given  in  the  life  of  Barnabas. 

ANANIAS  AND  SAPPHIRA. 

The  great  praise  and  universal  gratitude  which  followed  Bar- 
nabas, for  this  noble  and  self-denying  act  of  pure  generosity,  was 
soon  after,  the  occasion  of  a  most  shameful  piece  of  imposition, 
ending  in  an  awful  expression  of  divine  vengeance.  Led  by  the 
hope  of  cheaply  winning  the  same  praise  and  honor  which  Bar- 
nabas had  acquired  by  his  single-minded  liberality,  a  man  named 
Ananias,  with  the  knowledge  and  aid  of  his  wife  Sapphira,  having 
sold  a  piece  of  land,  brought  only  a  part  of  the  price  to  the  apos- 
tles, and  deposited  it  in  the  general  charity-fund,  alleging  at  the 
same  time,  that  this  was  the  whole  amount  obtained  for  the  land. 
But  Peter,  having  reason  to  believe  that  this  was  only  a  part  of 
the  price,  immediately  questioned  Ananias  sternly  on  this  point, 
charging  him  directly  with  the  crime  of  lying  to  God.  He  re- 
marked to  him  that  the  land  was  certainly  his  own,  and  no  one 
could  question  his  right  to  do  just  as  he  pleased  with  that,  or  the 
money  obtained  for  it  j  since  he  was  under  no  obligation  to  give  it 


168  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

away  to  the  poor  of  the  church.  But  since  he  had  of  his  own 
accord  attempted  to  get  a  reputation  for  generosity,  by  a  base  and 
avaricious  act  of  falsehood,  he  had  incurred  the  wrath  of  an  in- 
sulted God.  No  sooner  had  Ananias  heard  this  awful  denuncia- 
tion, than,  struck  with  the  vengeance  he  had  brought  on  himself, 
he  fell  lifeless  before  them,  and  was  carried  out  to  the  burial,  by 
the  attendents.  His  wife  soon  after  coming  in,  not  having  heard 
of  what  had  happened,  boldly  maintained  her  husband's  assertion^ 
and  repeated  the  lie  most  distinctly  to  Peter.  He  then  declared 
his  knowledge  of  her  guilt,  and  made  known  to  her  the  fate  of 
her  husband,  which  she  was  doomed  to  share.  The  words  had 
hardly  left  his  lips,  when  they  were  confirmed  by  her  instant  death, 
and  she  was  at  once  carried  out  and  laid  with  her  husband.  The 
effect  of  these  shocking  events,  on  the  minds  of  the  members  of 
the  church  generally,  was  very  salutary ;  exhibiting  to  them  the 
awful  consequences  of  such  deliberate  and  hardened  sin. 

Attendents. — The  common  English  translation  here  gives  the  expression,  "young 
men,"  which  is  the  primary  meaning  of  the  Greek  vrnviaxoi,  {neaniskoi,)  and  is  quite 
unobjectionable;  but  the  connexion  here  seems  to  justify  and  require  its  secondary 
use  in  application  to  "servants,"  "attendents,"  &c.  This  interpretation  has  the  au- 
thority of  the  learned  Mosheim,  who  considers  the  persons  here  mentioned,  to  have 
been  regularly  appointed  officers,  who  performed  the  necessary  duties  about  the  as- 
semblies of  the  disciples,  and  executed  all  the  commands  of  the  apostles.  He  says, 
"  unless  you  suppose  these  young  men  to  have  been  of  this  sort,  it  is  hard  to  under- 
stand why  they  alone  instantly  rose  up  and  carried  out  the  bodies  of  Ananias  and  his 
wife,  and  buried  them.  But  if  you  suppose  them  to  have  been  men  discharging  an 
official  duty  in  the  public  assembly,  you  see  a  reason  why,  even  without  orders,  they 
took  that  sad  duty  upon  themselves.  And  that  there  were  public  servants  of  this  sor: 
in  the  first  Christian  church,  no  one  certainly  can  doubt,  who  will  imagine  for  him- 
self either  its  circumstances,  or  the  form  of  the  assemblies  of  that  age.  For  instance, 
there  were  the  places  of  meeting  to  be  cleaned, — the  seats  and  tables  to  be  arranged, 
— the  sacred  books  to  be  brought  and  carried  away, — the  dishes  to  be  set  out  and 
cleared  ofi", — in  short,  there  were  many  things  to  be  done  which  absolutely  required 
particular  men."  (Mosheim  de  Reb.  Christ,  ante  Cons.  M.  p.  114,  b.)  This  passage 
is  quoted  by  Kuinoel,  and  is  so  clear  in  its  representation  of  the  circumstances,  as  to 
justify  me  in  translating  it  entire. 

THE  INCREASING  FAME  OF  THE  APOSTLES 

The  apostles,  daily  supported  anew  by  fresh  tokens  of  divine 
aid,  went  on  in  their  labors  among  the  people,  encouraged  by  their 
increasing  attention  and  favor.  So  deep  was  the  impression  of 
awe  made  by  the  late  occurrence,  that  none  of  the  rest  ol  the 
church  dared  to  mingle  familiarly  with  the  apostles,  who  now 
seemed  to  be  indued  with  the  power  of  calling  down  the  vengeance 
of  God  at  will,  and  appeared  to  be  persons  too  high  and  awful  for 
common  men  to  be  familiar  with.  Yet  the  number  of  the  cliurch 
members,  both  men  and  women,  continued  to  enlarge,  and  the  at- 
tendence  of  the  people  to  increase,  so  that  there  was  no  place 


Peter's  apostleship.  169 

which  would  accommodate  the  vast  crowd  of  hearers  and  behold- 
ers, except  the  great  porch  of  Solomon,  already  described,  where 
the  apostles  daily  met  the  church  and  the  people,  to  teach  and 
strengthen  them,  and  to  work  such  cures  as  their  Master  had 
so  often  wrought.  So  high  was  the  reputation  of  the  apostles, 
and  so  numerous  were  those  who  came  to  solicit  the  favor  of  their 
healing  power,  for  themselves  or  friends,  that  all  could  not  get  ac- 
cess to  them,  even  in  the  vast  court  of  the  temple  which  they  occu- 
pied, insomuch  that  they  brought  the  sick  into  the  streets,  and  laid 
them  on  beds  and  couches,  along  the  path  which  the  apostles  were 
expected  to  pass,  that  at  least  the  shadow  of  Peter,  passing  by, 
miffht  overshadow  some  of  them.  Nor  was  this  wonderful  fame 
and  admiration  confined  to  Jerusalem  ;  for  as  the  news  was  spread 
abroad  by  the  pilgrims  returning  from  the  pentecost,  "  there  came 
also  a  multitude  out  of  the  cities  round  about  Jerusalem,  bringing 
sick  folks  and  those  who  were  affected  by  evil  spirits,  and  they 
were  healed,  every  one." 

Mingle  familiarly  with,  them. — Com.  trans.  "  join  himself  to  them,"  which  conveys 
a  totally  erroneous  idea,  since  all  their  eiforts  were  given  to  this  end,  of  making  as 
many  as  possible  "join  themselves  to  them."  The  context  (verse  14)  shows  that  their 
numbers  were  largely  increased  by  such  additions.  "Yet  no  one  of  the  common 
members  (o!  Xoimn)  dared  mingle  familiarly  (icoXXauOai)  with  them;  but  the  people 
held  them  in  great  reverence."     Acts  v.  13. 

Met  the  church  and  people. — This  distinction  may  not  seem  very  obvious  in  a  com- 
mon reading  of  the  Acts,  but  in  v.  11,  it  is  very  clearly  drawn.  "Great  fear  was 
upon  the  whole  church  and  on  all  the  hearers  of  these  things."  And  throughout  the 
chapter,  a  nice  discrimination  is  made  between  6  Xuiif,  {ho  lao9,)  "  the  people,"  or  "  the 
congregation,"  and  h  cKK^wia,  {he  ekklesia,)  "  the  church."    See  Kuinoel  in  v.  13,  14. 

The  shadow  of  Peter. — This  is  one  of  a  vast  number  of  passages  which  show  the 
high  and  perfectly  commanding  pre-eminence  of  this  apostolic  chief.  The  people 
evidently  considered  Peter  as  concentrating  all  the  divine  and  miraculous  power  in 
his  own  person,  and  had  no  idea  at  all  of  obtaining  benefit  from  any  thing  that  the 
minor  apostles  could  do.  In  him,  alone,  they  saw  the  manifestations  of  divine  power 
and  authority  ; — he  spoke,  and  preached,  and  healed,  and  judged,  and  doomed,  while 
the  rest  had  nothing  to  do  but  assent  and  aid.  Peter,  then,  ivas  the  great  pastor  of 
the  church,  and  it  is  every  way  desirable  that  over-zealous  Protestants  would  find 
some  better  reason  for  opposing  so  palpable  a  fact,  than  simply  that  Papists  support 
it.  A  Protestant,  zealous  against  the  assumptions  of  the  church  of  Rome,  yet  honest 
and  honorable  in  that  opposition,  should  scorn  and  cast  off  the  base  and  vain  support 
that  so  many  seek  in  the  denial  of  the  divinely-appointed  pre-eminence  of  the  noble 
Peter, — a  pre-eminence,  to  my  eye,  palpably  marked  in  almost  every  passage  of 
the  gospels  and  of  the  Acts  where  the  apostles  are  mentioned.  The  spirit  which 
thus  perverts  the  obvious  meaning  of  particular  pa.ssages  and  the  general  tenor  of 
the  whole  New  Testament,  for  the  sake  of  carrying  a  point  against  the  Romanists,  is 
not  the  original  spirit  of  the  great  Reformers  who  fought  the  first  and  best  battles 
against  papal  supremacy ;  they  knew  better,  and  had  better  aids.  It  is  a  more  mo- 
dern spirit,  springing  from  an  ignorance  of  the  true  grounds  of  the  great  Protestant 
defense;  nor  till  this  offspring  of  ignorance  is  displaced  by  the  spirit  of  truth,  will 
the  Protestant  controversy  go  on  as  the  first  Reformers  so  triumphantly  began  it. 
And  if,  of  necessity,  the  Pope's  supremacy  over  all  Christian  churches  follows  from 
Peter's  superiority  over  the  other  apostles,  even  such  an  inference  is  to  be  preferred 
before  the  sacrifice  of  a  common-sense  rule  of  interpretation. 
"Non  tali  auxilio,  nee  defensoribus  istis 
Tempus  eget." — 


ITO  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

THEIR  SECOND  SEIZURE  AND  TRIAL. 

The  triumphant  progress  of  the  new  sect,  however,  was  not 
unnoticed  by  those  who  had  already  taken  so  decided  a  stand 
against  it.  The  Sadducees,  who  had  so  lately  come  out  against 
them,  were  not  yet  disposed  to  leave  the  apostles  to  enjoy  their 
boldness  with  impunity.  The  high  priest  Annas,  who  had  always 
been  the  determined  enemy  of  Christ,  belonging  to  the  Sadducean 
sect,  was  easily  led  to  employ  all  his  authority  with  his  brethren, 
against  the  apostles.  He  at  last,  provoked  beyond  endurance  at 
their  steady  and  unflinching  contempt  of  the  repeated  solemn  in- 
junction of  the  Sanhedrim,  whose  president  and  agent  he  was,  rose 
up  in  all  his,  anger  and  power,  and,  backed  by  his  friends,  seized 
the  apostles  and  put  them  into  the  common  jail,  as  inveterate  dis- 
turbers of  the  peace  of  the  city,  and  of  the  religious  order  of  the 
temple.  This  commitment  was  intended  to  be  merely  temporary, 
and  was  to  last  only  until  a  convenient  time  could  be  found  for 
bringing  them  to  trial,  when  the  crowd  of  strangers  should  have 
retired  from  the  city  to  their  homes,  and  the  excitement  attendent 
on  the  preaching  and  miracles  of  the  apostles  should  have  sub- 
sided, so  that  the  ordinary  course  of  law  might  go  on  safely,  even 
against  these  popular  favorites,  and  they  might  be  brought  at  last 
to  the  same  fate  as  their  Master.  After  the  achievment  of  this 
project,  "  a  consummation  most  devoutly  to  be  wished"'  by  every 
friend  of  the  established  order  of  things,  the  sect  which  was  now 
making  such  rapid  advances  would  fall  powerless  and  lifeless,  when 
its  great  heads  were  thus  quietly  lopped  off.  This  seems  to  have 
been  their  well-arranged  plan, — but  it  Avas  destined  to  be  spoiled 
in  a  way  unlooked  for  ;  and  this  first  step  in  it  was  to  be  made  the 
means  of  a  new  triumph  to  the  persecuted  subjects  of  it.  That 
very  night  the  prison  doors  were  opened  by  a  messenger  of  Ood, 
by  whom  the  apostles  were  brought  out  of  their  confinement,  and 
told — "  Go,  stand  and  speak  in  the  temple,  to  the  people,  all  the 
words  of  this  life."  According  to  this  divine  command,  they  went 
into  the  temple  and  taught,  early  in  the  morning,  probably  before 
their  luxurious  tyrants  had  left  their  lazy  pillows.  While  the 
apostles  were  thus  coolly  following  their  daily  labors  of  mercy 
in  the  temple,  the  high  priest  and  his  train  called  the  council 
together,  and  the  whole  senate  of  all  the  children  of  Israel,  and 
having  deliberately  arrayed  themselves  in  the  forms  of  law,  they 
ordered  the  imprisoned  heretics  to  be  brought  forthwith  into  the 


Peter's  apostleship.  171 

awful  presence  of  this  grand  council  and  senate  of  the  Jewish  na- 
tion and  faith.  The  officers,  of  course,  as  in  duty  bound,  went  to 
execute  the  order,  but  soon  returned  to  report  the  important  defi- 
ciency of  the  persons  most  needed  to  complete  the  solemn  prepa- 
rations for  the  trial.  Their  report  was  simply — "  The  prison  truly 
we  found  shut  with  all  safety,  and  the  keepers  standing  without, 
before  the  doors ;  but  when  we  had  opened,  we  found  no  man 
within."  Here  was  a  non-plus,  indeed ;  all  proceedings  were 
brought  to  a  stand  at  once ;  and  "  when  the  high  priest  and  the 
chief  officer  of  the  temple,  and  the  chief  priests  heard  these  things, 
they  doubted  of  them,  whereunto  they  would  grow."  But  these 
dignitaries  were  not  long  left  to  perplex  themselves  about  what  had 
become  of  their  prisoners ;  for  some  sycophant,  rejoicing  in  such 
an  opportunity  to  serve  the  powers  that  were,  came  running  to 
tell  them,  "  Behold  !  the  men  whom  ye  put  in  prison  are  stand- 
ing in  the  temple,  and  teaching  the  people."  This  very  simple 
but  valuable  piece  of  information  relieved  the  grave  judges  very 
happily  from  their  unfortunate  quandary;  and  without  further 
delay,  a  detachment  of  officers  was  sent  to  bring  these  unac- 
countable runaways  to  account.  But  as  it  appeared  that  the  crim- 
inals were  now  in  the  midst  of  a  vast  assemblage  of  their  friends, 
who  were  too  perfectly  devoted  to  them  to  suifer  them  to  receive 
any  violence,  it  was  agreed  to  manage  the  thing  as  quietly  and 
easily  as  might  be,  and  to  coax  them  away,  if  possible,  to  the  tri- 
bunal. To  procure  the  still  and  effectual  performance  of  this  order, 
the  captain  of  the  temple  himself  went  with  the  officers,  and  qui- 
etly drew  the  apostles  away,  with  their  own  consent ;  for  the  min- 
ions of  the  law  knew  perfectly  well  that  the  least  violence  to  these 
righteous  men,  would  insure  to  those  who  attempted  it,  broken 
heads  and  bones,  from  the  justly  provoked  people,  whose  indigna- 
tion would  soon  make  the  very  stones  to  rise  in  mutiny  for  the  de- 
fense of  their  beloved  teachers  and  benefactors.  The  apostles 
themselves,  however,  showed  no  unwillingness  whatever  to  appear 
before  their  bitter  persecutors  again  ;  and  presented  themselves  ac- 
cordingly, with  bold  unffinching  fronts,  before  the  bar  of  the  San- 
hedrim. When  they  were  fairly  set  before  the  council,  the  high 
priest,  turning  his  lately  perplexed  face  into  a  look  of  austere  dig- 
nity, asked  them,  "  Did  we  not  particularly  charge  you,  that  you 
should  not  teach  in  his  name  ?  And  now,  indeed,  in  ^en  con- 
tempt of  our  authority,  you  have  filled  all  Jerusalem  with  your 
doctrine,  and  mean  to  bring  this  man's  blood  upon  us  ?"     They, 


172  LIVES   OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  high  priest  and  his  supporters,  had,  at  no  small  pains  and 
trouble,  effected  the  death  of  Jesus,  and  had  naturally  hoped  that 
there  would  be  an  end  of  him ;  but  here,  now,  were  his  disciples 
constantly  using  his  name  to  the  excitable  populace,  in  their  daily 
teachings,  thus  keeping  alive  the  memory  of  these  painful  inci- 
dents which  it  was  so  desirable  to  forget,  and  slowly  plotting  the 
means  of  avenging  upon  the  Sanhedrim  the  death  of  their  Master. 
To  this  sort  of  address,  Peter,  and  all  the  other  apostles,  who  now 
shared  the  fate  of  their  two  distinguished  friends,  replied,  even  as 
had  been  said  on  the  previous  summons,  "  We  ought  to  obey  God 
rather  than  men.  The  God  of  our  fathers  raised  up  Jesus,  whom 
you  slew  and  hanged  on  a  tree:  him  now  has  God  uplifted  to  sit 
beside  his  own  right  hand,  to  be  a  Prince  and  a  Savior,  to  give  to 
Israel  a  change  of  heart  and  views,  and  remission  of  sins.  And 
we  are  his  witnesses  of  these  things  ;  and  what  is  far  more,  so  also 
is  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  God  has  given  to  those  who  obey  him, 
as  the  reward  and  the  sign  of  their  obedience."  This  bold  and 
solemn  speech,  breathing  nothing  but  resistence  against  all  hin- 
drances, and  steady  persistence  in  their  course, — and  denouncing, 
too,  as  murderers,  the  judges,  while  it  exalted  their  victim  to  ho- 
nors the  highest  in  the  universe,  was  not  at  all  calculated  to  con- 
ciliate the  friendly  regard  of  the  Lcarers  of  it,  but  roused  them  to 
the  most  violent  and  deadly  hate.  Deeply  wounded  and  insulted 
as  they  were,  they  determined  to  try  remonstrance  no  longer  ;  but 
in  spite  of  the  danger  of  popular  ferment,  to  silence  these  audacious 
bravers  of  their  authority,  in  death.  While  they  were  on  the 
point  of  pronouncing  this  cruel  decision,  the  proceedings  were 
stayed  by  Gamaliel,  a  man  of  vast  learning  and  influence,  an  emi- 
nent Pharisee  of  great  popularity,  and  beyond  all  the  men  of  that 
age,  in  knowledge  of  the  law  of  Moses  and  of  Hebrew  literature. 
This  great  man,  rising  up  in  the  midst  of  their  wrathful  resolu- 
tions, moved  to  suspend  the  decision  for  a  few  minutes,  and  to 
withdraw  the  prisoners  from  the  bar,  until  the  court  could  form 
their  opinions  by  deliberating  with  more  freedom  than  they  could  in 
the  presence  of  the  subjects  of  the  trial.  As  soon  as  the  apostles 
were  out  of  the  court,  Gamaliel  addressed  the  council,  prompted 
by  a  noble  humanity,  as  well  as  by  a  deep  knowledge  of  human 
nature,  and  acting  in  accordance  also,  with  the  general  principles 
of  the  Phrarisees,  who  were  very  averse  to  cruelty  and  bloodshed, 
and  were  generally  disposed  to  punish  even  criminals  in  the  mild- 
est ways.     Possibly,  too,  he  might  have  been  affected  by  some 


Peter's  apostleship.  173 

jealousy  of  the  forwardness  of  the  rival  sect.  His  words  were 
these : — "  Men  of  Israel !  take  care  what  you  do  to  these  men. 
For  you  know  that  not  long  ago  rose  up  Theudas,  boasting  him- 
self to  be  somebody,  and  gathered  a  gang  about  him,  to  the  num- 
ber of  four  hundred.  But  as  soon  as  the  attention  of  our  Roman 
masters  was  drawn  to  his  outrageous  doings,  they  put  him  en- 
tirely down  at  once,  killing  him  and  breaking  up  his  band,  by 
slaughter  and  banishment ;  so  that  without  any  trouble  or  exertion 
on  our  part,  all  this  sedition  was  brought  to  nought.  And  when, 
after  him,  Judas  the  Galilean  raised  a  great  party  about  him,  in 
the  days  of  the  taxing,  this  rebellion  against  the  government  met 
with  the  same  inevitable  fate,  from  the  resistless  soldiery  of  Rome  ; 
and  all  this  was  done  without  any  need  of  interference  from  us. 
And  now,  with  these  remarkable  instances  in  view,  I  warn  you  to 
let  these  men  alone,  and  leave  them  to  determine  their  fate  by  their 
own  future  conduct.  For  if,  in  all  their  active  efforts  of  seeming 
benevolence,  they  have  been  prompted  by  any  base  ambition  to 
head  a  faction,  which  may  raise  them  to  the  supreme  power  in 
religious  £ind  political  affairs,  and  by  a  revengeful  wish  to  punish 
those  concerned  in  the  death  of  their  Master ; — if,  in  short,  their 
plan  or  their  work  is  a  mere  contrivance  of  men,  it  will  come  to 
nought  of  itself,  vathout  your  interference,  as  did  the  two  misera- 
ble riots  which  I  have  just  mentioned.  '  But  if,  inspired  by  a  holier 
principle  of  action,  they  are  laboring  with  pure  love  of  their  con- 
verts ;  if  all  these  wonderful  cures  which  you  consider  mere  tricks 
and  impostures,  shall  prove  to  be  true  miracles,  wrought  by  the 
hand  of  God,  and  if  their  plan  be  of  Him, — you  cannot  overthrow 
it ;  and  do  you  look  to  it,  sirs,  that  you  do  not  find  yourselves  at 
last  fighting  against  God."  This  noble  and  sensible  speech,  aided 
by  the  high  rank  and  great  weight  of  character  which  belonged 
to  the  speaker,  instantly  hushed  all  the  lately  outrageous  proposals 
which  had  been  made  against  the  prisoners.  If  there  were  any 
in  the  council  who  did  not  feel  satisfied  with  his  reasoning,  they 
were  wise  enough  to  acquiesce,  with  at  least  the  appearance  of 
content.  They  knew  too  well,  that  Gamaliel,  supported  by  his 
unbounded  popularity  with  the  whole  nation,  and  his  eminently 
exalted  character  for  justice  and  virtue,  was  abundantly  able  to 
put  down  every  appearance  of  opposition,  and  set  the  apostles  free, 
in  spite  of  high  priest  and  Sadducees.  Adopting  his  resolution, 
therefore,  they  called  in  the  apostles,  and  having  vented  their  paltry 
malice  by  beating  them,  and  having  exposed  themselves  to  new 


174 


LI7ES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 


contempt  by  repeating  their  oft-despised  command,  that  the  apos- 
tles should  not  speak  in  the  name  of  Jesus,  they  let  them  go, — 
being  fully  assured  that  the  first  use  the  apostles  would  make  of 
their  freedom  would  be  to  break  this  idle  injunction.  For  they 
went  out  of  the  judgment-hall,  rejoicing  that  they  were  honored 
by  suffering  this  shameful  treatment  in  their  Master's  name.  They 
now  recalled  to  mind  his  early  words  of  encouragement,  which  he 
had  given  them  in  a  wise  determination  to  prepare  them  for  evils 
of  which  they  had  then  so  little  notion.  The  passage  from  the 
sermon  on  the  mount  was  particularly  appropriate  to  their  present 
circumstances.  "  Blessed  are  they  who  are  persecuted  for  right- 
eousness' sake,  for  theirs  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Blessed  are 
ye,  when  men  shall  revile  you,  and  persecute  you,  and  say  all 
manner  of  evil  against  you  falsely,  for  my  name's  sake.  Rejoice 
and  be  exceeding  glad ;  for  great  is  your  reward  in  heaven  ;  for  so 
persecuted  they  the  prophets  who  were  before  you."  Comforted 
by  such  words  as  these,  they  returned  to  their  labors  as  before ; 
and  daily,  in  the  temple,  and  moreover  in  private  houses,  ceased 
not  to  teach  and  to  preach  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  very  face  of  the 
express  prohibition  of  their  thwarted  persecutors. 

Messenger. — This  is  a  fair  and  literal  interpretation  of  nyyeXoj,  (angelos,")  and  one 
justifiable  in  every  place  where  it  occurs  in  the  Bible.  Wherever  it  is  applied  to  a 
supernatural  being  sent  from  God,  the  connexion  will  abundantly  explain  the  term, 
without  rendering  it  by  a  different  word.  Thus  I  have  chosen  to  do,  and  to  leave 
each  reader  to  judge  for  himself,  from  the  other  attendent  circumstances,  of  the  cha- 
racter of  the  messenger.     See  Kuinoel  in  he. 

All  the  words  of  this  life. — I  here  follow  the  common  translation,  though  Kuinoel 
and  most  interpreters  consider  this  as  a  hypallage,  and  transpose  it  into  "  all  these 
words  of  life."  But  it  does  not  seem  necessary  to  take  such  a  liberty  with  the  expres- 
sion, since  the  common  version  conveys  a  clear  idea.  "  The  words  of  this  Iffe"  evi- 
dently can  mean  only  the  words  of  that  life  which  they  had  before  preached,  in  ac- 
cordance with  their  commission  ;  that  is,  of  life  from  the  dead,  as  manifested  in  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus,  which  was  in  itself  the  pledge  and  promise  of  life  and  bliss 
eternal,  to  all  who  should  hear  and  believe  these  "  words."  This  view  is  supported 
by  Storr,  and  a  similar  one  is  advanced  by  Rosenmuller,  in  preference  to  any  hvpaU 
lagc. 

Deeply  wounded. — In  the  Greek,  luvpiovro,  {dieprionto,')  from  itaftpico,  "  to  saw 
through  ;"  in  the  passive,  of  course,  "  to  be  sawn  through,  or  figuratively,  "  deeply 
wounded  in  the  moral  feelings."  This  is  the  com.  trans,  "cut  to  the  heart,"  which 
I  have  adopted,  with  such  a  variation  of  the  words  as  will  assimilate  it  most  nearly 
to  common  modem  forms  of  expression.  But  Kuinoel  prefers  the  peculiar  force  of 
the  middle  voice,  (where  this  word  can  be  made,  owing  to  the  identity  of  the  imp. 
tenses  of  the  two  voices,)  given  by  Hesychius,  "  to  gnash  the  teeth,"  doub'less  taken 
from  the  similarity  of  sound  between  "sawing,"  and  "grating  the  teeth."  This 
sense  being  also  highly  appropriate  here  to  men  in  a  rage,  makes  the  passage  per- 
fectly ambiguous,  and  accordingly  great  authorities  divide  on  the  point.  In  such 
cases,  it  seems  to  me  perfectly  fair  to  consider  the  phrase  as  originally  intended  for 
an  equivoque.  Luke  was  Grecian  enough,  doubtless,  to  know  the  two  meanings  of 
this  form,  and  must  have  been  very  careless  if  he  did  not  think  of  them  as  he  wrote  it 
down;  but  either  meaning  is  powerfully  expressive  of  the  idea  here,  and  why  should 
he  reject  or  explain  it  1  It  is  rather  an  advantage  and  a  charm  than  otherwise,  in  a 
Icinguage,  to  possess  this  ambiguity,  making  occasionally  a  richly  expressive  play  of 


Peter's  apostleship.  175 

meanings.    It  seems,  however,  more  in  accordance  with  Luke's  ordinary  expressions, 

to  prefer  the  passii^e  sense,  as  in  Acts  vii.  54,  raTs  KapSian  ("  to  their  hearts")  is  added 
there,  of  course  requiring  the  passive.  For  similar  forms  of  expression,  see  Luko 
ii.  35:  Acts  ii.  37.— Consult  Bretschneider  in  loc.  In  favor  of  the  passive  sense,  see 
Bioomficld,  RosenmiiUer,  Wolf,  Hammond,  and  Gataker.  On  the  middle  sense, 
Kuinoel,  Beza,  and  Welstein. 

Gamaliel. — A  full  account  of  this  venerable  sage  will  be  given  in  the  beginning  of 
the  life  of  Paul. 

Ill  the  temple  and  in  private  houses. — Acts  v.  42,  In  the  Greek,  Kar'  o7kov,  {kaVoikon,') 
the  same  expression  as  in  ii.  46,  alluded  to  in  my  note  on  pages  158,  159.  Here  too, 
occurs  precisely  the  same  connexion  with  h  rw  UpCj,  (en  to  hiero,)  with  the  same  sense 
of  opposition  in  place,  there  alluded  to.  The  indefinite  sense,  then,  rather  than  the 
distributive,  is  proper  here  as  there,  showing  that  they  preached  and  taught  not  only 
in  their  great  place  of  assembly,  under  the  eastern  colonnade  of  the  temple,  (v.  12,) 
but  also  in  private  houses,  that  is,  at  their  house,  or  those  of  their  friends.  The  expres- 
sion "  from  house  to  house,"  however,  is  much  less  objectionable  here,  because  in  this 
passage  it  can  give  only  an  indefinite  idea  of  place,  without  any  particular  idea  of 
rotation ;  but  in  the  other  passage,  in  connexion  with  "  the  taking  of  food,"  it  makes 
an  erroneous  impression  of  their  mode  of  life,  which  the  text  is  me£int  to  describe. 

THE  APPOINTMENT  OF  DEACONS. 

The  successful  progress  of  their  labors  had  now  gathered  around 
them  a  great  church,  numbering  among  its  members  a  vast  throng 
both  of  Hebrew  and  of  foreign  Jews.  The  apostles  being  devoted 
wholly  to  their  high  duties  of  prayer  and  preaching,  were  unable 
to  superintend  particularly  the  daily  distribution  of  the  means  of 
support  to  the  needy,  out  of  the  charity-fund  which  had  been  ga- 
thered from  the  generous  contributions  of  the  wealthy  members  of 
the  church.  Among  the  foreign  Jews  who  had  joined  the  frater- 
nity of  the  disciples,  were  many  of  those  who,  by  education,  lan- 
guage, and  manners,  though  not  by  race  or  religion,  were  Greeks, 
These,  with  the  proselytes,  being  fewer  than  those  who  adhered 
to  the  genuine  manners  and  language  of  Palestine,  had  compara- 
tively little  weight  in  the  administration  of  the  affairs  of  the  church, 
and  had  no  hand  in  the  distribution  to  the  church  poor.  Being 
a  minority,  and  being  moreover  looked  on  with  invidious  eyes  by 
the  genuine  Hebrews,  as  a  sort  of  half  renegades,  they  were  over- 
looked and  put  back,  in  the  daily  ministration  to  the  needy ;  and 
to  such  a  degree,  that  even  the  helpless  widows  among  them  were 
absolutely  suffering  through  this  neglect.  The  natural  conse- 
quence was  that  murmurs  and  open  complaints  arose  among  them, 
at  this  shameful  and  unbrotherly  partiality.  As  soon  as  the  report 
of  the  difficulty  reached  the  ears  of  the  twelve,  they  immediately 
called  a  full  church-meeting,  and  laid  the  matter  before  it  in  these 
words  : — "  It  is  not  proper  that  we  should  leave  the  preaching  of 
the  word  of  God,  to  wait  on  tables.  Wherefore,  brethren,  look  ye 
out  among  you  seven  reputable  men,  full  of  a  holy  spirit  and  of 
wisdom,  whom  we  rnay  intrust  with  this  business ;  while  we  con- 


176  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

tinue  to  give  our  time  up  wholly  to  prayer  and  the  ministry  of  the 
word."  This  wise  plan  pleased  all  parties,  and  the  church  pro- 
ceeded to  elect  the  proper  persons  for  the  charge.  To  soothe  the 
feelings  of  the  Hellenists,  the  whole  seven  were  chosen  from  their 
number,  as  the  names  (which  are  all  Greek)  fully  show.  This 
makes  it  probable  that  there  were  already  persons  appointed  from 
among  the  Hebrews,  who  had  administered  these  charities  from 
the  beginning,  and  whose  partial  management  of  these  matters 
had  given  offense  to  those  whom  they  slighted.  The  seven  Hel- 
lenists now  chosen  to  this  office,  were  Stephen,  resplendent  in 
spiritual  and  intellectual  endowments ;  Philip,  also  highly  distin- 
guished afterwards  by  his  successful  preaching ;  Prochorus,  Nica- 
nor,  Timon,  Parmenas,  and  Nicolas,  a  proselyte  of  Antioch ;  by 
which  last  circumstance,  (as  well  as  by  the  case  of  Barnabas,)  is 
shown  the  fact  that  some  Hellenist  converts,  from  a  distance,  had 
settled  at  Jerusalem,  and  permanently  joined  the  followers  of 
Christ.  These  seven  being  formally  elected  by  the  church,  were 
brought  in  before  the  apostles,  for  approval  and  confirmation.  And 
after  they  had  prayed,  they  laid  their  hands  on  them,  in  token  of 
imparting  to  them  the  blessing  and  the  power  of  that  divine  influence 
which  had  inspired  its  previous  possessors  to  deeds  so  energetic 
and  triumphant.  The  efficiency  of  this  prayer  and  benediction 
in  calling  down  divine  grace  on  the  heads  thus  touched  by  the 
hands  of  the  apostles,  was  afterwards  most  remarkably  demon- 
strated in  the  case  of  two  of  the  seven,  and  in  the  case  of  the  first 
of  them,  almost  immediately. 

Greeks. — The  original  word  here  is  not  "EXXij^e;,  {Hellenes,')  but  'EXXrjvrtrrai,  [Hel- 
lenistai,)  which  means  not  Grecians,  but  Grecizers ;  that  is,  those  who  imitated  (Gre- 
cian language  or  customs. 

Genuine  Hebreios. — By  these  are  meant  those  who  used  the  Hebrew  language  still 
in  their  synagogues,  as  the  only  sacred  tongue,  and  looked  with  much  scorn  on  the 
Hellenists,  that  is,  those  foreign  Jews,  who,  from  birth  or  residence  in  other  lands, 
had  learned  the  Greek  as  their  sole  language  in  common  life,  and  were  thus  obliged 
to  use  the  Greek  translation,  in  order  to  understand  the  scriptures.  This  matter  will 
have  a  fuller  discussion  in  another  place.  Lightfoot  has  brought  a  most  amazing 
quantity  of  learned  and  valuable  illustration  of  this  diflerence,  from  Talmudic  liter- 
ature.   (Hor.  Heb.  et  Talm.  in  Act.  vi.  1.) 

All  Hellenists.— This  is  the  opinion  of  many  eminent  commentators, — Beza,  Sal- 
masius,  Piscator,  Camerarius.    (See  Poole's  Synopsis.) 

Christ's  first  martyr. 

Stephen,  after  thus  being  set  apart  for  the  service  of  the  church, 

though  faithfully  discharging  the  peculiar  duties  to  which  he  was 

called,  did  not  confine  his  labors  to  the  mere  administration  of  the 

public  charities.     The  word  of  God  had  now  so  spread,  under 


Peter's  apostleship.  177 

the  ministry  of  the  apostles,  that  the  number  of  the  disciples  in 
Jerusalem  was  greatly  enlarged,  and  that  not  merely  from  the 
lower  and  ignorant  orders ;  but  a  great  number  of  the  priests, 
who,  in  their  daily  service  in  the  temple,  had  been  frequently  un- 
intentional hearers  of  the  word  preached  in  its  courts,  now  pro- 
fessed themselves  the  submissive  friends  of'  the  new  faith.  This 
remarkable  increase  excited  public  attention  more  and  more,  and 
required  redoubled  exertions  to  meet  the  increasing  call  for  in- 
struction. Stephen,  therefore,  immediately  entered  boldly  and 
heartily  on  this  good  work ;  and,  inspired  by  a  pure  faith,  and 
the  confidence  of  help  from  above,  he  wrought  among  the  people 
such  miracles  as  had  hitherto  followed  only  the  ministry  of  the 
apostles.  The  bold  actions  of  this  new  champion  did  not  fail  to 
excite  the  wrath  of  the  enemies  of  the  cause  of  Christ ;  but  as 
the  late  decision  of  the  Sanhedrim  had  been  against  any  further 
immediate  resort  to  violent  measures,  his  opponents  confined  them- 
selves to  the  forms  of  verbal  debate  for  a  while.  As  Stephen  was 
one  of  those  Jews  who  had  adopted  the  Greek  language  and  ha- 
bits, and  probably  directed  his  labors  more  particularly  to  that 
class  of  persons,  he  soon  became  peculiarly  obnoxious  to  those 
Hellenist  Jews  who  still  held  out  ag-ainst  the  new  doctrine.  Of 
the  numerous  congregations  of  foreign  Jews  that  filled  Jerusalem, 
five  in  particular  are  mentioned  as  distinguishing  themselves  by 
this  opposition, — that  of  the  freedmen,  or  captive  Jews  once  slaves 
in  Rome,  and  their  descendents, — that  of  the  Cyrenians, — of  the 
Alexandrians, — the  Cilicians,  and  the  Asians.  Some  of  the  more 
zealous  in  all  these  congregations  came  out  to  meet  Stephen  in 
debate,  with  the  polished  points  of  Grecian  logic,  which  their  ac- 
quaintance with  that  language  enabled  them  to  use  against  him. 
But  not  all  the  combined  powers  of  sacred  and  profane  literature 
availed  any  thing  against  their  learned  and  inspired  opponent. 
Prepared  beforehand,  thoroughly,  in  all  sorts  of  wisdom,  and 
borne  on  resistlessly,  moreover,  by  that  divine  influence  whose 
movements  they  could  see  but  could  not  understand,  he  foiled 
them  completely  at  all  their  own  weapons,  and  exposed  them,  in 
their  low  bigotry  and  stupidity,  baffled  and  silenced  by  his  single 
voice.  But  among  all  the  refinements  and  elegances  with  which 
their  classical  knowledge  had  made  them  acquainted,  they  had 
failed  to  attain  that  noblest  point  of  the  rhetorical  art,  which  is — 
to  bear  a  fair  defeat  in  open  debate,  gracefully.  These  low-minded, 
half-renegade  bigots,  burning  with  brutal  rage  for  this  defeat,  whicfc 


178  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

their  base  behavior  made  more  disgraceful,  determined  to  find  a 
means  of  punishing  him,  which  no  logic  or  rhetoric  could  resist. 
They  f^und  men  bad  enough  for  their  vile  purposes,  and  instructed 
(hem  liD  testify  that  they  had  heard  him  speak  blasphemous  words 
against  Moses  and  against  God.  On  the  strength  of  this  heinous 
charge,  they  made  out  to  rouse  some  of  the  people,  as  well  as  the 
elders  and  the  scribes,  to  a  similar  hostile  feeling  ;  and  coming 
upon  him  with  a  throng  of  these,  they  seized  him  and  dragged 
him  away  to  the  Sanhedrim,  to  undergo  the  form  of  a  trial.  They 
then  brought  forward  their  perjured  witnesses,  who  testified  only 
in  vague  terms  of  abuse  : — "  This  man  ceases  not  to  speak  blasphe- 
mous words  against  this  holy  place  and  the  law.  For  we  have 
heard  him  say  that  this  Jesus,  the  Nazarene,  will  destroy  this 
place,  and  will  do  away  with  the  customs  which  Moses  delivered 
to  us."  This  was,  after  all,  a  kind  of  accusation  which  brought 
him  more  particularly  under  the  invidious  notice  of  the  Pharisees, 
whose  leader  had  lately  so  decidedly  befriended  the  apostles;  for 
that  sect  guarded  with  the  most  jealous  care  all  the  minute  details 
of  their  religion,  and  were  ever  ready  to  punish,  as  a  traitor  to  the 
national  faith  and  honor,  any  one  who  spoke  slightingly,  or  even 
doubtingly,  of  the  perpetuity  of  the  law  of  Moses,  and  its  hallow- 
ed shrine.  Perhaps  there  was  no  one  of  all  the  sayings  of  Jesus 
himself,  which  had  given  deeper  offense  than  his  remark  about  de- 
stroying the  temple  and  rebuilding  it  in  three  days,  which  his  silly 
hearers  took  up  seriously,  and  construed  into  a  serious,  blasphe- 
mous insult  of  the  chief  glory  of  the  Jewish  name,  and  bore  it  in 
mind  so  bitterly,  as  to  throw  it  back  on  him,  in  his  last  agonies 
on  the  cross.  Such  a  saying,  therefore,  when  laid  to  the  charge 
of  Stephen,  could  not  but  rouse  the  worst  feehngs  against  him,  in 
the  hearts  of  all  his  judges.  But  he,  calm  and  undisturbed  amid 
the  terrors  of  this  trial,  as  he  had  been  in  the  fury  of  the  dispute, 
bore  such  an  aspect  of  composure,  that  all  who  sat  in  the  council 
were  struck  with  his  angelic  look.  The  high  priest,  however, 
having  heard  the  accusation,  solemnly  called  on  the  prisoner  to 
say  "  whether  these  things  were  so."  Stephen  then,  with  a  de- 
termination to  meet  the  charge  by  a  complete  exhibition  of  his 
views  of  the  character  and  objects  of  the  Jewish  faith,  ran  over 
the  general  history  of  its  rise  and  progress,  and  of  the  opinions 
which  its  founders  and  upholders  had  expressed  concerning  the 
importance  and  the  perpetuity  of  those  types  and  forms,  and  of  the 
glorious  temple  which  was  their  chief  seat,  when  compared  with 


Peter's  apostleship.  179 

the  revelation  to  be  expected  through  the  prophet  promised  to 
them  by  God  and  foretold  by  Moses.  Warming  as  he  went  on,  he 
quoted  the  poetical  words  of  Isaiah,  on  the  dwelling-place  of  the 
Almighty,  as  not  being  confined  to  the  narrow  bounds  of  the  build- 
ing which  was  to  them  an  object  of  such  idolatrous  reverence  as 
the  sole  place  of  Jehovah's  abode,  but  as  being  high  in  the  heavens, 
whence  his  power  and  love  spread  their  boundless  grasp  over  sea 
and  land,  and  all  nations  that  dwelt  beneath  his  throne.  As  the 
words  of  the  prophet  of  the  fire-touched  lips  rolled  forth  in  the  voice 
of  Stephen,  they  kindled  his  soul  into  an  ecstacy  of  holy  wrath ; 
and  in  open  scorn  of  their  mean  cruelty,  he  broke  away  from  the 
plan  of  his  discourse,  bursting  out  into  burning  expressions  of  re- 
proach and  denunciation,  which  carried  their  rage  beyond  all 
bounds  of  reason.  Conscious  of  their  physical  power  to  avenge 
the  insult,  the  mob  instantly  rose  up,  and  hurried  him  away  from 
the  court,  without  regard  to  the  forms  of  law ;  and  taking  him 
without  the  city,  they  stoned  him  to  death,  while  he  invoked  on 
them,  not  the  wrath,  but  the  mercy  of  their  common  God.  In 
such  prayers,  gloriously  crowning  such  labors  and  sufferings,  he 
fell  asleep,  commending  his  spirit  to  the  hands  of  that  Lord  and 
Savior,  whom  it  was  his  exalted  honor  to  follow,  first  of  all, 
through  the  bitter  agonies  of  a  bloody  death. 

The  freedmen. — This  is  the  proper  translation  of  the  word  AiPeprTvoi,  (^Libertinoi,) 
— Latin,  Liberlini,  which  the  English  translation  expresses  by  the  word — Libertines, — 
a  very  absurd  term,  and  very  apt  to  mislead  a  cornmon  reader.  Some  (as  Drusius 
and  Casaubon)  have  supposed  that  it  might  be  the  proper  name  of  a  nation  in  north- 
ern Africa;  but  the  general  decision  of  critics,  and  the  manifest  probabilities,  are 
against  such  a  notion.  The  persons  thus  named  in  the  Acts  were,  doubtless,  Jews 
who  had  been  slaves  in  Rome,  and  being  freed,  had  returned  to  Jerusalem  ;  or  they 
were  Gentile  freed  slaves  who  had  been  converted  to  Judaism,  and  thus  came  under 
the  denomination  of  Liberlini,  or  freedmen.  (See  Lightfoot  and  Poole  for  illustra- 
tions of  the  character  of  these  foreign  synagogues.) 

THE  PERSECUTION. 

Among  the  nameless  herd  of  Stephen's  murderers  and  dispu- 
tants, there  was  one  only  whose  name  has  been  preserved  from 
the  impenetrable  oblivion  which  hides  their  infamy.  And  that 
name  now  is  brought  to  the  mind  of  every  Christian  reader,  with- 
out one  emotion  of  indignation  or  contempt,  for  its  connexion  with 
this  bloody  murder.  That  man  is  now  known  to  hundreds  of 
millions,  and  has  been  for  centuries  known  to  millions  of  millions, 
as  a  bright  leader  of  the  hosts  of  the  ransomed,  and  the  faithful 
martyr  who  sealed  with  his  blood  the  witness  which  this  proto- 
martyr  bore  boneath  the  messengers  of  death  to  which  his  voice 


180  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

had  doomed  him.  In  the  synagogue  of  the  Cilicians,  which  was 
so  active  in  the  attack  on  Stephen,  was  a  young  man,  who  was 
not  behind  the  oldest  and  fiercest,  in  the  steady,  unrelenting  hate 
which  he  bore  to  this  devouring  heresy.  He  gave  his  voice  amid 
the  clamors  of  the  mob,  to  swell  the  cry  for  the  death  of  the  he- 
retic ;  and  when  the  stout  murderers  hurled  the  deadly  missiles 
on  the  martyr's  naked  head,  it  was  he  who  took  charge  of  the  loose 
garments  which  they  had  thrown  off,  that  they  might  use  their 
limbs  with  greater  freedom.  Neither  the  sight  of  the  saintly  mar- 
tyr, kneeling  unresistingly  to  meet  his  bloody  death,  nor  the  sound 
of  his  voice,  rising  in  the  broken  tones  of  the  death-agony  in 
prayer  for  his  murderers,  could  move  the  deep  hate  of  this  young 
zealot,  to  the  least  relenting ;  but  the  whole  scene  only  led  him  to 
follow  this  example  of  merciless  persecution,  which  he  here  viewed 
with  such  deep  delight.  Abundant  opportunities  for  the  exercise 
of  this  persecuting  spirit  soon  occurred.  In  connexion  with  the 
charge  against  Stephen,  which,  however  unfounded,  brought  him 
to  this  illegal  death,  there  was  a  general  and  systematic  disturb- 
ance raised  by  the  same  persons,  against  the  church  in  Jerusalem ; 
more  particularly  directed,  as  it  would  seem,  against  the  Hellenist 
members,  who  were  involved,  by  general  suspicion,  in  the  same 
crime  for  which  Stephen,  their  eminent  brother,  had  suffered.  Saul 
now  distinguished  himself  at  once  above  all  others,  by  the  active 
share  which  he  took  in  this  persecution.  Raging  against  the 
faithful  companions  of  the  martyred  Stephen,  he,  with  the  most 
inquisitorial  zeal,  sought  them  out,  even  in  their  own  quiet  dwell- 
ings, and  violating  the  sanctity  of  home,  he  dragged  out  the  in- 
mates to  prison,  visiting  even  on  helpless  women  the  crime  of 
believing  as  their  consciences  prompted, — and  without  regard  to 
delicacy  or  decency,  shutting  them  up  in  the  public  dungeons.  As 
soon  as  the  storm  began  to  burst  on  the  new  converts,  those  who 
were  in  any  special  danger  of  attack  very  properly  sought  safety  in 
flight  from  the  city,  in  accordance  with  the  wise  and  merciful  in- 
junction laid  upon  the  apostles  by  their  Lord,  when  he  first  sent 
them  forth  as  sheep  in  the  midst  of  wolves, — "  When  they  perse- 
cute you  in  one  city,  flee  into  another."  The  consequences  of  this 
dispersion,  however,  were  such  as  to  turn  the  foolish  rage  of  the 
persecutors  to  the  solid  advantage  of  the  cause  of  Christ,  and  to 
show  in  what  a  variety  of  ways  God  can  cause  the  wrath  of  man 
to  praise  him.  For  all  those  who  were  thus  driven  out  of  their 
peaceful  homes,  became  missionaries  of  the  word  of  truth,  among 


Peter's  apostleship.  181 

the  people  of  the  various  cities  and  countries  through  which  they 
were  scattered.  All  those  of  whose  wanderings  we  have  any  ac- 
count, seem  to  have  journeyed  northward  and  north-westward : 
probably  all  of  them  foreign  Jews,  who  naturally  returned  home 
when  driven  out  of  Jerusalem.  Some  of  these  went,  in  this  way. 
to  the  Phoenician  coast,  to  Antioch,  and  to  Cyprus,  all  laboring  to 
extend  the  knowledge  of  that  truth  for  which  they  were  willing 
sufferers.  But  of  all  those  who  went  forth  on  this  forced  mission, 
none  appear  to  have  been  more  successful  than  Philip,  who  stood 
next  to  the  martyred  Stephen  on  the  list  of  the  seven  Hellenist 
servants  of  the  church,  and  who  appears  to  have  been  second  not 
even  to  his  great  fellow-servant  in  ability  and  energy.  His  home 
was  in  Caesarea,  on  the  sea-coast ;  but  he  had  higher  objects  than 
merely  to  take  refuge  in  his  own  domestic  circle ;  for  instead  of 
thus  indulging  his  feelings  of  natural  affection,  he  also  turned  his 
course  northward,  and  made  his  first  sojourn  in  the  city  of  Sa- 
maria, where  he  immediately  began  to  preach  Christ  to  them,  as 
the  common  Messiah,  so  long  desired  by  Samaritans  as  well  as 
Jews.  Here,  the  people  being  ruled  by  no  tyrannical  sectaries, 
like  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees,  and  the  various  orders  of  eccle- 
siastical power  in  Jerusalem,  were  left  entirely  to  follow  the  im- 
pulse of  their  better  feelings  towards  the  truth,  without  the  fear 
of  any  inquisition  into  their  movements.  Under  these  happy  cir- 
cumstances of  religious  freedom,  they  all  with  one  accord  gave 
heed  to  the  preaching  of  Philip,  hearing  and  seeing  the  wonderful 
works  of  kindness  which  he  did.  For  foul  spirits,  which  possess- 
ing many  sufferers,  had  long  wasted  their  bodies  and  deranged 
their  minds,  now  at  the  word  of  this  preacher  of  Christ,  came  out 
of  many  of  them,  crying  with  a  loud  voice  in  attestation  of  the 
irresistible  power  which  had  overcome  them.  Many  also  that 
were  affected  with  palsies  and  that  were  lame,  were  healed  in  the 
same  miraculous  manner;  so  that,  in  consequence  of  this  removal 
of  so  many  bodily  and  spiritual  evils,  there  was  great  joy  in  the 
city,  at  the  arrival  of  this  messenger  of  mercy.  But  before  the 
coming  of  Pliilip,  the  people  of  Samaria  had  been  the  subjects  of 
arts  of  a  somewhat  different  kind,  from  a  man  who  could  claim 
for  his  works  none  of  the  holy  character  of  disinterested  humanity, 
which  belonged  to  those  of  the  preacher  of  Christ.  This  was 
one  Simon,  a  man  who,  by  the  use  of  some  magical  tricks,  had  so 
imposed  upon  the  simple-minded  citizens,  that  they  were  profoundly 
impressed  with  the  notion,  which  he  was  anxious  to  make  them 


182  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

believe,  namely,  that  he  was  a  great  man.  To  him  they  all,  both 
young  and  old,  paid  the  deepest  reverence,  in  consequence  of  the 
triumphant  ability  displayed  by  him  in  the  arts  of  sorcery ;  and  so 
low  were  their  notions  of  the  nature  of  miraculous  agency,  that 
they  concluded  that  the  tricks  which  he  played  were  tokens  of 
divine  interposition  in  his  favor,  and  universally  allowed  that  he 
was  himself  a  personification  of  the  mighty  power  of  God.  But 
when  Philip  came  among  them,  and  exhibited  the  genuine  work- 
ings of  the  holy  spirit  of  God,  they  immediately  saw  how  much 
they  had  been  mistaken  in  their  previous  estimate  of  its  operations ; 
and  changed  their  degraded  notions,  for  a  more  just  appreciation  of 
its  character.  On  hearing  the  word  of  truth  so  fully  revealed 
and  supported,  they  believed  in  the  new  view  which  he  gave  them 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  and  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ; 
and  were  baptized,  both  men  and  women.  Even  Simon  himself, 
overwhelmed  with  the  evidences  of  a  higher  power  than  any  that 
he  knew,  confessed  the  fallacy  of  his  own  tricks,  and  submissively 
owned  the  power  of  God  as  manifested  in  the  words  and  deeds  of 
Philip,  with  whom  he  now  remained,  a  humble  and  wondering 
observer  of  the  miracles  and  signs  wrought  by  him. 

THE  VISIT  TO  SAMARIA. 

In  the  meantime,  the  apostles  had  remained  at  Jerusalem,  ap- 
parently not  directly  affected  by  the  persecution  against  Stephen 
and  his  friends,  or  at  least,  not  disturbed  by  it  so  as  to  be  prevent- 
ed from  remaining  at  their  original  post,  in  the  discharge  of  duty. 
For,  a  true  regard  for  the  instructions  long  ago  given  them  by 
their  Master,  would  have  required  them  to  leave  Jerusalem,  if  the 
opposition  to  their  preaching  became  so  settled  and  extensive  as 
to  prevent  them  from  advancing  the  cause  of  Christ  there,  more 
rapidly  than  they  might  in  other  places.  The  spirit  with  which 
they  had  been  taught  to  meet  tyrannical  opposition,  was  not  one 
of  idle  bravado  or  useless  pertinacity,  but  of  deliberate  and  cal- 
culating steadiness  in  their  plan,  which  knew  when  to  prudently 
give  way,  as  well  as  when  to  boldly  withstand.  It  is  therefore 
feiir  to  conclude,  that  the  persecution  here  referred  to,  was  so  lim- 
ited as  not  to  be  directed  against  the  apostles  themselves,  nor  to 
hinder  their  useful  labors.  If  any  of  them  had  been  imprisoned 
during  this  persecution,  certainly  the  rest  would  have  been  bla- 
mable  for  not  escaping  ;  but  the  fact  that  they  remained  perfectly 
free,  appears  from  their  leaving  the  city  without  delay,  on  the 


Peter's  apostleship.  183 

occasion  which  now  required  their  presence  and  assistance  else- 
where. For  as  soon  as  they  heard  of  the  preachimg  of  Philip  at 
Samaria,  and  of  the  willingness  with  which  the  Samaritans  had 
received  and  believed  the  first  communications  of  the  word,  they 
immediately  sent  to  them  Peter  and  John,  who,  as  the  chief 
teachers  of  the  doctrines  of  Christ,  might  give  the  new  converts  a 
fuller  preparation  for  their  duties  in  their  calling,  than  could  be 
expected  from  one  so  lately  commissioned  as  the  zealous  preacher 
who  had  first  awakened  them.  These  two  great  apostles,  having 
come  down  to  Samaria,  prayed  for  the  believers  there  that  they 
might  receive  the  Holy  Spirit ;  for  this  heavenly  gift  had  not  yet 
been  imparted  to  them;  the  only  sign  of  their  acceptance  into  the 
new  faith  having  been  their  baptism  by  the  hands  of  Philip,  who 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  empowered  to  indue  others  with  the 
same  divine  spirit  which  he  had  so  abundantly  received  on  him- 
self. But  the  apostles  laying  their  hands  on  them, — as  they  had 
before  done  with  such  powerful  effect  on  Stephen,  Philip,  and  their 
fellow-servants, — now  also  inspired  these  second  fruits  with  the 
same  divir>e  energy,  which  was  instantly  made  manifest  in  them, 
by  the  usual  signs.  As  soon  as  Simon  saw  the  display  of  the  new, 
powers,  with  which  those  were  suddenly  gifted  who  had  been  made* 
the  subjects  of  this  simple  ceremony,  he  immediately  concluded- 
that  he  had  at  last  found  out  the  means  of  acquiring  those  mira- 
culous powers  at  which  he  had  been  so  deeply  amazed,  and  which 
he  thought  he  could  make  vastly  profitable  to  himself  in  his  busi- 
ness, as  a  very  decided  improvement  upon  his  old  tricks.  Think- 
ing only  of  the  motive  which  always  moved  his  mind  to  the  be- 
stowment  of  such  favors,  he  immediately  took  out  the  money  he* 
had  gained  by  his  impositions  on  the  people,  and  offered  the  apos-- 
tles  a  handsome  share  of  it,  if  they  would  simply  give  him  the- 
valuable  privilege  of  conferring  this  divine  agency  on  all  upon- 
whom  he  should  lay  his  hands,  in  the  same  manner  as  they.  But 
his  mercenary  hopes  were  soon  blasted  by  the  indignant  terms  in 
which  Peter  rejected  his  insulting  proposal, — "  Thy  money  perish' 
with  thee,  because  thou  hast  thought  that  the  gift  of  God  could  be- 
bought  with  money.  Thou  hast  neither  part  nor  lot  in  this  mat- 
ter ;  for  thy  heart  is  not  right  in  the  sight  of  God.  Change  thy 
mind,  therefore,  from  this  wickedness  of  thine,  and  ask  God,  if* 
indeed  there  is  any  possibility,  that  the  iniquity  of  thy  heart  may* 
be  forgiven  thee ;  for  I  see  that  thou  art  still  full  of  the  bitterness 
of  thy  former  poisons,  and  bound  fast  in  the  chains  of  thy  old  in- 


184  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

iquities."  Simon,  hushed  and  overawed  in  his  impertinent  offers 
by  this  stern  rebuke,  sunk  into  a  penitent  tone  again,  and  begged 
of  them  that  they  would  pray  for  him,  that  the  doom  to  perish 
with  his  money,  as  denounced  by  Peter,  might  not  fall  on  him. 
Of  the  depth  and  sincerity  of  his  penitence,  no  good  testimony  is 
left  us ;  but  his  submissive  conduct,  at  best,  seems  to  have  been 
rather  the  result  of  a  personal  awe  of  the  apostles,  as  his  supe- 
riors in  supernatural  powers,  than  prompted  by  any  true  regard 
for  their  pure  faith,  or  any  just  appreciation  of  their  character  and 
motives.  The  apostles,  however,  waited  no  longer  to  enlighten 
the  mind  of  one  so  dark  in  his  views  of  the  divine  agency ;  but 
after  they  had  borne  witness  to  the  truth  of  Philip's  words  and 
doctrines  by  their  own  preaching,  they  returned  to  Jerusalem,  pro- 
claiming the  gospel  in  many  villages  of  the  Samaritans,  on  the 
way.  Philip  also,  having  had  his  labors  thus  triumphantly 
crowned  by  the  ministrations  of  the  apostles,  left  Samaria,  and 
turned  his  course  southwards,  towards  Gaza,  under  the  impulse 
and  guidance  of  a  divine  spirit.  On  this  journey,  occurred  his 
most  interesting  adventure  with  the  lord  high  treasurer  of  the 
Ethiopian  queen,  after  which  Philip  was  found  at  Ashdod,  on  the 
sea;  from  which  place,  journeying  northwards  again,  he  went 
preaching  through  all  the  towns  on  the  coast,  till  he  arrived  at  his 
home,  at  Caesarea. 

THE  BEGINNING  OP  PEACE. 

Soon  after  the  return  of  the  apostles  to  Jerusalem,  an  event  oc- 
curred, which  had  a  more  mighty  influence  on  the  progress  of  the 
Christian  religion  than  any  other  that  had  occurred  since  the  as- 
cension of  Jesus.  The  members  of  the  church  who  still  with- 
stood the  storm  of  persecution  in  the  city,  were  struck  with  no 
small  amazement  by  the  sudden  appearance  of  Saul  of  Tarsus,  the 
most  bloody  persecutor  of  their  Hellenist  brethren ;  who,  having 
exhausted  the  opportunities  for  the  gratification  of  his  spite  against 
them  in  Jerusalem,  had  gone  to  Damascus,  to  seize  such  as  there 
supposed  themselves  safe  in  following  the  new  faith.  This  man, 
yet  stained,  as  it  were,  with  the  blood  of  Stephen,  now  presented 
himself  to  them  as  a  convert  to  the  gospel,  prepared  to  join  them 
as  a  brother.  The  whole  affair  seemed  to  bear  so  decidedly  the 
aspect  of  a  palpable  imposition,  that  they  altogether  refused  to  have 
any  thing  to  do  with  him,  and  suspected  the  whole  to  be  a  deep- 
laid  snare,  on  the  part  of  this  bloody  foe  of  the  gospel,  who  now 


Peter's  apostleship.  185 

appeared  to  be  seeking,  by  false  professions,  to  get  into  their  con- 
fidence, that  he  might  have  the  means  of  betraying  them  to  utter 
ruin.  But  Barnabas,  who  was  better  acquainted  with  Saul,  de- 
tailed to  the  church  all  the  wonderful  circumstances  so  fully,  that 
they  no  longer  hesitated  to  receive  him  as  a  brother  and  fellow- 
laborer.  This  remarkable  conversion  was  of  vast  benefit  to  the 
cause  of  the  gospel,  not  only  by  bringing  to  its  aid  the  services  of 
a  laborer  so  competent,  but  also  by  removing  from  among  its  ad- 
versaries one  who  had  been  a  leader  and  a  contriver  of  every  plot 
of  mischief  As  soon  as  he  left  the  ranks  of  the  foe,  the  vindic- 
tive persecution,  which  had  raged  ever  since  the  death  of  Stephen, 
ceased,  as  though  it  had  lost  its  great  author  and  main  support,  by 
the  defection  of  Saul  of  Tarsus.  Indeed,  the  last  act  of  this  per- 
secution, which  is  recorded,  was  directed  against  this  very  man, 
who  had  once  been  a  leader  in  it,  and  drove  him  out  of  the  city 
which  had  been  the  scene  of  his  cruelties.  Therefore,  the  churches 
had  rest  throughout  all  Judea,  and  Galilee,  and  Samaria,  strength- 
ening and  advancing  in  piety,  and  filled  with  the  impulses  of 
the  Holy  Spirit.  This  opportunity  of  quiet  seemed  peculiarly  fa- 
vorable for  a  minute  survey  of  the  condition  of  these  scattered 
churches,  most  of  which  had  grown  up  without  any  direct  agency 
of  the  apostles,  and  therefore  needed  their  attention  at  this  critical 
period. 

THE  SURVEY  OP  THE  CHURCHES. 

The  most  proper  person  for  this  responsible  charge,  was  the 
great  leader  of  the  apostolic  band ;  and  Peter,  therefore,  taking  the 
task  readily  upon  himself,  went  through  all  the  churches,  to  give 
them  the  advantages  of  the  minute  personal  ministry  of  a  chief 
apostle,  who  might  organize  them,  and  instruct  the  disciples  in 
their  peculiar  duties  as  members  of  a  new  religious  community. 
On  this  tour  of  duty,  passing  down  from  the  interior  towards  the 
sea-coast,  he  came  to  Lydda,  about  forty  or  fifty  miles  from  Jeru- 
salem, and  about  twelve  from  the  sea.  Here  there  was  a  company 
of  the  faithful,  whom  he  visited,  to  instruct  them  anew,  and  to 
enlarge  their  numbers,  by  his  preaching  and  miracles.  A  particu- 
lar case  is  recorded  as  having  occurred  here,  which  displayed  both 
the  compassion  of  Peter  and  his  divine  power  to  heal  and  strengthen. 
Among  the  friends  of  Christ  whom  he  visited  here,  was  an  invalid, 
whose  name,  Aeneas,  shows  him  to  have  been  a  Hellenist.  This 
man  had  for  the  long  period  of  eight  years  been  deprived  of  the 


186  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

use  of  his  limbs,  by  a  palsy,  which,  during  that  tedious  interval, 
confined  him  to  his  bed.  Peter,  on  seeing  him,  said — "Aeneas, 
Jesus  Christ  heals  thee.  Arise,  and  make  thy  bed  for  thyself" 
The  command  to  spread  and  smooth  the  couch,  which  he  now 
quitted  in  health,  was  given,  that  he  might  show  and  feel,  at  once, 
how  fully  strength  was  restored  to  his  hands  as  well  as  his  feet. 
This  miracle  soon  became  known,  not  only  to  the  citizens  of 
Lydda,  but  also  to  the  people  inhabiting  the  extensive  and  fertile 
plain  of  Sharon,  which  stretched  to  the  northward  of  Lydda,  along 
the  coast,  from  Joppa  to  Caesarea,  bounded  on  the  west  by  the 
highlands  of  Samaria.  The  effect  of  this  display  of  power  and 
benevolence,  was  such,  on  their  minds,  that,  without  exception, 
they  professed  their  faith  in  Christ. 

I/ijdda. — This  was  a  place  of  far  more  importance  and  fame,  than  would  be  sup- 
posed from  the  brief  mention  of  its  name  in  the  apostolic  narrative.  It  is  often  men- 
tioned in  the  writings  of  the  Rabbins,  under  the  name  of  tiS  {Ludh,)  its  original  He- 
brew name,  and  was  long  the  seat  of  a  great  college  of  Jewish  law  and  theology, 
which  at  this  very  period  of  Peter's  visit  was  in  its  most  flourishing  state.  This  ap- 
pears from  the  fact  that  Rabbi  Akiba,  who  raised  the  school  to  its  greatest  eminence, 
was  contemporary  with  the  great  Rabban  Gamaliel,  who  bears  an  important  part  in 
the  events  of  the  apostolic  history.  (The  Talmudic  ai;thority  for  this  is  found 
in  Lightfoot.)  It  is  easy  to  see,  then,  why  so  important  a  seat  of  Jewish  theology 
should  have  been  thought  deserving  of  the  particular  notice  and  protracted  stay  of 
Peter,  who  labored  with  remarkable  earnestness  and  effect  here,  inspired  by  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  lasting  and  extensive  good,  that  would  result  from  an  impression 
made  on  this  foimtain  of  religious  knowledge.  The  members  of  the  college,  how- 
ever, did  not  all,  probably,  profess  themselves  followers  of  Christ. 

It  is  also  described  as  possessing  some  importance  in  addition  to  its  literary  privi- 
leges. Josephus  (Ant.  XX.  vi.  3)  mentions  "  Lydda"  as  "a  village  not  inferior  to  a 
city  in  greatness."  Its  importance  was,  no  doubt,  in  a  great  measure  derived  from 
the  remarkably  rich  agricultural  district  which  surrounded  it.  This  was  the  plain 
of  Sharon,  so  celebrated  in  the  Hebrew  scriptures  for  its  fruitful  fields  and  rich  pas- 
tures,—iis  roses  and  its  flocks.  (Sol.  Song.  ii.  1  :  Isa.  xxxiii.  9,  xxxv.  2,  Ixv.  10; 
1  Chron.  xxvii.  29.)  "  All  this  country  is  described  by  Pococke  as  very  rich  soil, 
throwing  up  a  great  quantity  of  herbage;  among  which  he  speci.les  chardons,  rue, 
fennel,  and  the  striped  thistle,  '  probably  on  this  account  called  the  holy  thistle.'  A 
great  variety  of  anemonies,  he  was  told,  grow  in  the  neighborhood."  "  I  saw  like- 
wise," he  adds,  "  many  tulips  growing  wild  in  the  fields  [in  March  ;]  and  any  one 
who  considers  how  beautiful  those  flowers  are  to  the  eye.  Mould  be  apt  to  conjecture 
that  these  are  the  lilies  to  which  Solomon,  in  all  his  glorj'^,  was  not  to  be  compared." 
— (Mod.  Trav.  p.  57.)  Its  distance  from  Jerusalem  is  ascertained,  by  Lightfoot,  to 
be  one  day's  journey,  as  it  is  stated  with  some  circumlocution  in  the  Mi.'«hna.  It  was 
destroyed,  as  Josephus  relates,  by  Cestius  Gallius,  the  Roman  general,  who  marched 
his  army  through  that  region,  in  the  beginning  of  the  war  which  ended  in  the  de- 
stniction  of  Jerusalem.  Under  the  peaceful  times  of  the  later  Roman  sway  in  Pales- 
tine, it  was  rebuilt,  and  called  Diospolis.  But  like  many  other  such  instances,  it  has 
lost  its  temporary  heathen  name,  and  is  now  called  by  its  old  scripture  appellation, 
I/udd.  Travelers  describe  it  as  now  a  poor  village,  though  the  stones  to  be  seen  in 
the  modern  buildings  show  that  it  has  been  a  place  of  great  consequence. 

The  New  Testament  name  Li/dda,  (AiSi.x,)  by  which  Josephus  also  mentions  it,  is 
only  so  much  changed  from  the  "Hebrew  L/iidk,  as  was  necessary  to  accommodate  it 
to  the  regular  forms  and  inflexions  of  the  Greek  language.  Lightfoot  well  refutes 
the  blunder  of  many  modern  geographers  who  make  the  two  names  refer  to  different 
places.  This  learned  author  is  remarkably  full  in  the  description  of  this  place,  and 
is  very  rich  in  references  to  the  numerous  allusionr  which  are  made  to  it  in  the  Tal 


Peter's  apostleship.  187 

mudic  writings.  (See  his  Centntria  CAorographica,  Cap.  16,  prefixed  to  Hor.  Heb. 
el  Talm.  in  Matt.) 

Aeneas. — This  name  is  unquestionably  Greek,  which  seems  to  show  the  man  to 
have  been  a  Hellenist ;  and  that  he  was  already  a  believer  in  Christ,  would  appear 
from  the  fact  of  Peter's  finding  him  among  the  brethren  there. 

"  Make  tky  bed  for  thyself." — These  words  best  express  the  true  force  of  the  original 
cTpdaov  ocavriy,  (^stroson  seauto,)  which  is  diminished  in  the  common  English  transla- 
tion. The  English  translators  overlooked  the  last  word,  and  have  thus  neglected  to 
give  the  full  force  of  the  command.  Aeneas  had  before  depended  on  others  for  this 
personal  otfice ;  the  gift  of  strength  by  Peter  now  enabled  him  instantly,  in  token  of 
the  completeness  of  the  miracle,  to  "  make  his  hed  for  himself."    (Acts  ix.  34.) 

THE  VISIT  TO  JOPPA. 

Hardly  had  this  instance  of  divine  favor  occurred  in  Lydda, 
when  a  new  occasion  for  a  similar  effort  presented  itself,  in  the 
neighboring  seaport  town  of  Joppa.  A  female  disciple  of  the 
faith  of  Christ,  in  that  city,  by  name  Tabitha,  or  in  the  Greek, 
Dorcas,  (both  names  meaning  Gazelle,)  had  distinguished  herself 
and  honored  her  religious  profession,  by  the  generous  and  charita- 
ble deeds  which  constantly  employed  her  hands.  This  lady,  so 
respected  by  all,  and  so  loved  by  the  poor,  who  gave  witness  to 
her  goodness, — such  an  honor  to  the  religious  community  which 
she  had  joined, — seemed  to  have  so  nobly  done  her  part  in  life, 
that  the  order  of  Providence  had  apparently  called  her  to  rest  from 
these  labors,  in  that  sleep  from  which  no  piety  nor  usefulness  can 
save  or  recall  their  possessor.  After  a  few  days  of  illness,  she 
died,  and  was,  after  the  usual  funeral  ablutions,  laid  in  an  upper 
chamber  to  await  the  burial.  In  the  midst  of  the  universal  grief 
for  this  sad  loss,  the  members  of  the  church  at  Joppa,  knowing 
that  Peter  was  in  Lydda,  within  a  few  hours'  journey,  sent  two 
messengers  to  him,  to  beg  his  presence  among  them,  as  some  con- 
solation in  their  distress.  Peter,  on  hearing  of  this  occasion  for 
his  presence,  with  great  readiness  accompanied  tho  messengers 
back ;  and  on  arriving  at  Joppa,  went  straight  to  the  house  of 
mourning.  He  was  immediately  led  into  the  chamber,  where  he 
found  a  most  affecting  testimony  to  the  nature  of  the  loss  Avhich 
the  afflicted  community  had  suffered.  Around  the  dead,  stood  the 
widows  who,  in  their  friendlessness,  had  been  relieved  by  the  sym- 
pathy of  Dorcas,  now  pouring  their  tears  and  uttering  their  lamen- 
tations over  her,  and  showing  that  even  the  garments  which  they 
wore  were  the  work  of  her  industrious  hand, — that  hand  which, 
once  so  untiring  in  these  labors  of  love,  was  now  cold  and  mo- 
tionless in  death.  From  that  resistless  doom,  what  mortal  voice 
could  ever  recall  even  one  so  amiable  and  useful  ?  But,  while  they 
were  sorrowing  thus,  Peter  ordered  them  all  to  leave  him  alone 


188  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

with  the  dead;  and  when  all  witnesses  were  removed,  he  kneeled 
and  prayed.  The  words  of  that  prayer  are  not  recorded ;  and  it 
is  only  by  its  successful  efficiency  that  we  know  it  to  have  been 
that  fervent,  effectual  prayer  of  a  righteous  man,  which  availeth 
much.  It  was  such  a  prayer  as,  of  old,  the  son  of  Shaphat  offered 
over  the  dead  child  of  the  Shunamite,  when  alone  with  him ;  and 
its  effect  was  not  less  mighty.  Rising  at  length,  and  turning  to- 
wards the  body,  he  said — "  Tabitha,  arise  !"  Awaking  from  the 
unbreathing  sleep  of  death,  as  from  a  light  slumber  of  an  hour, 
she  opened  her  eyes,  and  when  she  saw  the  majestic  man  of  God, 
alone,  and  herself  robed  for  the  tomb,  she  sat  up  and  gazed  in 
amazement.  Peter  then,  giving  her  his  hand,  lifted  her  from  the 
funeral  couch,  and  calling  in  the  brethren  and  the  widows,  he  pre- 
sented her  to  their  astonished  eyes,  alive.  Their  overwhelming 
joy  and  wonder,  we  are  left  to  imagine.  The  story,  when  made 
known  through  the  city,  brought  many  to  acknowledge  the  truth 
of  that  religion  whose  minister  could  work  such  wonders;  and 
many  believed  in  Christ.  The  field  of  labor  which  now  opened 
to  Peter  in  this  place,  seemed  so  wide  that  he  did  not  continue  his 
journey  any  further  at  that  time,  but  took  up  his  abode,  for  several 
days,  in  Joppa,  lodging  in  the  house  of  Simon,  a  tanner,  whose 
house  stood  by  the  sea,  near  the  water. 

Joppa,  now  called  Jaffa. — This  was  from  very  early  times  a  place  of  great  im- 
portance, from  the  circumstance  of  its  being  the  nearest  seaport  to  Jerusalem.  It  is 
mentioned  in  reference  to  this  particular  of  its  situation,  in  2  Chron.  ii.  16,  where  it 
is  specified  (in  Hebrew  ibi  Japku)  as  the  port  to  which  the  cedar  timber  from  Leba- 
non should  be  floated  down  in  rafts,  to  be  conveyed  to  Jerusalem  for  building  the  tem- 
ple. It  stood  within  the  territories  of  the  tribe  of  Dan,  according  to  Josh.  xix.  46,  and 
lies  abctxt  W.  N.  W.  from  Jerusalem.  Strabo,  (xvi.)  in  describing  it,  refers  to  it  as 
the  scene  of  the  ancient  Grecian  fable  of  Andromeda  rescued  from  the  sea-monster 
by  Perseus.  He  describes  its  site  as  "  quite  elevated, — so  much  so,  indeed,  that  it 
was  a  common  saying  that  Jerusalem  might  be  seen  from  the  place  ;  the  inhabitants 
of  which  city  use  it  as  their  seaport  in  all  their  maritime  intercourse."  Josephus 
mentions  that  it  was  added  to  the  dominions  of  Herod  the  Great,  by  Augustus.  Its 
present  appearance  is  thus  described  by  travelers. 

"  It  is  situated  in  lat.  32  deg.  2  min.  N.,  and  Ion.  34  deg.  53  min.  E.,  and  is  forty 
miles  W.  of  Jerusalem.  Its  situation,  as  the  nearest  port  to  the  Holy  City,  has  been 
the  chief  cause  of  its  importance.  As  a  station  for  vessels,  according  to  Dr.  Clarke, 
its  harbor  is  one  of  the  worst  in  the  Mediterranean.  Ships  generally  anchor  about  a 
mile  from  the  town,  to  avoid  the  shoals  and  rocks  of  the  place.  The  badness  of  the 
harbor  is  mentioned,  indeed,  by  Josephus.  (Antiq.  book  xv.  chap.  9.")  *  *  * 
*  *  *  The  road  is  protected  by  a  castle  built  on  a  rock,  and  there  are  some 
storehouses  and  magazines  on  the  sea-side.  The  coast  is  low,  but  little  elevated 
above  the  level  of  the  sea ;  but  the  town  occupies  an  eminence,  in  the  form  of  a 
sugar-loaf,  with  a  citadel  on  the  summit.  The  bottom  of  the  hill  is  surrounded  with 
a  wall  twelve  or  fourteen  feet  high,  and  two  or  three  feet  thick.  *  *  *  * 
There  are  no  antiquities  in  Jaffa :  the  place  would  seem  to  be  too  old  to  have  any— 
to  have  outlived  all  that  once  rendered  it  interesting.  The  inhabitants  are  estimated 
at  between  four  and  five  thousand  souls,  of  whom  the  greater  part  are  Turks  and 
Arabs ;  the  Chri-stians  are  stated  to  be  about  six  hundred,  consisting  of  Roman  Cath- 
olics, Greeks,  Maronites,  and  Armenians."    [Mod.  Trav.  Palest,  pp.  41, 42.] 


^■- 


Peter's  apostleship.  189 

Dorcas. — This  is  the  Greek  translation  of  the  old  Hebrew  ^ys,  (  Tsebi,)  in  the  Ara- 
maic dialect  of  that  age,  changed  into  Nir-^n,  (  Tabil/ia,)  in  English,  "  gazelle,"  abeau- 
tiful  animal  of  the  antelope  kind,  often  mentioned  in  descriptions  of  the  deserts  of 
southwestern  Asia,  in  which  it  roams ;  and  not  unfrequently  the  subject  of  poetical 
allusion.  The  species  to  which  it  is  commonly  supposed  to'  belong,  is  the  Anlilopa 
Dorcas  of  Prof  Pallas,  who  named  it  on  the  supposition  that  it  was  identical  with  this 
animal,  called  by  the  Greeks,  A';pv<if,  (Dorkas,)  from  AepKu,  (Derko,)  "  to  look,"  from 
the  peculiar  brightness  and  earnest  expression  of  "its  soft  black  eye."  In  the  Old 
Testament,  the  corresponding  Hebrew  word  is  always  rendered  "  roe,"  in  the  com- 
mon English  version.  (As  in  1  Kings  iv.  23:  1  Chron.  xii.  8:  Prov.  vi.  5:  Solom. 
Song.  ii.  7,  9,  iii.  5,  iv.  5,  vii.  3.)  This  is,  however,  wholly  inappropriate,  since  the 
animal  thus  designated  in  English  is  of  the  deer  kind,  (genus  Cervus,)  and  not  of 
the  Antelope,  like  this.  The  Arabic  word  gazel  has,  therefore,  very  properly  been 
adopted  for  the  English  name  oi  the  animal,  and  has  already  become  classic  in  the 
noble  melody,  which  thus  associates  its  grace  with  the  country  and  the  sorrows  of  the 
Hebrew. 

"  The  wild  gazelle,  on  Judah's  hills, 

Exulting  yet  may  bovmd, 

And  drink  from  all  the  living  rills, 

That  gush  on  holy  ground; 

Its  airy  step,  and  glorious  eye, 

May  glance  in  tameless  transport  by." 
Moore's  well-known  words  are  equally  expressive  of  its  beauty  and  grace. 

THE  CALL  TO  THE  HEATHEN. 

The  apostles  had  now,  with  great  zeal  and  efficiency,  preached 
the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the  worshipers  of  the  true  God, — 
beginning  at  Jerusalem,  and  spreading  the  triumphs  of  his  name 
to  the  bounds  o^the  land  of  Israel.  But  in  all  their  devotion  to 
their  Master's  work,  they  had  never  had  a  thought  of  breaking 
over  the  bounds  of  the  faith  of  their  fathers,  or  of  makins:  their 
doctrine  any  thing  else  than  a  mere  completion  or  accompaniment 
to  the  law  of  Moses ;  nor  did  they  imagine  that  they  were  ever  to 
extend  the  blessings  of  the  gospel  to  any  who  did  not  bow  down 
to  all  the  tedious  rituals  of  the  ancient  covenant.  The  true  power 
of  their  Lord's  parting  command, — "  Go  and  teach  all  nations," 
they  had  never  felt ;  and  even  now,  their  great  chief  supposed  that 
the. change  of  heart  and  remission  of  sins,  which  he  was  com- 
missioned to  preach,  were  for  none  but  the  devout  adherents  of 
the  Jewish  faith.  A  new  and  signal  call  was  needed,  to  bring 
the  apostles  to  a  fall  sense  of  their  enlarged  duties ;  and  it  is  among 
the  highest  honors  vouchsafed  to  Peter,  that  he  was  the  person 
chosen  to  receive  this  new  view  of  the  boundless  field  now  opened 
for  the  battles  and  triumphs  of  the  cross.  To  him,  as  the  head 
and  representative  of  the  whole  band  of  the  apostles,  was  now 
spread  out,  in  all  its  moral  vastness  and  its  physical  immensity, 
the  coming  dominion  of  that  faith,  whose  little  seed  he  was  now 
cherishing,  with  but  a  humble  hope ;  but  whose  stately  trunk  and 
giant  branches  were,  from  that  small  and  low  beginning,  to  stretch, 


190  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

in  a  mighty  growth,  over  lands  and  worlds  to  him  unknown. 
Thus  for  he  had  labored  with  a  high  and  holy  zeal,  in  a  cause 
whose  vastness  he  had  never  appreciated, — every  moment  building 
up  unwittingly  a  name  for  himself,  which  should  outlast  all  the 
glories  of  the  ancient  covenant ;  and  securing  for  his  Master  a  do- 
minion which  the  religion  of  Moses  could  never  have  reached. 
He  had  never  had  an  idea,  that  he  with  his  companions  was  found- 
ing and  spreading  a  new  religion : — to  purify  the  religion  of  the 
law  and  the  prophets,  and  to  rescue  it  from  the  confusion  and  pollu- 
tions of  warring  sectaries,  was  all  that  they  had  thought  of;  yet  with 
this  end  in  view,  they  had  been  securing  the  attainment  of  one  so 
far  above  and  beyond,  that  a  full  and  sudden  view  of  the  conse- 
quences of  their  humble  deeds,  would  have  appalled  them.  But 
though  the  mighty  plan  had  never  been  whispered  nor  dreamed 
of,  on  earth, — though  it  was  too  immense  for  its  simple  agents  to 
endure  its  full  revelation  at  once, — its  certain  accomplishment  had 
been  ordained  in  heaven,  and  its  endless  details  were  to  be  fully 
learned  only  in  its  triumphant  progress  through  uncounted  ages. 
But,  limited  as  was  the  view  which  the  apostles  then  had  of  the 
high  destiny  of  the  cause  to  which  they  had  devoted  themselves, 
it  was  yet  greatly  extended  from  the  low-born  notions  with  which 
they  had  first  followed  the  steps  of  their  Mamer.  They  now 
no  longer  entertained  the  vagary  of  a  worldly  triumph  and  a 
worldly  reward  ;  they  had  left  that  on  the  mount  where  their  Lord 
parted  from  them ;  and  they  were  now  prayerfully  laboring  for  the 
establishment  of  a  pure  spiritual  kingdom  in  the  hearts  of  the 
righteous.  To  give  them  a  just  idea  of  the  exalted  freedom  to 
which  the  gospel  brought  its  sons,  and  to  open  their  hearts  to 
a  Christian  fellowship  as  wide  as  the  whole  human  family,  God 
now  gave  the  great  apostolic  leader  an  unquestionable  call  to  tell 
to  the  world  the  glad  tidings  of  salvation  for  all  men  through  a 
new  and  living  way,  by  change  of  heart  and  remission  of  sins. 
The  incidents  which  led  to  this  revelation  are  thus  detailed. 

The  peace  and  good  order  of  Palestine  were  now  secured  by 
several  legions,  whose  different  divisions,  larger  or  smaller  accord- 
ing to  circumstances,  were  quartered  in  all  the  strong  or  impoitant 
places  in  the  country,  to  repress  disorders,  and  enforce  the  author- 
ity of  the  civil  power,  when  necessary.  Besides  this  ordinary 
peace-establishment  of  the  province,  there  was  a  cohort  which  took 
its  name  from  the  circumstance  that  it  had  been  levied  in  Italy, — 
a  distinction,  now  so  rare,  in  consequence  of  the  introduction  of 


Peter's  apostleship.  191 

foreign  mercenaries  into  the  imperial  hosts,  as  to  become  the  oc- 
casion of  an  honorable  eminence,  which  was  signified  by  the  title 
here  given,  showing  that  (his  division  of  the  Roman  armies  was 
made  up  of  the  sons  of  that  soil  which  had  so  long  sent  forth  the 
conquerors  of  the  v^rld.     Of  all  the  variety  of  service  required 
of  the  different  detachments  of  the  army,  in  the  province  which  it 
guarded,  by  far  the  most  honorable  was   that  of  being  stationed 
next  the  person  of  the  governor  of  the  province,  to  maintain  the 
military  dig-nity  of  his  vice-imperial  court,  and  defend  his  repre- 
sentative majesty.     Caesarea,  on  the  sea-shore,  was  now  the  seat 
of  the  Roman  government  of  Palestine  ;  and  here,  in  attendence 
on  the  person  of  the  gox^ernor,  was  this  aforesaid  Italian  cohort, 
at  the  head  of  a  company  in  which  was  a  centurion  named  Cor- 
nelius.    Thongh  nothing  is  given  respecting  his  birth  and  family 
but  this  single  name,  a  very  slight  knowledge  of  Roman  history 
and  antiquities  enables  the  historian   to  decide,  that  he  was  de- 
scended from  a  noble  race  of  patricians,  which  had  produced  sev- 
eral of  the  most  illustrious  families  of  the   imperial  city.     Emi- 
nent by  this  high  birth  and  military  rank,  he  must  have  been  fa- 
vored with  an  education  worthy  of  his  family  and  station.     It  is, 
therefore,  allowable  to  conclude  that  he  was  an  intelligent  and  well- 
informed  gentleman,  whom  years  of  foreign  service  in  the  armies 
of  his  country  must  have  improved,  by  the  combined  advantages 
of  a  traveler  and  a  disciplined  warrior.     Of  his  moral  and  reli- 
gious character,  such  an  account  is  given,  as  proves  that  his  prin- 
ciples, probably  implanted  in  early  life,  had  been  of  such  firmness 
as  to  withstand  the  numerous  temptations  of  a  soldier's  life,  and  to 
secure  him  in  a  course  of  most  uncommon  rectitude  in  his  duties 
towards  God  and  towards  man.     In  the  merciful  exercise  of  his 
power  over  the  people  whose  safety  and  quiet  he  came  to  maintain, 
and,  moreover,  in  the  generous  use  of  his  pecuniary  advantages, 
he  passed  his  blameless  life  ;  and  the  high  motive  of  this  noble 
conduct,  is  discovered  in  the  steady,  pure  devotion,  in  which  he 
employed  many  hours  of  daily  retirement,  and  in  which  he  caused 
his  whole  family  openly  to  join,  on  proper  occasions.     Thus  is 
he  briefly  and  strongly  characterized  by  the  sacred  historian : — 
"  devout,  and  fearing  Cjod  with  all  his  house ;  giving  much  alms, 
and  praying  to  God  always." 

Noble  race  of  patricians. — The  gens  Cornelia,  or  "  Cornelian  race,"  wasunequaled 
in  Rome  for  the  great  number  of  noble  families  sprung  from  its  stock.  The  Scipios, 
the  SuUas,  the  Dolabellas,  the  Cinnas,  theLentuli,  the  Cethegi,  the  Cossi,  and  many- 
other  illustrious  branches  of  this  great  race,  are  conspicuous  in  Roman  history  -,  and 


192  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  Fasti  Consulares  record  more  than  sixty  of  the  Cornelian  race,  who  had  borne 
the  consular  dignity  previous  to  the  apostolic  era.  This  is  always  &  family  name,  and 
Ainsworth  very  greatly  errs  in  calling  it  "  the  fraenomen  of  several  Romans."  Every 
Roman  name  of  the  middle  and  later  ages  of  the  commonwealth,  had,  at  least,  three 
parts,  which  were  the  praenomcn,  marking  the  individual, — the  nomen  marking  the 
gens,  ("  race,"  "  stock,")  and  the  cognomen,  marking  the  family  or  division  of  that 
great  stock.  Thus,  in  the  name  "  Publius  Cornelius  feaipio,"  the  last  word  shows 
that  the  person  belonged  to  the  Scipio  family,  which  by  the  second  word  is  seen  to  be 
of  the  great  Cornelian  stock,  while  the  first  shows  that  this  member  of  the  family  was 
distinguished  from  his  relations,  by  the  name  of  Publius.  (Se<i  Adam's  Roman  An- 
tiquities, on  Names.)  "Wherever  this  name,  Cornelius,  occurs,  -if  the  whole  appella- 
tion of  the  man  is  given,  this  comes  in  the  middle,  as  the  nomen,  marking  the  race  ; 
as  is  the  case  with  every  one  of  those  quoted  by  Ainsworth,  in  his  mistaken  account 
of  the  word.  See  also  Sallust,  (Catil.  §§  47,  55,)  in  defense  of  this  pecaliar  limitation 
of  the  word  to  the  gens.  Not  a  single  instance  can  be  brought  of  its  application  to 
any  person  not  of  this  noble  patrician  race,  or  of  its  use  as  a  mere  individual  appel- 
lation. I  am  therefore  authorized  in  concluding  that  this  Cornelius  mentioned  in  the 
Acts  was  related  to  this  line  of  high  nobility.  It  might,  perhaps,  be  conjectured,  that 
he  had  borrowed  this  name  from  that  noble  race,  from  having  once  been  in  the  ser- 
vice of  some  one  of  its  families,  as  was  common  in  the  case  of  freedmen,  after  they 
had  received  their  liberty ;  but  this  supposition  is  not  allowable  ;  for  he  is  expressly 
particularized  as  belonging  to  an  Italian  division  of  the  army,  which  fact  excludes 
the  idea  of  that  foreign  origin  which  would  belong  to  a  slave.  The  Jews  having  but 
one  name  for  each  man,  seldom  gave  all  of  a  Roman's  name,  unless  of  a  very  emi- 
nent man,  as  Pontius  Pilate,  Sergius  Paulus,  and  other  important  characters ;  but,  se- 
lecting any  one  of  the  three  parts  which  might  be  most  convenient,  they  made  that 
the  sole  appellative,  whether  praenomen,  nomen,  or  cognomen.  As  in  Luke  ii.  2,  Acts 
xxiii.  24,  XXV.  1,  xxvii.  1,  &c. 

The  Italian  cohort. — The  word  ETirpo,  {Speira,)  I  translate  "  cohort,"  rather  than 
'■'legion,"  as  the  older  commentators  did.  Jerome  translates  it  "  cohortem,"  and  he 
must  have  known  the  exact  technical  force  of  the  Greek  word,  and  to  what  Latin 
military  term  it  corresponded,  from  his  living  in  the  time  when  these  terms  must 
have  been  in  frequent  use.  Those  who  prefer  to  translate  it  "  legion,"  are  misled  by 
the  circumstance,  that  Tacitus,  and  other  writers  on  Roman  affairs,  mention  a  legion 
which  had  the  distinctive  appellation  of  "the  Italian  legion;"  while  it  has  been  sup- 
posed that  these  ancient  authors  make  no  mention  of  an  Italian  cohort.  But  the 
deeply  learned  Wetstein,  with  his  usual  vast  classical  research,  has  shown  several 
such  passages,  in  Arrian  and  others,  in  which  mention  is  made  of  an  Italian  cohort ; 
and  in  Grater's  inscriptions,  quoted  by  Kuinoel,  there  is  an  account  of  "  a  volunteer 
cohort  of  Italian  soldiers  in  Syria ;"  and  Palestine  was  at  this  time  included  with 
Syria,  under  the  presidency  of  Petronius.  This  inscription  too,  justifies  my  remark 
as  to  the  high  character  of  those  who  served  in  this  corps.  "  Cohors  militum  Itali- 
corum  voluntaria,"  seems  to  imply  a  body  of  soldiers  of  a  higher  character  than  the 
ordinary  mercenary  mass  of  the  army,  being  probably  made  up  of  volunteers  from 
respectable  families  of  Italy,  who  chose  to  enlai^e  their  knowledge  of  the  world  by 
foreign  military  service,  in  this  very  honorable  station  of  life-guard  to  the  Roman 
governor,  as  Doddridge  and  others  suppose  this  to  have  been.  (See  Doddridge  on 
this  passage  ;  also,  C.  G.  Schwartz  in  Wolf.  Cur.  Phil,  in  loc.)  It  is  considered  also 
as  fairly  proved  that  the  "  Italian  legion"  was  not  formed  till  a  much  later  period  ; 
so  that  it  is  rendered  in  the  highest  degree  probable  and  unquestionable,  that  this  was 
a  cohort,  and,  as  Schwartz  and  Doddridge  prove,  not  a  mere  ordinary  cohort,  making 
the  tenth  part  of  a  common  legion  of  4200,  but  a  distinct  and  independent  corps,  at- 
tached to  no  legion,  and  devoted  to  the  excliisive  honorable  service  abovementioned. 
(See  Bloomfield,  Kuinoel,  Rosenmiiller,  Wetstein,  Wolf,  &c.  in  loc.) 

Devout. — Some  have  tried  hard  to  make  out  that  Cornelius  was  what  they  call 
"a proselyte  of  the  gate;"  that  is,  one  who,  though  not  circumcised,  nor  conform- 
ing to  the  rituals  generally,  yet  was  an  observer  of  the  moral  law.  But  Lardner  very 
fully  shows  that  there  were  not  two  sorts  of  proselytes  ;  all  who  bore  that  name  fully 
conforming  to  the  Jewish  rituals,  but  still  called  "  strangers,"  &c. ;  because,  though 
admitted  to  all  the  religious  privileges  of  the  covenant,  they  were  excluded  from  the 
civil  and  political  privileges  of  Jews,  and  could  not  be  freeholders.  Cornelius  must 
then  have  been  a  mere  Gentile.  (See  Lardner  in  his  life  of  Peter ;  also  Kuinoel  and 
Bloomfield.) 

Caesarea. — This  is  another  of  thos-e  cHies  enlarged  or  rebuilt  by  the  princes  of  the 


Peter's  apostleship.  193 

Herodian  line,  and  honored  with  the  names  of  the  imperial  family.  This  city  stood 
on  the  sea-shore,  about  30  miles  N.  of  Joppa;  and  (Mod.  Trav.)  G2  N.  N.  West  from 
Jerusalem.  (600  stad.  Joseph.^  It  has  been  idly  conjectured  by  the  Rabbinical  wri- 
ters, that  this  was  the  same  with  Ekron,  of  the  Old  Testament,  Zeph.  ii.4;  while 
the  Arabic  version  gives  it  as  Hazor,  Josh.  xi.  1, — both  with  about  equal  probability. 
The  earliest  name  by  which  it  can  be  certainly  recognized,  is  ApoUonia,  which  it 
bore  when  it  passed  from  the  Syro-Grecians  to  the  Maccabean  princes.  Its  common 
name,  in  the  time  of  Herod  the  Great,  was  Tzvpyoi  HrpaToivuf,  {purges  stralonos,)  tur- 
ns Slratoiiis,  "  Straton's  castle,"  from  the  name  of  a  Greek  pirate,  who  had  built  a 
strong  hold  here.  Herod  the  Great  made  it  the  most  splendid  city  in  his  dominions, 
and  even  in  all  the  eastern  part  of  the  Roman  empire  ;  and  in  honor  of  Augustus 
Caesar,  called  it  Caesarea  Augusta.  It  was  sometimes  called  Caesarea  Palestiiiae, 
to  distinguish  it  from  Caesarea  Philippi ;  for  Palestine  was  then  a  name  limited  to 
the  southern  part  of  the  coast  of  the  Holy  Land,  and  was  bounded  on  the  north  by 
Phoenicia.  This  city  was  the  capital  of  the  whole  Holy  Land  throughout  the  period 
of  the  later  Herodian  and  Roman  sway.  For  a  full  account  of  this  city,  and  the 
whole  history  of  its  erection,  see  Josephus.    (Ant.  XV.  ix.  6.) 

To  this  man  was  sent  the  first  heavenly  call,  which  ended  in 
bringing  in  the  Gentiles  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth  revealed  by 
Jesus.  After  having  fasted  all  day,  he  was  employed  in  his  regu- 
lar devotions,  at  the  usual  hour  of  prayer,  (three  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,)  when  his  senses  were  overwhelmed  by  a  vision,  in 
which  he  had  a  distinct  view  of  a  messenger  of  God,  in  shining 
garments,  coming  to  him  ;  and  heard  him  call  him  by  his  name, 
— "  Cornelius  !"  Looking  at  him  as  steadily  as  he  was  able  in  his 
great  alarm,  Cornelius  asked — "  What  is  it.  Lord?"  The  heavenly 
visitant  replied,  in  words  of  consolation  and  high  praise  : — "  Thy 
prayers  and  thy  alms  have  come  up  in  remembrance  before  God. 
And  now  send  men  to  Joppa,  and  call  for  a  man  named  Simon 
Peter,  lodging  with  Simon,  a  tanner,  whose  house  is  by  the  sea- 
side. He,  when  he  comes,  shall  tell  thee  what  it  is  right  that  thou 
shouldst  do."  When  the  surprising  messenger  had  given  this 
charge,  he  departed  ;  and  Cornelius,  without  delay,  went  to  fulfil 
the  minute  directions  he  had  received.  He  called  two  of  his  do- 
mestics, and  a  devout  soldier  of  the  detachment  then  on  duty  near 
him,  and  having  related  to  them  all  that  he  had  just  seen  and 
heard,  he  sent  them  to  Joppa,  to  invite  Peter  according  to  the  order. 
The  distance  between  the  two  places  is  about  thirty-five  miles,  and 
being  too  great  to  be  easily  traveled  in  one  day,  they  journeyed 
thither  during  a  part  of  two  days,  starting  immediately  when  they 
received  the  command,  though  late  in  the  afternoon.  While  they 
were  continuing  their  journey,  the  next  day,  and  were  now  near 
to  the  city  of  Joppa,  Peter,  without  any  idea  of  the  important  task 
to  which  he  was  soon  to  be  summoned,  went  up,  as  usual,  to  the 
Alijah,  or  place  of  prayer,  upon  the  house-top,  at  about  twelve 
o'clock,  mid-day.     Having,  according  to  the  usual  custom  of  the 


I 


194  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

Jews,  fasted  for  many  hours,  for  the  sake  of  keeping  the  mind 
clear  from  the  effects  of  gross  food  on  the  body,  and  at  length  be- 
coming sensible  that  he  had  pushed  himself  to  the  utmost  limits  of 
safe  abstinence,  he  wished  for  food,  and  ordered  his  dinner.    While 
the  servants  were  preparing  it,  he  continued  above,  in  the  place  of 
prayer,  where,  enfeebled  by  fasting,  and  over-wrought  by  mental 
effort,  he  fell  into  a  state  of  spiritual  excitement,  in  which  the  mind 
is  most  susceptible  of  strong  impressions  of  things  beyond  the  reach 
of  sense.     In  this  condition,  there  appeared  to  him  a  singular 
vision,  which  subsequent  events  soon  enabled  him  fully  to  inter- 
pret.    It  seemed  to  him  that  a  great  sheet  was  let  down  from  the 
sky,  to  which  it  was  fastened  by  the  four  corners,  containing  on  its 
vast  surface  all  sorts  of  animals  that  were  forbidden  as  food  by  the 
Mosaic  law.    While  the  apostle  gazed  upon  this  vast  variety  of  ani- 
mals, which  education  had  taught  him  to  consider  unclean,  there 
came  a  voice  to  him,  calling  him  by  name,  and  commanding  him 
to  arise,  kill,  and  eat.     All  his  prejudices  and  early  religious  im- 
pressions were  roused  by  such  a  proposal ;  and,  resisting  the  invi- 
sible speaker  as  the  agent  of  temptation  to  him  in  his  bodily  ex 
haustion,  he  replied,  in  all  the  pride  of  a  scrupulous  £ind  unpolluted 
Jew — "  By  no  means.  Lord,  because  I  have  never  eaten  any  thing 
improper  or  unclean."    The  mysterious  voice  again  said — "  What 
God  hath  cleansed,  do  not  thou  consider  improper."    This  impress- 
ive scene  having  been  twice  repeated,  the  whole  was  withdrawn 
back  into  heaven.    This  remarkable  vision  immediately  called  out 
all  the  energies  of  Peter's  mind,  in  its  explanation.    But  before  he 
had  time  to  decide  for  himself  what  was  meant  by  it,  the  messen- 
gers from  Caesarea  had  inquired  out  the  house  of  Simon,  and  coming 
to  the  outside  of  the  door,  they  called  to  learn  whether  Simon,  who 
was  surnamed  Peter,  lodged  there.     And  while  the  mind  of  Peter 
was  still  intently  occupied  with  the  vision,  he  received  an  intima- 
tion from  the  unerring  spirit,  that  his  presence  was  required  else- 
where.    "  Behold  !  three  men  are  seeking  thee  ;  but  rise  up  and  go 
with  them,  without  hesitation — for  I  have  sent  them."    Thus  urged 
and  encouraged,  Peter  went  directly  down  to  the  men  sent  by  Cor- 
nelius, and  said — "  Behold !  I  am  he  whom  ye  seek.     What  is 
your  object  in  coming  here  ?"   They  at  once  unfolded  their  errand. 
"  Cornelius,  a  centurion,  a  just  man,  fearing  God,  and  of  good 
repute  among  all  the  Jews,  was  instructed  by  a  holy  messenger,  to 
send  for  thee  to  his  house,  that  he  may  hear  something  from  thee." 
Peter,  already  instructed  as  to  the  proper  reception  of  the  invita- 


Peter's  apostleship.  195 

tion,  asked  them  in,  and  hospitably  entertained  them  till  the  next 
day,  improviiig  the  delay,  no  doubt,  by  learning  as  many  of  the 
circumstances  of  the  case  as  they  could  give  him.  The  nfews  of 
this  remarkable  call  was  also  made  known  to  the  brethren  of  the 
church  in  Joppa,  some  of  whom  were  so  highly  interested  in  what 
they  heard  that  evening,  that  they  resolved  to  accompany  Peter 
the  next  day,  with  the  messengers,  to  see  and  hear  for  themselves 
the  details  of  a  business  which  promised  to  result  so  fairly  in  the 
glory  of  Christ's  name,  and  the  wide  enlargement  of  his  kingdom. 
On  the  next  day,  the  whole  party  set  out  together,  and  reached 
Caesarea,  the  second  day  of  their  journey ;  and  going  straight  to 
the  house  of  Cornelius,  they  found  quite  a  large  company  there, 
awaiting  their  arrival.  For  Cornelius,  expecting  them,  had  in- 
vited his  relations  and  his  intimate  friends  to  hear  the  extraordi- 
nary communications  which  had  been  promised  him,  from  his 
visitor.  The  kindred  here  alluded  to  were,  perhaps,  those  of  his 
wife,  whom,  according  to  a  very  common  usage,  he  may  have 
married  in  the  place  where  he  was  stationed ;  for  it  is  hardly  pro- 
bable that  a  Roman  captain  from  Italy  could  have  had  any  of  his 
own  blood  relations  about  him,  unless,  perhaps,  some  of  them 
might  have  enlisted  with  him,  and  now  been  serving  with  him  on 
this  honorable  post.  His  near  friends,  who  completed  the  assembly, 
were  probably  such  of  his  brother  officers  as  he  knew  to  possess 
kindred  tastes  with  himself,  and  to  take  an  interest  in  religious 
matters.  Such  was  the  meeting  that  Peter  found  sitting  in  expec 
tation  of  his  coming ;  and  so  high  were  the  ideas  which  Cornelius 
had  formed  of  the  character  of  his  visitor,  that,  as  soon  as  he  met 
him  on  his  entrance  into  the  house,  he  fell  down  at  his  feet,  and 
paid  him  reverence  as  a  superior  being ; — an  act  of  abasement  to- 
wards the  inhabitant  of  a  conquered  country,  most  rare  and  re- 
markable in  a  Roman  officer,  and  one  to  which  nothing  but  a 
notion  of  supernatural  excellence  could  ever  have  brought  him, 
since  this  was  a  position  assumed  not  even  by  those  who  ap- 
proached the  emperor  himself.  Peter,  however,  had  no  desire  to 
be  made  the  object  of  a  reverence  so  nearly  resembling  idolatry. 
Raising  up  the  prostrate  Roman,  he  said — "  Stand  up ;  for  I  my- 
self am  also  a  man."  Entering  into  familiar  discourse  with  him, 
he  now  advanced  into  the  house,  and  going  with  him  to  the  great 
room,  he  there  found  a  numerous  company.  He  addressed  them 
in  these  words : — "  You  know  how  unlawful  it  is  for  a  Jew  to  be 
familiar  with,  or  even  to  visit,  one  of  another  nation  ;  but  God  has 


196  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

taught  me  to  call  no  man  profane  or  unclean.  Wherefore,  I  came 
at  your  summons,  without  hesitation.  Now,  then,  I  ask  with  what 
desigrl  have  you  sent  for  me  ?"  And  Cornelius  said — "  Four  days 
ago,  I  was  fasting  till  this  hour ;  and  at  the  ninth  hour  I  was  pray- 
ing in  my  house ;"— and  so  having  gone  on  to  narrate  all  the  cir- 
cumstances of  his  vision,  as  given  above,  concluded  in  these 
words : — "  For  this  reason  I  sent  for  thee,  and  thou  hast  done  well 
in  coming,  for  we  are  all  here,  before  God,  to  hear  what  has  been 
imparted  to  thee,  from  God."  And  Peter  began  solemnly  to  speak, 
and  said — "  Of  a  truth,  I  perceive  that  God  is  no  respecter  of  per- 
sons ;  but  that  in  every  nation,  he  that  fears  him  and  does  what  is 
right,  is  approved  by  him."  With  this  solemn  profession  of  a  new 
view  of  this  important  principle  of  universal  religion,  as  a  begin- 
ning, he  went  on  to  satisfy  their  high  expectations,  by  setting  forth 
to  them  the  sum  and  substance  of  the  gospel  doctrine,  of  whose 
rise  and  progress  they  had  already,  by  report,  heard  a  vague  and 
partial  account.  The  great  and  solemn  truth  which  the  Spirit  had 
summoned  him  to  proclaim,  was — that  Jesus  Christ  the  crucified 
was  ordained  by  God  the  judge  of  both  living  and  dead ;  and  that 
through  him,  as  all  the  prophets  testified,  every  one  that  believed 
should  have  remission  of  sins.  Of  his  resurrection  from  the  dead, 
Peter  declared  himself  the  witness,  as  well  as  of  his  labors  of 
good-will  towards  man,  when,  anointed  with  the  Spirit  of  God,  he 
went  about  doing  good.  Thus  did  Peter  discourse,  excited  by  the 
novel  and  divinely  appointed  occasion,  till  the  same  divine  influ- 
ence that  moved  his  heart  and  tongue  was  poured  out  on  his 
charmed  hearers  ;  and  they  forthwith  manifested  the  signs  of 
change  of  heart  and  devout  faith  in  Christ,  as  the  Son  of  God  and 
the  judge  of  the  world,  and  made  known  the  delight  of  their  new 
sensations,  in  words  of  miraculous  power.  At  this  display  of  the 
equal  and  impartial  grace  of  God,  the  Jewish  church-members 
from  Joppa,  who  had  accompanied  Peter  to  Caesarea,  were  greatly 
amazed,  having  never  before  imagined  it  possible  for  the  influences 
of  the  divine  Spirit  to  be  imparted  to  any  who  had  not  devoudy 
conformed  to  all  the  rituals  of  the  holy  law,  of  old  given  by  God 
to  Moses,  whose  high  authority  was  attested  amid  the  smoke  and 
flame  and  thunder  of  Sinai.  And  what  change  was  this  ?  In  the 
face  of  this  awful  sanction,  these  believing  followers  of  Moses  and 
Christ  saw  the  outward  signs  of  the  inward  action  of  that  Spirit 
which  they  had  been  accustomed  to  acknowedge  as  divine,  now 
moving  with  the  same  holy  energy  the  souls  and  voices  of  those 


Peter's  apostleship.  197 

born  and  bred  among  the  heathen,  without  the  consecrating  aid  of 
one  of  those  forms  of  purification,  by  which  Moses  had  ordained 
their  preparation  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  blessings  of  God's  holy 
covenant  with  his  own  peculiar  people.  Moved  by  that  same  mys- 
terious and  holy  influence,  the  Gentile  warriors  of  Rome  now  lifted 
up  their  voices  in  praise  of  the  God  of  Israel  and  of  Abraham, — 
doubtless,  too,  their  God  and  Father,  though  Abraham  were  igno- 
rant of  them,  and  Israel  acknowledged  them  not ;  since  through 
his  son  Jesus  a  new  covenant  had  been  sealed  in  blood,  opening 
and  securing  the  blessings  of  that  merciful  and  faithful  promise 
to  all  nations.  On  Jehovah  they  now  called  as  their  Father  and 
Redeemer,  whose  name  was  from  everlasting, — known  and  wor- 
shiped long  ere  Abraham  lived.  Never  before  had  the  great  par- 
tition-wall between  Jews  and  Gentiles  been  thus  broken  down  ;  nor 
had  the  noble  and  equal  freedom  of  the  new  covenant  ever  yet 
been  so  truly  and  fully  made  known.  And  who  was  he  that  had 
thus  boldly  trampled  on  the  legal  usages  of  the  ancient  Mosaic 
covenant,  as  consecrated  by  the  reverence  of  ages,  and  had  im- 
parted the  holy  signs  of  the  Christian  faith  to  men  shut  out  from 
the  mysteries  of  the  inner  courts  of  the  house  of  God  ?  It  was  not 
a  presumptuous  or  unauthorized  man,  nor  one  thoughtless  of  the 
vastly  important  consequences  of  the  act.  It  was  the  constituted 
leader  of  the  apostolic  band,  who  now,  in  direct  execution  of  his 
solemn  commission  received  from  his  Master,  and  in  the  literal  ful- 
filment of  the  prophetic  charge  given  therewith  at  the  base  of  dis- 
tant Hermon,  opened  the  gates  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  all 
nations.  Bearing  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  he 
now,  in  the  set  time  of  divine  appointment, •at  the  call  of  his 
Master  in  heaven,  so  signally  given  to  him  both  directly  and  in- 
directly, unlocked  the  long-closed  door,  and  with  a  voice  of  hea- 
venly charity,  bade  the  waiting  Gentiles  enter.  This  was  the 
mighty  commission  with  which  Jesus  had  so  prophetically  honored 
this  chief  disciple  at  Caesarea  Philippi, — and  here,  at  Caesarea 
Augusta,  was  achieved  the  glorious  fulfilment  of  this  before  mys- 
terious announcement : — Simon  Peter,  now  in  the  accomplishment 
of  that  divinely  appointed  task,  became  the  Rock,  on  which  the 
church  of  Christ  was,  through  the  course  of  ages,  reared ;  and  in 
this  act,  the  first  stone  of  its  broad  Gentile  foundation  was  laid. 

On  duty  about  him. — This  phrase  is  the  just  translation  of  the  technical  term  Tipoa- 
KapTcpnivTui',  {proslcarterounton,)  according  to  Price,  Kuinoel,  Bloomfield,  &c. 

The  Alijah. — (Heb.  ni^y.)  This  is  the  proper  Hebrew  name  for  that  apartment  in 
Oriental  houses,  which  is  enclosed  on  the  flat  roof,  and  is  sometimes  covered,  consti- 


198  LIVES   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

tuting,  always,  the  place  of  secret  devotion  in  a  Hebrew  family.  When  not  wholly 
exposed  to  the  sky,  it  was  at  least  so  far  open  as  to  permit  the  eye  to  look  beyond  the 
place  in  the  direction  of  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  which  was  the  great  centre  of  He- 
brew devotion. 

Of  all  the  honors  with  which  his  apostolic  career  was  marked, 
there  is  none  which  equals  this, — the  revolutionizing  of  the  whole 
gospel  plan  as  before  understood  and  advanced  by  its  devotees, — 
the  enlargement  of  its  scope  beyond  the  widest  range  of  any  mere- 
ly Jewish  charity, — and  the  disenthralment  of  its  subjects  from  the 
antique  formality  and  cumbrous  ritual  of  the  Jewish  worship. 
And  of  all  the  events  which  the  apostolic  history  records,  there  is 
none  which,  in  its  far-reaching  and  long-lasting  effects,  can  match 
the  opening  of  Christ's  kingdom  to  the  Gentiles.  What  would 
have  been  the  rate  of  its  advancement  under  the  management  of 
those,  who,  like  the  apostles  hitherto,  looked  on  it  as  a  mere  im- 
provement and  spiritualization  of  the  old  Mosaic  form,  to  which 
it  was,  in  their  view,  only  an  appendage,  and  not  a  substitute  ? 
Think  of  what  chances  there  were  of  its  extension,  under  such 
views,  to  those  far  western  lands  where,  ages  ago,  it  reached  with  its 
benign  influences  the  Teutons  and  Northmen  from  whom  we  have 
descended  : — or  of  what  possibility  there  was  of  ever  bringing  un- 
der the  intolerable  yoke  of  Jewish  forms,  the  hundreds  of  millions 
who  now,  out  of  so  many  lands  and  kindreds  and  tongues,  bear 
the  light  yoke,  and  own  the  simple  faith  of  Jesus,  confessing  him 
Lord,  to  the  glory  of  God  the  Father.  Yet  hitherto,  so  far  from 
seeing  these  things  in  their  true  light,  all  the  followers  of  Christ 
had,  notwithstanding  his  broad  and  open  commission  to  them, 
steadily  persisted  in  the  notion,  that  the  observance  of  the  regula- 
tions laid  down  by  •Moses  for  proselytes  to  his  faith,  was  equally 
essential  for  a  full  conversion  to  the  faith  of  Christ.  And  now, 
too,  it  required  a  new  and  distinctly  repeated  summons  from  above, 
to  bring  even  the  great  chief  of  the  apostles  to  the  just  sense  of 
the  freedom  of  the  gospel,  and  to  the  practical  belief  that  God  was 
no  respecter  of  persons.  But  the  whole  progress  of  the  event, 
with  all  its  miraculous  attestations,  left  so  little  doubt  as  to  the 
nature  of  the  change,  that  Peter,  after  the  manifestation  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  in  the  hearts  and  voices  of  the  Gentile  converts,  tri- 
umphantly appealed  to  the  Jewish  brethren  who  had  accompa- 
nied him  from  Joppa,  and  asked  them — "Can  any  one  forbid 
the  water  for  the  baptizing  of  these,  who  have  received  the  Holy 
Spirit  as  well  as  we  ?"  Taking  the  unanimous  suffrage  of  their 
silence  to  his  challenge,  as  a  full  consent,  he  gave  directions  that 


Peter's  apostleship.  199 

the  believing  Romans  should  be  baptized  in  the  name  of  the  Lord, 
as  Jesus  in  his  parting  charge  had  constituted  that  ordinance  for 
the  seal  of  redemption  to  every  creature,  in  all  the  nations  to 
whom  the  gospel  should  be  preached.  Having  thus  formally  en- 
rolled the  first  Gentile  converts,  as  the  free  and  complete  partakers 
of  the  blessings  of  the  new  covenant,  he  stayed  among  them 
several  days,  at  their  request,  strengthening  their  faith,  and  en- 
larging their  knowledge  by  his  pastoral  instruction ;  which  he 
deemed  a  task  of  sufficient  importance  to  detain  him,  for  a  while, 
from  his  circuit  among  the  new  converts,  scattered  about  in  other 
places,  throughout  Palestine,  and  from  any  immediate  return  to  his 
friends  and  converts  at  Joppa*,  where  this  call  had  found  him. 

THE  DENIAL  OP  PETER's  SUPREMACY. 

Meanwhile,  this  mighty  innovation  on  the  established  order  of 
sacred  things  could  not  be  long  unknown  beyond  the  cities  of 
Caesarea  and  Joppa,  but  was  soon  announced  by  the  varied  voice 
of  rumor  to  the  amazed  apostles  and  brethren  at  Jerusalem.  The 
impression  made  on  them  by  this  vague  report  of  their  great 
leader's  proceedings,  was  most  decidedly  unfavorable ;  and  there 
seem  to  have  been  not  a  few  who  regarded  this  unprecedented  act 
of  Peter  as  a  downright  abuse  of  the  dignity  and  authority  with 
which  the  special  commission  of  his  Master  had  invested  him. 
Doubtless,  in  that  little  religious  community,  as  in  every  other  as- 
sociation of  men  ever  gathered,  there  were  already  many  human 
jealousies  springing  up  like  roots  of  bitterness,  which  needed  but 
such  an  occasion  as  this,  to  manifest  themselves  in  decided  cen- 
sure of  the  man,  whose  remarkable  exaltation  over  them  might 
seem  like  a  stigma  on  the  capacities  or  merits  of  those  to  whom 
he  was  preferred.  Those  in  whose  hearts  such  feelings  had  been 
rankling,  now  found  a  great  occasion  for  the  display  of  their  reli- 
gious zeal,  in  this  bold  movement  of  their  constituted  leader,  who 
herein  seemed  to  have  presumed  on  his  distinction  and  priority,  to 
act  in  a  matter  of  the  very  highest  importance,  without  the  slight 
est  reference  to  the  feelings  and  opinions  of  those  who  had  been 
with  him  chosen  for  the  great  work  of  spreading  the  gospel  to  all 
nations.  And  so  much  of  free  opinion  and  expression  was  there 
among  them,  that  this  act  of  the  chief  apostle  called  forth  com- 
plaints both  deep  and  loud,  from  his  brethren,  against  this  open 
and  unexplained  violation  of  the  holy  ordinances  of  that  ancient 
law,  which  was  still  to  them  and  him  the  seal  and  sign  of  salva- 


200  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

tion.  Peter,  at  length,  after  completing  his  apostolic  circuit  among 
the  churches,  of  which  no  farther  account  is  given  to  us,  returned 
to  Jerusalem,  to  meet  these  murmurs  with  the  bold  and  clear  de- 
claration of  the  truth.  As  soon  as  he  arrived,  the  dissatisfied  party 
burst  out  on  him  with  open  complaints  of  his  violations  of  the 
strict  religious  exclusiveness  of  demeanor,  which  became  a  son  of 
Israel  professing  the  pure  reformed  faith  of  Jesus.  The  unhesi- 
tating boldness  with  which  this  charge  of  a  breach  of  order  was 
made  against  Peter  by  the  sticklers  for  circumcision,  is  a  valuable 
and  interesting  proof,  that  all  his  authority  and  dignity  among 
them,  did  not  amount  to  any  thing  like  a  sujiremacy ;  and  that 
whatever  he  might  bind  or  loose  on  -earth  for  the  high  sanction  of 
heaven,  he  could  neither  bind  the  tongues  and  opinions,  nor  loose 
the  consciences  of  these  sturdy  and  free-spoken  brethren.  Nor 
does  Peter  seem  to  have  had  the  least  idea  of  claiming  any  exemp- 
tion from  their  critical  review  of  his  actions ;  but  straightway  ad- 
dressed himself  respectfully  to  them,  in  a  faithful  detail  of  his 
conduct,  and  the  reasons  of  it.  He  distinctly  recounted  to  them 
the  clear  and  decided  call  which  he  considered  himself  to  have 
received  from  heaven,  by  which  he  was  summoned  as  the  spiritual 
guide  of  the  inquiring  Gentiles.  And  after  the  honest  recital  of 
the  whole  series  of  incidents,  and  of  the  crowning  act  of  the 
whole,  the  imparting  to  them  the  outward  sign  of  inward  washing 
from  their  sins,  he  boldly  appealed  to  the  judgments  of  his  accusers, 
to  say  whether,  in  the  face  of  such  a  sanction,  they  would  have 
had  him  do  otherwise.  "  When  the  Holy  Ghost  fell  on  them,  as 
on  us  at  the  beginning,  then  remembered  I  the  word  of  the  Lord, 
how  that  he  said,"  [when  parting  from  us,  on  the  top  of  Olivet,  to 
rise  to  the  bosom  of  his  Father,  prophetically  announcing  a  new 
and  holy  consecration  and  endowment  for  our  work,]  "  John  in- 
deed baptized  with  water,  but  ye  shall  be  baptized  with  the  Holy 
Ghost."  [This  peculiar  gift  thus  solemnly  announced,  we  had 
indeed  received  at  the  pentecost,  and  its  outward  signs  we  had 
thereby  learned  infallibly  by  our  own  experience ;  and  even  so,  at 
Caesarea,  I  recognized  in  those  Gentiles  the  same  tokens  by  which 
I  knew  the  workings  of  divine  grace  in  myself  and  you.]  "  For- 
asmuch, then,  as  God  gave  them  the  like  gift  as  to  us,  wlio  be- 
lieved on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  what  was  I,  that  I  should  with- 
stand God  ?" — This  clear  and  unanswerable  appeal  silenced  the 
clamors  of  the  bold  assertors  of  the  inviolability  of  Mosaic  forms  ; 
and  when  they  heard  these  things,  they  held   their  peace,  and, 


Peter's  apostleship.  201 

softened  from  their  harsh  spirit  of  rebuke,  they,  in  a  noble  feehng 
of  truly  Christian  triumph,  forgot  all  their  late  exclusiveness,  in 
a  pure  joy  for  the  new  and  vast  extension  of  the  dominion  of 
Christ,  secured  by  this  act,  whose  important  consequences  they 
were  not  slow  in  perceiving.  They  praised  God  for  such  a  begin- 
ning of  mighty  results  ;  and  laying  aside,  in  this  moment  of  exulta- 
tion, every  feeling  of  narrow  Jewish  bigotry,  they  acknowledged 
that  "  to  the  Gentiles  also,  God  had  granted  repentance  unto  life." 

HEROD  AGRIPPA. 

At  this  time,  the  monarch  of  the  Roman  world  was  Caius 
Caesar,  commonly  known  by  his  surname,  Caligula.  Among 
the  first  acts  of  a  reign,  whose  outset  was  deservedly  popular  for 
its  numerous  manifestations  of  prudence  and  benevolence,  forming 
a  strange  contrast  with  subsequent  tyranny  and  folly,  was  the  ad- 
vancement of  a  tried  and  faithful  friend,  to  the  regal  honors  and 
power  which  his  birth  entitled  him  to  claim,  and  from  which  the 
neglectful  indifference  at  first,  and  afterwards  the  revengeful  spite 
of  the  preceding  Caesar,  Tiberius,  had  long  excluded  him.  This 
was  Herod  Agrippa,  grandson  of  that  great  Herod,  who,  by  the 
force  of  his  own  exalted  genius,  and  by  the  favor  of  the  imperial 
Augustas,  rose  from  the  place  of  a  friendless  foreign  adventurer, 
to  the  kingly  sway  of  all  Palestine.  This  extensive  power  he  ex- 
ercised in  a  manner  which  was,  on  the  whole,  ultimately  advan- 
tageous to  his  subjects  ;  but  his  whole  reign,  and  the  later  years  of 
it  more  particularly,  were  marked  by  cruelties  the  most  infamous, 
to  which  he  was  led  by  almost  insane  fits  of  wild  and  causeless 
jealousy.  On  none  of  the  subjects  of  his  power,  did  this  tyran- 
nical fury  fall  with  such  frequent  and  dreadful  visitations,  as  on 
his  own  family ;  and  it  was  there,  that,  in  his  alternate  fits  of  fury 
and  remorse,  he  was  often  made  the  avenger  of  his  own  victims. 
Among  these  numerous  domestic  cruelties,  one  of  the  earliest,  and 
the  most  distressinsf,  was  the  murder  of  the  amiable  Mariamne, 
the  daughter  of  the  last  of  the  Asamonean  line, — 

"  Herself  the  solitary  scion  left 
Of  a  time-honored  race," 

which  Herod's  remorseless  policy  had  exterminated.  Her,  he  made 
his  wife,  and  after  a  few  years,  sacrificed  her  to  some  wild  freak 
of  jealousy,  only  to  reap  long  years  of  agonizing  remorse  for  the 
hasty  act,  when  a  cooler  search  had  shown,  too  late,  her  stainless 
innocence.     But  a  passionate  despot  never  yet  learned  wisdom  by 


202  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

being  made  to  feel  the  recoil  of  his  own  folly ;  and  in  the  course 

of  later  years  this  cruelty  was  equaled,  and  almost  outdone,  by  a 
similar  act,  committed  by  him  on  those  whom  her  memory  should 
have  saved,  if  any  thing  could.  The  innocent  and  unfortunate 
Mariamne  left  him  two  sons,  then  mere  children,  whom  the  mi- 
serable, repentant  tyrant,  cherished  and  reared  with  an  affectionate 
care,  which  might  almost  have  seemed  a  partial  atonement  for  the 
injuries  of  their  murdered  mother.  After  some  years  passed  in 
obtaining  a  foreign  education  at  the  imperial  court  of  Rome,  these 
two  sons,  Alexander  and  Aristobulus,  returned  at  their  father's 
summons,  to  his  court,  where  their  noble  qualities,  their  eloquence 
and  manly  accomplishments,  as  well  as  the  interest  excited  by 
their  mother's  fate,  drew  on  them  the  favorable  and  admiring  regard 
of  the  whole  people.  But  all  that  made  them  admirable  and 
amiable  to  others,  was  as  powerless  as  the  memory  of  their  mother, 
to  save  them  from  the  fury  of  the  suspicious  tyrant.  Those  whose 
interests  could  be  promoted  by  such  a  course,  soon  found  means 
to  make  them  objects  of  jealousy  and  terror  to  him,  and  ere  long 
involved  them  in  a  groundless  accusation  of  conspiring  against  his 
dominion  and  life.  The  uneasiness  excited  in  Herod  by  their 
great  popularity  and  their  commanding  talents,  led  him  to  believe 
this  charge  ;  and  the  wretched  old  king,  driven  from  fear  to  jea- 
lousy, and  from  jealousy  to  fury,  at  last  crowned  his  own  wretch- 
edness and  their  wrongs,  by  strangling  them  both,  after  an  impri- 
sonment of  so  great  a  length  as  to  take  away  from  his  crime  even 
the  shadowy  excuse  of  hastiness.  This  was  one  of  the  last  acts 
of  a  bloody  life ;  but  ere  he  died,  returning  tenderness  towards  the 
unfortunate  race  of  Mariamne,  led  him  to  spare  and  cherish  the 
infant  children  of  Aristobulus,  the  younger  of  the  two,  who  left 
three  sons  and  two  daughters  to  the  tender  mercies  of  his  cruel 
father.  One  of  these  was  the  person  who  is  concerned  in  the 
next  event  of  Peter's  life,  and  whose  situation  and  conduct  in  re- 
ference to  that  affair,  was  such  as  to  justify  this  prolonged  episode. 
He  received  in  infancy  the  name  of  Agrippa,  out  of  compliment 
to  Marcus  Vipsanius  Agrippa,  the  favorite  and  minister  of  Augus- 
tus Caesar,  and  the  steady  friend  of  the  great  Herod.  This  name 
was  exclusively  borne  by  this  son  of  Aristobulus  in  childhood,  nor 
was  it  ever  displaced  by  any  other,  except  by  some  of  the  Jews, 
who,  out  of  compliment  to  the  restoration  of  the  Herodian  line  of 
kings,  in  place  of  the  Roman  sub-governors,  gave  him  the  name 
of  his  royal  grandfather,  so  that  he  is  mentioned  only  by  the  name 


Peter's  apostleship.  203 

of  Herod,  in  the  story  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles ;  but  the  Romans 
and  Greeks  seem  to  have  known  him  only  by  his  proper  name  of 
Agrippa.  The  tardy  repentance  of  his  grandfather  did  not  extend 
to  any  important  permanent  provision  for  the  children  of  Aristo- 
bulus ;  but  on  his  death  a  few  years  after,  they  were  left  Avith  the 
great  majority  of  the  numerous  progeny  of  Herod,  to  the  preca- 
rious fortunes  of  dependent  princes.  The  young  Agrippa  having 
married  his  own  cousin,  Cypros,  the  daughter  of  a  daughter  of 
Herod  and  Mariamne,  sailed  to  Rome,  where  he  remained  for 
several  years,  a  sort  of  beggar  about  the  court  of  Tiberius  Caesar, 
through  whose  favor  he  hoped  for  an  advancement  to  some  one  of 
the  thrones  in  Palestine,  which  seemed  to  be  prizes  for  any  of 
Herod's  numerous  descendents  who  could  best  secure  the  imperial 
favor,  and  depress  the  possessors  in  the  Caesar's  opinion.  Passing 
at  Rome  and  elsewhere  through  a  romantic  variety  of  fortune,  this 
adventurer  was  at  last  lucky  in  securing  to  himself  the  most 
friendly  regard  of  Caius  Caesar,  then  the  expected  successor  of 
the  reigning  emperor.  This  afterwards  proved  the  basis  of  his 
fortunes,  which,  for  a  while,  however,  were  darkened  by  the  con- 
sequences of  an  imprudent  remark  made  to  Caius,  expressive  of  a 
wish  for  the  death  of  Tiberius,  which  was  reported  to  the  jealous 
tyrant  by  a  listening  slave,  and  finally  caused  the  speaker's  close 
imprisonment  during  the  rest  of  the  emperor's  life.  The  death 
of  Tiberius,  followed  by  the  accession  of  Caius  Caesar  to  the 
throne,  raised  Agrippa  from  his  chains  to  freedom,  and  to  the  most 
intimate  favor  of  the  new  monarch.  The  tetrarchy  of  Iturea  and 
Trachonitis,  then  vacant  by  the  death  of  Philip,  was  immediately 
conferred  on  him ;  and  soon  after,  Herod  Antipas  having  been  ex- 
iled, his  territories,  Galilee  and  Peraea,  were  added  to  the  former 
dominions  of  Herod  Agrippa,  and  with  them  was  granted  to  him 
the  title  of  kiiig,  which  had  never  yet  been  given  to  any  of  the 
descendents  of  Herod  the  Great.  In  this  state  were  the  govern- 
ments of  these  countries  at  the  time  of  the  events  last  narrated ; 
but  Herod  Agrippa,  often  visiting  Rome,  left  all  Palestine  in  the 
hands  of  Publius  Petronius,  the  just  and  benevolent  Roman  pre- 
sident of  Syria.  In  this  state  affairs  remained  during  all  the 
short  reign  of  Caius  Caligula  Caesar,  who,  after  four  years  mostly 
characterized  by  folly,  vice,  and  cruelty,  ended  his  days  by  the 
daggers  of  assassins.  But  this  great  event  proved  no  check  to  the 
flourishing  fortunes  of  his  favorite,  king  Herod  Agrippa ;  who,  in 
the  course  of  the  events  which  ended  in  placing  Claudius  on  the 


\ 


204  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

throne,  so  distinguished  himself  in  the  prehminary  negociations 
between  the  new  emperor  and  the  senate,  sharing  as  he  did  the 
confidence  and  regard  of  both  parties,  that  he  was  justly  considered 
by  all,  as  the  most  active  means  of  effecting  the  comfortable  set- 
tlement of  their  difficulties ;  and  he  was  therefore  deemed  well 
deserving  of  the  highest  rewards.  Accordingly,  the  first  act  of 
Claudius's  government,  like  the  first  of  Caligula's,  was  the  pre- 
sentation of  a  new  kingdom  to  this  favorite  of  fortune, — Judea 
being  now  added  to  the  other  countries  in  his  possession ;  and 
thus  was  all  Palestine  brought  into  one  noble  kingdom,  beneath  his 
extensive  sway.  With  a  dominion  comprising  all  that  the  policy  of 
his  grandfather  had  been  able  to  attain  during  a  very  long  and  active 
life,  he  now  found  himself,  at  the  age  of  fifty-one,  one  of  the  most 
extraordinary  instances  of  romantic  fortune  that  had  ever  occurred ; 
and  anxious  to  enjoy  something  of  the  solid  pleasure  of  visiting 
and  governing  his  great  and  flourishing  kingdom,  he  set  sail  from 
Rome,  which  had  so  long  been  to  him  the  scene  of  such  varied 
fortune,  such  calamitous  poverty  and  tedious  imprisonment, — and 
now  proceeded  as  the  proud  king  of  Palestine,  going  home  in  tri- 
umph to  the  throne  of  his  ancestor,  supported  by  the  most  bound- 
less pledges  of  imperial  favor.  The  emperor  Claudius,  though 
regretting  exceedingly  the  departure  of  the  tried  friend  whom  he 
had  so  much  reason  to  love  and  cherish,  yet  would  not  detain  him 
from  a  happiness  so  noble  and  desirable  as  that  of  arranging  and 
ruling  his  consolidated  dominion.  Even  his  departure,  however, 
was  made  the  occasion  of  new  marks  of  imperial  favor ;  for  Clau- 
dius gave  him  letters  by  which  all  Roman  governors  were  bound 
to  acknowledge  and  support  him  as  the  rightful  sovran  of  Pa- 
lestine. He  arrived  in  Palestine  shortly  after  ;  and  just  before  the 
passover,  made  his  appearance  in  Jerusalem,  where  he  was  re- 
ceived with  joy  and  hope  by  the  expecting  people,  who  hailed 
with  open  hearts  a  king  whose  interests  would  be  identified  with 
theirs,  and  with  the  glory  of  the  Jewish  name.  His  high  and 
royal  race, — his  own  personal  misfortunes,  and  the  unhappy  fate  of 
his  early-murdered  father,  as  well  as  his  descent  from  the  lamented 
Mariamne, — his  well  known  amiability  of  character,  and  his  regard 
for  the  holy  Jewish  faith,  which  he  had  shown  by  exerting  and 
even  risking  all  his  favor  with  Caligula  to  prevent,  in  co-operation 
with  the  amiable  Petronius,  the  profanation  of  the  temple  as  pro- 
posed by  the  erection  of  the  emperor's  statue  within  it, — all  served 
to  throw  a  most  attractive  interest  around  him,  and  to  excite  bril- 


Peter's  apostleship.  205 

liant  hopes,  which  his  first  acts  immediately  more  than  justified. 
The  temple,  though  now  so  resplendent  with  the  highest  achiev- 
ments  of  art,  and  though  so  vast  in  its  foundations  and  dimen- 
sions, was  still  considered  as  having  some  deficiencies,  so  great, 
that  nothing  but  royal  munificence  could  supply  them.  The  Jews 
therefore  seized  the  fortunate  occasion  of  the  accession  of  their 
new  and  amiable  monarch  to  his  throne,  to  obtain  the  perfection 
of  a  work  on  which  the  hearts  of  the  people  were  so  much  set, 
and  the  completion  of  which  would  so  highly  advance  the  monarch 
in  the  popular  favor.  The  king  at  once  benignantly  heard  their 
request,  and  gladly  availing  himself  of  this  opportunity  to  gratify 
his  subjects,  and  secure  a  regard  from  them  which  might  some 
day  be  an  advantage  to  him,  immediately  ordered  the  great  work 
to  proceed  at  his  expense.  The  satisfaction  of  the  people  and  the 
Sanhedrim  was  now  at  the  highest  pitch ;  and,  emboldened  by 
these  displays  of  royal  favor,  some  of  the  sage  plotters  among 
them  hoped  to  obtain  from  him  a  favorable  hearing  on  a  matter 
which  they  deemed  of  still  deeper  importance  to  their  religion, 
and  in  which  his  support  was  equally  indispensable.  This  matter 
brings  back  the  forsaken  apostolic  narrative  to  a  more  direct  con- 
sideration. 

Herod  Agrippa. — All  the  interesting  details  of  this  richly  romantic  life,  are  given 
in  a  most  delightful  style  by  Josephus.  (Ant.  XVIII.  v.  3,— viii.  9,  and  XIX.  i.— ix^ 
The  same  is  more  concisely  given  by  the  same  author  in  another  place.  (War.  II. 
ix.  5, — xi.  6.)  The  prominent  events  of  Petronius's  administration  are  also  given  in 
the  former.  The  name  "  Herod"  is  nowhere  applied  to  this  king,  except  in  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles.  Josephus  iiniformly  calls  him  "  Agrippa"  merely,  and  never  men- 
tions that  the  name  "  Herod"  was  ever  given  to  him  ;— perhaps,  because  he  wished 
to  avoid  a  confusion  of  names  in  giving  the  history  of  so  many  Herods. 

THE  PEACEFUL  PROGRESS  OF  THE  FAITH. 

The  apostles,  after  the  great  events  last  narrated,  gave  them- 
selves with  new  zeal  to  the  work  which  was  now  so  vastly  ex- 
tended by  the  opening  of  the  wide  field  of  the  Gentiles.  Others 
of  the  refugees  from  the  popular  rage,  at  the  time  of  Stephen's 
m-iirder,  had  gone  even  beyond  the  boundaries  of  Palestine,  bring- 
ing into  the  sphere  of  apostolic  operations  a  great  number  of  in- 
teresting subjects,  before  unthought  of.  Some  of  the  bold,  free 
workers,  who  had  heard  of  the  late  changes  in  the  views  of  the 
apostles,  respecting  the  characters  of  those  for  whom  the  gospel 
was  designed,  now  no  longer  limited  their  efforts  of  love  to  the 
children  of  the  stock  of  Abraham,  but  proclaimed  the  faith  of 
Jesus  to  those  who  had  before  never  heard  his  name.    The  gospel 


206  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

was  thus  carried  into  Syria  and  Cyprus,  and  thence  rapidly  spread 
into  many  other  countries,  where  Macedonian  conquest  and  Hel- 
lenic colonization  had  made  the  Greek  the  language  of  cities, 
courts,  commerce,  and,  to  a  great  extent,  of  literature.  The  great 
city  of  Antioch  soon  became  a  sort  of  metropolis  of  the  numerous 
churches,  which  sprang  up  in  that  region,  beyond  the  immediate 
reach  of  Jerusalem,  now  the  common  home  of  the  apostles,  and 
the  centre  of  the  Christian,  as  of  the  Jewish  faith.  Grecians  as 
well  as  Jews,  in  this  new  march  of  the  gospel,  were  made  sharers 
in  its  blessings ;  and  the  multiplication  of  converts  among  them 
was  so  rapid  as  to  give  a  new  importance,  at  once,  to  this  sort  of 
Christians.  The  communication  of  these  events  to  the  apostles  at 
Jerusalem,  called  for  some  systematic  action  on  their  part,  to  con- 
firm and  complete  the  good  work  thus  begun  by  the  random  and 
occasional  efforts  of  mere  wandering  fugitives  from  persecution. 
They  accordingly  selected  persons  especially  fitted  for  this  field  of 
labor,  and  despatched  them  to  Antioch,  to  fulfil  the  duties  imposed 
on  the  apostles  in  reference  to  this  new  opening.  The  details  of 
the  operations  of  these  new  laborers,  will  be  given  in  their  lives 
hereafter. 

In  performing  the  various  offices  required  in  their  domestic  and 
foreign  fields  of  labor,  now  daily  multiplying,  Peter  and  his  asso- 
ciates had  continued  for  several  years  steadily  occupied,  but 
achieving  no  particular  action  that  has  received  notice  in  the  his- 
tory of  their  acts ;  so  that  the  most  of  this  part  of  their  lives  re- 
mains a  blank  to  the  modern  investigator.  All  that  is  known,  is 
that  between  the  churches  of  Syria  and  Palestine  there  was  estab 
lished  a  frequent  friendly  intercourse,  more  particularly  between 
the  metropolitan  churches  of  Jerusalem  and  Antioch.  From  the 
former  went  forth  preachers  to  instruct  and  confirm  the  new  and 
untaught  converts  of  the  latter,  who  had  been  so  lately  stran- 
gers to  God's  covoiant  of  promise  with  his  people ;  while  from 
the  thriving  and  benevolent  disciples  of  Antioch  were  sent  back, 
in  grateful  recompense,  the  free  oflerings  of  such  aid  as  the  pre- 
valence of  a  general  dearth  made  necessary  for  the  support  of  their 
poor  and  friendless  brethren  in  Jerusalem ;  and  the  very  men  who 
had  been  first  sent  to  Antioch  with  the  commission  to  build  up  and 
strengthen  that  infant  church,  now  returned  to  the  mother  church 
at  Jerusalem,  with  the  generous  relief  which  gratitude  prompted 
these  new  sons  to  render  to  the  authors  of  their  faith. 


Peter's  apostleship.  207 

roman  tolerance. 

These  events  and  the  occasion  of  them  occurred  in  the  reion  of 
(ylaiidius  Caesar,  as  Luke  particularly  records, — thus  marking  the 
lapse  of  time  during  the  unregistered  period  of  the  apostolic  acts, 
which  is  also  confirmed  by  the  circumstances  of  Herod  Agrippa's 
reign,  mentioned  immediately  after,  as  occurring  "  about  that 
time  ;"  for,  as  has  been  specified  above,  Herod  Agrippa  did  not  rule 
Judea  till  the  reign  of  Claudius.  The  crucifixion  of  Jesus  oc- 
curred three  years  before  the  death  of  Tiberius  ;  and  as  the  whole 
four  years  of  the  reign  of  Caligula  was  passed  over  in  this  space, 
it  could  not  have  been  less  than  ten  years  after  the  crucifixion, 
when  these  events  took  place.  This  calculation  allows  time  for 
such  an  advance  of  the  apostolic  enterprise,  as  would,  under  their 
devoted  energy,  make  the  sect  most  formidable  to  those  who  re- 
garded its  success  as  likely  to  shake  the  security  of  the  established 
order  of  religious  things,  by  impairing  the  popular  reverence  for 
the  regularly  constituted  heads  of  Judaism.  Such  had  been  its 
progress,  and  such  was  the  impression  made  by  its  advance.  There 
could  no  longer  be  any  doubt  as  to  the  prospect  of  its  final  ascen- 
dencj'',  if  it  was  quietly  left  to  prosper  under  the  steady  and  devoted 
labors  of  its  apostles,  with  all  the  advantages  of  the  re-action  which 
had  taken  place  from  the  former  cruel  persecution  which  they  had 
suffered.  For  several  years  the  government  of  Palestine  had  been 
in  such  hands  that  the  Sanhedrim  had  few  advantages  for  securinof 
the  aid  of  the  secular  power,  in  consummating  their  exterminating 
plans  against  the  growing  heresy.  Not  long  after  the  time  of 
Pilate,  the  government  of  Judea  had  been  committed  by  the  em- 
peror to  Publius  Petronius,  the  president  of  Syria,  a  man  who,  on 
the  valuable  testimony  of  Josephus,  appears  to  have  been  of  the 
most  amiable  and  upright  character, — wholly  devoted  to  the  pro- 
motion of  the  real  interests  of  the  people  whom  he  ruled.  On 
several  occasions,  he  distinguished  himself  by  his  tenderness 
towards  the  peculiarly  delicate  religious  feelings  of  the  Jews,  and 
once  even  risked  and  incurred  the  wrath  of  the  vindictive  Caligula, 
by  disobeying  his  commands  to  profane  the  temple  at  Jerusalem 
by  the  erection  of  that  emperor's  statue  within  its  holy  courts, — a 
violation  of  the  purity  of  the  place,  which  had  been  suggested  to 
his  tyrannical  caprice  by  the  spiteful  hint  of  Apion,  of  Alexandria. 
But  though  Petronius,  in  this  matter,  showed  a  disposition  to 
incur  every  hazard,  to  spare  the  national  and  devotional  feelings 


208  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

of  the  Jews  so  awful  an  infliction,  there  is  nothing  in  his  conduct 
which  would  lead  us  to  suppose  that  he  would  sacrifice  justice  to 
the  gratification  of  the  persecuting  malice  of  the  Jews,  any  more 
than  to  the  imperious  tyranny  of  Caligula.  The  fairest  conclu- 
sion from  the  events  of  his  administration,  is,  that  he  regulated  his 
behavior  uniformly  by  his  own  sense  of  justice,  with  hardly  any 
reference  to  the  wild  impulses,  either  of  popular  or  imperial 
tyranny.  A  noble  personification  of  independent  and  invincible 
justice  !  but  one  not  beyond  the  range  of  the  moral  conceptions  of  a 
Roman,  even  under  the  corrupt  and  corrupting  rule  of  the  Caesars ; 
— for  thus  wrote  the  great  moral  poet  of  the  Augustan  age,  though 
breathing  the  enervating  air  of  a  servile  court,  and  living  on  the 
favor  of  a  monarch  who  exacted  from  his  courtiers  a  reverence 
truly  idolatrous : 

Justum  et  tenacem  propositi  virum, 
Non  civium  ardor  prava  jubentium, 
Non  vultus  instantis  tyranni 
Mente  quatit  solida.    *     *    ♦ 

The  moral  energy  of  the  Roman  character  made  the  exempli- 
fications of  this  fair  ideal  not  uncommon,  even  in  these  latter  days 
of  Roman  glory.     There  were  some  like  Petronius,  who  gave  life 
and  reality  to  this  poetical  conception  of  Horace, — "  A  man,  just 
and  resolute,  unshaken  from  his  firm  purpose  alike  by  the  perverse 
dictates  of  popular  rage  and  by  the  frown  of  an  overbearing  tyrant." 
And  these  were  among  the  chief  blessings  of  the  Roman  sway,  to 
those  lands  in  which  it  ruled, — that  the  great  interests  of  a  coun- 
try were  not  subjected  to  the  blind  movements  of  a  perverse  public 
opinion,  changing  with  every  year,  and  frustrating  every  good 
which  required  a  steady  policy  for  its  accomplishment, — that  the 
majority  of  the  people  were  not  allowed  to   tyrannize  over  the 
minority,  nor  the  minority  over  the  majority, — and  that  a  mighty 
power,  amenable  to  neither,  but  whose  interest  and  glory  would 
always  coincide  with  the  good  of  the  whole,  held  over  all  a  do- 
minion unchecked  by  the  demands  of  popular  caprice.     But  alas  ! 
for  the  imperfections  of  all  human  systems  ; — among  the  curses  of 
that  Roman  sway,  must  be  numbered  its  liability  to  fall  from  the 
hands  of  the  wise  and  the  amiable,  into  those  of  the  stupid  and 
brutal ;  changes  which  but  too  often  occurred,  overturning,  by  the 
mismanagement  of  a  moment,  the  results  of  years  of  benevolent 
and  prudent  policy.    And  in  this  very  case,  all  the  benefits  of  Pe- 
tronius's  equitable  and  considerate  rule,  were  utterly  neutralized 
and  annihilated  h^  the  foolishness  or  brutality  of  his  successors, 


Peter's  apostleship.  209 

(after  A^rippa,)  till  the  provoked  irritability  of  the  nation  at  last 
broke  out  with  a  fierceness  that  for  a  time  overcame  the  securities 
even  of  Koman  dominion,  and  was  finally  quieted  only  in  the  utter 
ruin  of  the  whole  Jewish  nation.    But  during  the  period  of  several 
years  following  the  exit  of  Pilate,  its  beneficial  energy  was  felt  in 
the  quiet  tolerance  of  religious  opinion,  which  he  enforced  on  all, 
and  which  was  most  highly  advantageous  to  the  progress  of  the 
doctrine  of  Christ,     To  this  circumstance  may  justly  be  referred 
that  remarkable  repose  enjoyed  by  the  apostles  and  their  follow- 
ers, from  all  interference  with  their  labors  by  the  Roman  govern- 
ment.    The  death  of  Jesus  Christ  himself,  indeed,  was  the  only 
act  in  which  the  civil  power  had  interfered  at  all !  for  the  murder 
of  Stephen  was  a  mere  freak  of  mob-violence,  a  mere  Lynch-law 
proceeding,  which  the  Roman  governor  would  not  have  sanctioned, 
if  it  had  been  brought  under  his  cognizance,  being  done  as  it  was, 
so  directly  in  the  face  of  those  principles  of  religious  tolerance 
which  the  policy  of  the  empire  enforced  everywhere,  excepting 
cases  in.  which  sedition  and  rebellion  against  their  dominion  was 
combined  with  religious  zealotism,  like  the  instances  of  the  Gau- 
ianitish  Judas,  Theudas,  and  others.     Even  Jesus  himself  was 
thus  accused  by  the  Jews,  and  was  condemned  by  Pilate  for  his 
alleged  endeavors  to  excite  a  revolt  against  Caesar,  and  opposing 
the  payment  of  the  Roman  taxes, — as  is  shown  by  the  statement 
of  all  the  evangelists,  and  more  particularly  by  Pilate's  inscription 
on  the  cross.     The  persecution  which  followed  the  murder  of 
Stephen  was  not  carried  on  under  the  sanction  of  the  Roman  go- 
vernment, nor  yet  was  it  against  their  authority  ;  for  they  permit- 
led  to  the  Sanhedrim  the  punishment  of  most  minor  olfences,  so 
long  as  they  did  not  go  beyond  imprisonment,  scourging,  banish- 
ment, (fee.     But  the  punishment  of  death  was  entirely  reserved  to 
the  civil  and  military  power ;  and  if  the  Jewish  magnates  had 
ever  formally  transgressed  this  limitation,  they  would  have  been 
instantly  punished  for  it^  as  a  treasonable    assumption   of  that 
supreme  power  which  their  conquerors  were  determined  to  guard 
with  the  most  watchful  jealousy.      The  Sanhedrim,  being  thus 
restricted  in  their  means  of  vengeance,  were  driven  to  the  low 
expedient  of  stirring  up  the  lawless  mob  to  the  execution  of  these 
deeds  of  desperate  violence,  which  their  religious  rulers  could 
wink  at,  and  yet  were  prepared  to  disown,  when  questioned  by  the 
Romans,  as  mere  popular  ferments,  over  which  they  had  no  con- 
trol whatever.     So  they  managed  with  Stephen ;  for  his  murder 


210  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

was  no  doubt  preconcerted  among  the  chief  men,  who  caused  the 
formal  preamble  of  a  trial,  with  the  design  of  provoking  the  mob, 
in  some  way,  to  this  act ;  in  which  scheme  they  were  too  much 
favored  by  the  fiery  spirit  of  the  martyr  himself,  who  had  not  pa- 
tience enough  with  their  bigotry  to  conceal  his  abhorrence  of  it. 
Their  subsequent  systematic  and  avowed  acts  of  violence,  it  should 
be  observed,  were  all  kept  strictly  within  the  well-defined  limits  of 
their  penal  jurisdiction  ;  for  there  is  no  evidence  whatever  that  any 
of  the  persecuted  Hellenists  ever  suffered  death  by  the  condemna- 
tion of  the  Sanhedrim,  or  by  the  sentence  of  a  Roman  tribunal. 
The  progress  of  these  events,  however,  showed  that  this  irritating 
and  harassing  system  of  whippings,  imprisonments,  and  banish- 
ments, had  a  tendency  rather  to  excite  the  energies  of  these  de- 
voted heretics,  than  to  check  or  crush  their  spirit  of  innovation 
and  denunciation.     Among  the  numerous  instances  of  malignant 
assault  on  the  personal  rights  of  these  sufierers,  and  the  cruel  vio- 
lation of  the  delicacy  due  to  the  weaker  sex,  there  must  have  been, 
also,  many  occasions  in  which  the  ever-varying  feelings  of  the 
public  would  be  moved  to  deep  sympathy  with  sufferers  who  bore, 
so  steadily  and  heroically,  punishments  manifestly  disproportioned 
to  the  offense  with  which  they  were  charged, — a  sympathy  which 
might  finally  rise  to  a  high  and  resistless  indignation  against  their 
remorseless  oppressors.     It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  this  perse- 
cution was  at  last  allayed  by  other  causes  than  the  mere  defection 
of  its  most  zealous  agent.     The  conviction  must  have  been  forced 
on  the  minds  of  the  persecutors,  that  this  system,  with  all  its  paltry 
and  vexatious  details,  must  be  given  up,  or  exchanged  for  one 
whose  operations  should  be  so  vast  and  sweeping  in  its  desolating 
vengeance,  as  to  overawe  and  appal,  rather  than  awaken  zeal  in 
the  objects  of  the  punishment,  or  sympathy  in  the  beholders.    The 
latter  alternative,  however,  was  too  hopeless,  under  the  steady,  be- 
nignant sway  of  Petronius,  to  be  calculated  upon,  until  a  change 
should  take  place  which  should  give  tie  country  a  ruler  of  less 
independent  and  scrupulous  character,  and  more  disposed  to  sacri- 
fice his  own  moral  sense  to  the  attainment  of  favor  with  the  most 
important  subjects  of  his  government.     Until  that  desirable  end 
should  be  attained,  in  the  course  of  the  frequent  changes  of  the 
imperial  succession,  it  seemed  best  to  let  matters  take  their  own 
course;   and  they  accordingly  dropped    all    active   proceedings, 
leaving  the  new  sect  to  progress  as  it  might,  with  the  impulse 
gained  from  the  re-nction  consequent  on  this  late  unfortunate  ex- 


Peter's  apostleship.  211 

citement  against  it.  But  they  still  kept  a  watchful  eye  on  their 
proceedings,  though  with  hands  for  a  while  powerless,  and  trea- 
sured up  accumulating  hatred  through  tedious  years,  for  the 
day  when  the  progress  of  political  changes  should  bring  the  secu- 
lar power  beneath  their  influence,  and  make  it  subservient  to  their 
purpose  of  dreadful  vengeance.     That  day  had  now  fully  come. 

Ten  years. — This  piece  of  chronology  is  thus  settled.  Jesus  Christ,  according  to 
all  common  calculation,  was  crucified  as  early  as  the  twenlieth  year  of  the  reign  of 
Tiberius.  Irenaeus  maintains  that  it  was  in  the  fifteenth  of  that  reign.  Eusebius 
and  Epiphanius  fix  it  in  the  eighteenth,  or,  according  to  Pelavius's  explanation  of 
their  meaning,  in  the  seventeenth  of  his  actual  reign.  TertuUian,  Julius  Africanus, 
Jerome,  and  Augustin,  put  it  in  the  sixteenth.  Roger  Bacon,  Paulus  Burgensis,  and 
Tostatus,  also  support  this  date,  on  the  ground  of  an  astronomical  calculation  of  the 
course  of  the  moon,  fixing  the  time  when  the  passover  mast  have  occurred,  so  as  to 
accord  with  the  requirement  of  the  Mosaic  law,  that  it  should  be  celebrated  on  a  full 
moon.  (But  Kepler  has  abundantly  shown  the  fallacy  of  this  calculation.)  Antony 
Pagi,  also,  though  rejecting  this  astronomical  basis,  adheres  to  the  opinion  of  Ter- 
tuUian, Jerome,  &c.  Baronius  fixes  it  in  the  nineteenth  of  Tiberius.  Pearson,  L. 
Cappel,  Spanheim,  and  Witsius,  with  the  majority  of  the  moderns,  in  the  twentieth 
of  Tiberius.  So  that  the  unanimous  result  of  all  these  great  authorities,  places  it  as 
early  as  this  last  mentioned  year. — A  full  and  highly  satisfactory  view  of  these  ancient 
chronological  points  and  opinions,  is  given  by  the  deeply  learned  Antony  Pagi,  in  his 
great  "  Criliea  Hislorico-Chronologica  in  Annales  Baronii."  (Saecul.  I.  Ann.  Per. 
Ger.-Rom.  5525.  Ann.  Ch.  32.  IT  3 — 13.)  The  more  modern  authorities  here  quoted, 
are  summarily  given  by  Witsius.    (Meletemata  Leidensia.  Vit.  Paul.  II.  22,  p.  34.) 

Now,  from  Josephus,  it  is  perfectly  evident  that  Agrippa  did  not  leave  Rome  until 
some  time  after  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Claudius,  and  it  is  probable  not  before 
the  close  of  the  first  year.  Counting  backwards  through  the  four  years  of  Caligula, 
this  makes  five  years  after  the  death  of  Tiberius,  and  eight  on  the  latest  calculation 
from  the  death  of  Christ ;  while,  according  to  the  higher  and  earlier  authority,  it 
amounts  to  nine,  ten,  eleven,  or  to  twelve  years  from  the  crucifixion  to  Agrippa's  arrival 
in  Judea.  And  moreover,  it  is  not  probable  that  the  persecution  referred  to  occurred 
immediately  on  his  arrival.  Indeed,  from  the  close  way  in  which  Luke  connects 
Agrippa's  death  with  the  preceding  events,  it  would  seem  as  if  he  would  fix  his 
"  going  down  from  Jerusalem  to  Caesarea,"  and  his  death  at  the  latter  place,  very 
soon  after  the  escape  of  Peter.  This,  of  course,  being  in  the  end  of  Claudius's  third 
year,  brings  the  events  above  mentioned  down  to  the  eleventh  or  twelfth  from  the  cru- 
cifixion, even  according  to  the  latest  conjecture  as  to  the  date  of  that  event.  Probably, 
however,  the  connexion  of  the  two  events  was  not  as  close  as  a  common  reading  of 
the  Acts  would  lead  one  to  suppose. — So  also  Lardner,  in  his  Life  of  Peter,  says, — 
"  The  death  of  Herod  Agrippa  happened  before  the  end  of  that  year,"  in  which  he 
escaped.  (Lardner's  Works,  4to.  Vol.  III.  p.  402,  bottom.) — JSatalis  Alexander  fixes 
Peter's  escape  in  the  second  year  of  Claudius,  and  \ht.  forty- fourth  from  Christ's  birth, 
which  is,  according  to  his  computation,  the  tenth  from  his  death.  (Hist.  Eccles. 
Saec.  1,  Cap.  vi.  in  Vol.  I.  p.  20.) 

The  date  of  Peter's  escape,  according  to  the  most  reasonable  and  approved  chro- 
nology, (that  of  Pagi,)  must  therefore  be  fixed  in  March,  of  the  year  of  Christ  42. 

No  evidence  that  any  suffered  death.  The  words  of  Paul,  (Acts  xxvi.  10,) — "  when 
THEY  were  put  to  death,  I  gave  my  voice  against  thkm," — are  supposed  b}'  some  to 
conflict  with  the  view  here  taken;  but  the  plural  expression  in  that  passage  is,  by 
critics  of  the  highest  authority,  considered  as  having  truly  only  the  force  of  a  singu- 
lar,— a  construction  which,  though  apparently  strange,  is  yet  warranted  by  the  undis- 
puted rendering  of  very  many  passages  in  the  New  Testament.  Thus  in  Matt,  ix.8, 
the  last  word,  though  plural,  can  refer  to  only  one  person.  In  Matt.  xxi.  7,  it  is  said 
in  the  original,  that  "they  set  him  on  them;"  which  palpably  means  only  one  of  the 
animals.  In  Matt,  xxvii.  44,  the  plural  "thieves"  can  not  be  literally  true  according 
to  the  parallel  pa.ssage  in  Luke  xxiii.  39,  40.  So  in  Heb.  xi.  33,  37,  the  expressions 
"stopped  'ihe  mouths  of  lions,"  "were  sawn  asunder,"  are  (in  the  original)  in  the 
pJural  form ;  yet  each,  of  course,  can  refer  but  to  one  person, — the  first  to  Daniel,  and 
the  sa:ond  to  IsaiaL     The  true  foroj  of  Lhis  form  of  expression  is  thiis  maintained 


212 


LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


and  strongly  insisted  on  by  Grotius,  Estius,  Lucas  Brugensis,  Witsius,  Poole, 
Doddridge,  and  Kuinoel.  The  three  last,  Poole  and  Kuinoel  especially,  (on  Acts 
xxvi.  10,)  may  be  referred  to  for  the  fullest  defense  of  this  view.  Witsius  (Vita 
Pauli.  I.  17,  p.  16)  also  very  decidedly  maintains  this  ground. 

Peter's  threatened  martyrdom. 
The  long-expected  favorite  and  friend  of  the  Jewish  people, 
having  been  thus  hailed  sovran  by  their  grateful  voices,  and 
having  strengthened  his  throne  and  influence  by  his  opening  acts 
of  liberality  and  devotion  to  the  national  faith,  now  entered  upon 
ft  reign  which  presented  only  the  portents  of  a  course  most  auspi- 
cious to  his  own  fame  and  his  people's  good.  Uniting  in  his  person 
the  claims  of  the  Herodian  and  Asamonean  lines. — with  the  blood 
of  the  heroic  Maccabees  in  his  veins, — crowned  by  the  imperial 
lord  of  the  civilized  world,  whose  boundless  power  was  pledged 
in  his  support,  by  the  obligations  of  an  intimate  personal  friendship, 
and  of  a  sincere  gratitude  for  the  attainment  of  the  throne  of  the 
Caesars  through  his  prompt  and  steady  exertions, — received  with 
universal  joy  and  hope  by  all  the  dwellers  of  the  consolidated 
kingdoms  of  his  dominion,  which  had  been  long  thriving  under 
the  mild  and  equitable  administration  of  a  prudent  governor, — 
there  seemed  nothing  wanting  to  complete  the  happy  auspices  of 
a  glorious  reign,  under  which  the  ancient  honors  of  Israel  should 
be  more  than  retrieved  from  the  decline  of  ages.  Yet  what  avails 
the  bright  array  of  happily  conspiring  circumstances,  to  prince  oi 
people,  against  the  awful  majesty  of  divine  truth,  or  the  pure, 
simple  energy  of  human  devotion  ?  Within  the  obscurer  corners  of 
his  vast  territories, — creeping  for  room  under  the  outermost  colon- 
nades of  that  mighty  temple  whose  glories  he  had  pledged  himself 
to  renew, — wandering  like  outcasts  from  place  to  place, — seeking 
supporters  only  among  the  unintellectual  mass  of  the  people, — were 
a  set  of  men  of  whom  he  probably  had  not  heard  until  he  entered 
his  own  dominions.  They  were  now  suggested  to  his  notice  for 
the  first  time,  by  the  decided  voice  of  censure  from  the  devout  and 
learned  guardians  of  the  purity  of  the  law  of  God,  who  invoked 
the  aid  of  his  sovran  power,  to  check  and  utterly  uproot  this 
heresy,  which  the  unseasonable  tolerance  of  Roman  government 
had  too  long  shielded  from  the  just  visitations  of  judicial  vengeance. 
Nor  did  the  royal  Agrippa  hesitate  to  gratify,  in  this  slight  and 
reasonable  matter,  the  express  wishes  of  the  reverend  heads  of  the 
Jewish  faith  and  law.  Ah !  how  little  did  he  think,  that  in  that 
trifling  movement  Avas  bound  up  the  destiny  of  ages,  and  that  its 
results  would  send  his  name — though  then  so  loved  and  honored — 


Peter's  apostleship.  213 

like  Pharaoh's,  down  to  all  time,  a  theme  of  religions  horror  and 
holy  hatred,  to  the  unnumbered  millions  of  a  thousand  races  and 
lands  then  unknown ; — an  awful  doom,  from  which  one  act  of 
benign  protection,  or  of  prudent  kindness,  to  that  feeble  band  of 
hated,  outcast  innovators,  might  have  retrieved  his  fame,  and  canon- 
ized it  in  the  faithful  memory  of  the  just,  till  the  glory  of  the  old 
patriarchs  and  prophets  should  grow  dim.  But,  without  one 
thought  of  consequences,  a  prophetic  revelation  of  which  would 
so  have  appalled  him,  he  unhesitatingly  stretched  out  his  arm  in 
vindictive  cruelty  over  the  church  of  Christ,  for  the  gratification 
of  those  whose  praise  was  to  him  more  than  the  favor  of  God. 
Singling  out  first  the  person  whom  momentary  circumstances 
might  render  most  prominent  or  obnoxious  to  censure,  he  at  once 
doomed  to  a  bloody  death  the  elder  son  of  Zebedee,  the  second  of 
the  great  apostolic  three.  No  sooner  was  this  cruel  sentence 
executed,  than,  with  a  most  remarkable  steadiness  in  the  execution 
of  liis  bloody  plan,  he  followed  up  this  action,  so  pleasing  to  the 
Jews,  by  another  similar  movement.  Peter,  the  active  leader  of 
the  heretical  host,  ever  foremost  in  braving  the  authority  of  the 
constituted  teachers  of  the  law,  and  in  exciting  commotion  and 
dissatisfaction  among  the  commonalty,  was  now  seized  by  a  mili- 
tary force,  too  strong  to  fear  any  resistence  from  popular  move- 
ments, which  had  so  much  deterred  the  Sanhedrim.  This  occurred 
during  the  week  of  the  passover ;  and  such  was  king  Agrippa's 
profound  regard  for  all  things  connected  with  his  national  religion, 
that  he  would  not  violate  the  sanctity  of  this  holy  festival  by  the 
execution  of  a  criminal,  however  deserving  of  vengeance  he  might 
seem  in  that  instance.  The  fate  of  Peter  being  thus  delayed,  he 
was  therefore  committed  to  prison,  (probably  in  Castle  Antonia,) 
and  to  prevent  all  possibility  of  his  finding  means  to  escape  pre- 
pared ruin  again,  he  was  confined  under  the  charge  of  sixteen  Roman 
soldiers,  divided  into  four  sets,  of  four  men  each,  who  were  to  keep 
him  under  constant  supervision  day  and  night,  by  taking  turns, 
each  set  an  equal  time  ;  and  according  to  the  established  principles 
of  the  Roman  military  discipline,  with  the  perfect  understanding 
that  if,  on  the  conclusion  of  the  passover,  the  prisoner  was  not 
forthcoming,  the  guards  should  answer  the  failure  with  their  lives. 
These  decided  and  careful  arrangements  being  made,  the  king, 
with  his  gratified  friends  in  the  Sanhedrim  and  among  the  rabble, 
gave  themselves  up  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  great  national  festival, 
with  a  peculiar  zost,  hightened  by  the  near  prospect  of  the  utter 


214  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

overthrow  of  the  advancing  heresy,  by  the  sweeping  blow  that 
robbed  them  of  their  two  great  leaders,  and  more  especially  of  him 
who  had  been  so  active  in  mischievous  attempts  to  perpetuate  the 
memory  of  the  original  founder  of  the  sect,  and  to  frustrate  the 
good  effect  of  his  bloody  execution,  by  giving  out  that  the  cruci- 
fied Jesus  still  lived,  and  would  yet  come  in  vengeance  on  his 
murderers.  While  such  triumphant  thoughts  swelled  the  festal 
enjoyments  of  the  powerful  foes  of  Christ,  the  unhappy  company 
of  his  persecuted  disciples  passed  through  this  anniversary-week 
with  the  most  mournful  reminiscences  and  anticipations.  Ten 
years  before,  in  unutterable  agony  and  despair,  they  had  parted,  as 
they  then  supposed,  forever,  with  thoir  beloved  Lord ;  and  now, 
after  years  of  devotion  to  the  work  for  which  he  had  commissioned 
them,  they  were  called  to  renew  the  deep  sorrows  of  that  parting, 
in  the  removal  of  those  who  had  been  foremost  among  them  in  the 
great  work,  cheering  them  and  leading  them  on  through  toil  and 
peril,  with  a  spirit  truly  holy,  and  with  a  fearless  energy,  kindred 
with  that  of  their  divine  Lord.  Of  these  two  divinely  appointed 
chiefs,  one  had  already  poured  out  his  blood  beneath  the  execu- 
tioner's sword ;  and  the  other,  their  great  leader,  the  Rock  of  the 
church,  was  now  only  waiting  the  speedy  close  of  the  festal  week, 
to  crown  his  glorious  course,  and  his  enemies'  cruel  policy,  by  the 
same  bloody  doom ;  meanwhile  held  in  the  safe  keeping  of  an 
ever-watchful  Roman  guard,  forbidding  even  the  wildest  hope  of 
escape.  Yet  why  should  they  wholly  despair  ?  On  that  passover, 
ten  years  before,  how  far  more  gloomy  and  hopeless  the  glance 
they  threw  on  the  cross  of  their  Lord !  Yet  from  that  doubly 
hopeless  darkness,  what  glorious  light  sprang  up  to  them !  And 
was  the  hand  that  then  broke  through  the  bands  of  death  and  the 
gates  of  Hades,  now  so  shortened  that  it  could  not  sever  the  vile 
chains  of  paltry  tyranny  which  confined  this  faithful  apostle,  nor 
open  wide  the  guarded  gates  of  his  castle  prison  ?  Surely  there 
was  still  hope  for  faith  which  had  been  taught  such  lessons  of  im- 
doubting  trust  in  God.  Nor  were  they  thoughtless  of  the  firm 
support  and  high  consolations  which  their  experience  aflbrded. 
In  prayer,  intense  and  unceasing,  they  poured  out  their  souls  in 
sympathetic  grief  and  supplication,  for  the  relief  of  their  great  elder 
brother  from  his  deadly  peril ;  and  in  sorrowful  entreaty  the  whole 
church  continued  day  and  night  for  the  safety  of  Peter. 

Castle  Antonia. — For  Josephns's  account   of  the  position  and   erection   of  this 
■work,  see  my  note  on  page  111.     There  has  been  much  speculation  j.bout  the  place 


Peter's  apostleship.  215 

of  the  prison  to  which  Peter  was  committed.  The  sacred  text  (Acts  xii.  10)  makes 
it  plain  that  it  was  without  the  city  iiself,  since  alter  leaving  the  prison  it  was  still 
necessary  to  enter  ihe  city  by  "  the  iron  gate."  Walch,  Kuinoel,  and  Bloomfield 
adopt  the  view  that  it  was  in  one  of  the  towers  or  castles  that  fortified  the  walls.  Wolf 
and  others  object  to  the  view  that  it  was  without  the  walls  ;  because,  as  Wolf  says, 
it  was  not  customary  to  have  public  prisons  outside  of  tlie  cities,  since  the  prisoners 
might  in  that  case  be  sometimes  rescued  by  a  bold  assault  from  some  hardy  band  of 
comrades,  &c.  But  this  objection  is  worth  nothing  against  Castle  Antonia,  which, 
though  it  stood  entirely  separated  from  the  rest  of  the  city,  was  vastly  strong,  and,  by 
its  position  as  well  as  fortification,  impregnable  to  any  common  force; — a  circuni- 
stance  which  would  at  once  suggest  and  recommend  it  as  a  secure  place  for  one  who, 
like  Peter,  had  escaped  once  from  the  common  prison.  There  was  always  a  Roman 
garrison  in  Antonia.     (Jos.  War,  V.  v.  8.) 

Baronius,  in  connexion  with  this  passage,  suggests  the  castle  of  Antonia  as  the 
most  probable  place  of  Peter's  confinement.  "  Juxta  templum  fortasse  in  ea  munitis- 
sima  turri  quae  dicebatur  Antonia."  (Bar.  Annal.  Ecc.  A.  C.  44,  §  5.)  A  conjecture 
which  certainly  adds  some  weight  to  my  own  supposition  to  that  effect;  although  I 
did  not  discover  the  coincidence  in  time  to  mention  it  in  this  place  in  my  first  edition. 

In  the  steady  contemplation  of  the  nearness  of  his  bloody  doom, 
the  great  apostle  remained  throughout  the  passover,  shut  out  from 
all  the  consolations  of  fraternal  sympathy,  and  awaiting  the  end  of 
the  few  hours  which  were  still  allotted  by  the  religious  scruples  of 
his  mighty  sovran.  In  his  high  and  towering  prison  in  Castle 
Antonia,  parted  only  by  a  deep,  broad  rift  in  the  precipitous  rocks, 
from  the  great  terraces  of  the  temple  itself,  whose  thronged  courts 
now  rung  with  the  thanksgiving  songs  of  a  rejoicing  nation,  he 
heard  them,  sending  up  in  thousands  of  voices  the  praise  of  their 
fathers'  God,  who  still  remembered  Israel  in  mercy,  renewing  their 
ancient  glories  under  the  bright  and  peaceful  dominion  of  their 
new-crowned  king.  And  with  the  anthems  of  praise  to  God, 
which  sounded  along  the  courts  and  porches  of  the  temple,  were 
no  doubt  heard,  too,  the  thanks  of  many  a  grateful  Hebrew  for 
the  goodness  of  the  generous  king,  who  had  pledged  his  royal 
word  to  complete  the  noble  plan  of  that  holy  pile,  as  suited  the 
splendid  conceptions  of  the  founder.  And  this  was  the  king  whose 
decree  had  doomed  that  lonely  and  desolate  prisoner  in  the  castle, 
to  a  bloody  and  shameful  death, — as  a  crowning  offering  at  the 
close  of  the  great  festival ;  and  how  few  among  that  vast  throng, 
before  whose  eyes  he  was  to  yield  his  life,  would  repine  at  the 
sentence  that  dealt  exterminating  vengeance  on  the  obstinately 
heretical  preacher  of  the  crucified  Nazarene's  faith  !  Well  miorht 
such  dark  visions  of  threatening  ruin  appal  a  heart  whose  enthu- 
siasm had  caught  its  flame  from  the  unholy  fires  of  worldly  ambi- 
tion, or  devoted  its  energies  to  the  low  purpose  of  human  ascen- 
dency. And  truly  sad  would  have  been  the  lonely  thoughts  of 
this  very  apostle,  if  this  doom  had  found  him  in  the  spirit  which 
first  moved  him  to  devote  himself  to  the  cause  which  now  required 


216  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  sacrifice  of  life.  But  higher  hopes  and  feehngs  had  inspired 
his  devoted  exertions  for  ten  years ;  and  higher  far,  the  consola- 
tions which  now  sustained  him  in  his  friendless  desolation.  This 
very  fate,  he  had  long  been  accustomed  to  regard  as  the  earthly 
meed  of  his  labors ;  and  he  had  too  often  been  threatened  with  it, 
to  be  overwhelmed  by  its  near  prospect.  Vain,  then,  were  all 
solemn  details  of  that  awful  sentence,  to  strike  terror  into  his  fixed 
soul, — vain  the  dark  sureties  of  the  high,  steep  rock,  the  massive, 
lofty  walls,  the  iron  gates,  the  ever-watchful  Roman  guards,  the 
fetters  and  manacles,  to  control  or  check  the 

"  Eternal  spirit  of  the  chainless  mind  ! — 

Brightest  in  dungeons,  Liberty  !  thou  art, 
For  there  thy  habitation  is  the  heart." 

Thus  sublimely  calm,  sat  Peter  in  his  prison,  waiting  for  death. 
Day  after  day,  all  day  long,  the  joyous  feast  went  on  beneath  him ; 
— the  offering,  the  prayer,  and  the  hymn,  varying  the  mighty 
course,  from  the  earliest  morning  supplication  to  the  great  evening 
sacrifice.  Up  rolled  the  glorious  symphony  of  the  Levites'  thou- 
sand horns,  and  the  choral  harmony  of  their  chanting  voices, — up 
rolled  the  clouds  of  precious  incense  to  the  skiey  throne  of  Israel's 
God, — and  with  this  music  and  fragrance,  up  rolled  the  prayers 
of  Israel's  worshiping  children  ;  but  though  the  glorious  sound  and 
odor  fell  delightfully  on  the  senses  of  the  lonely  captive,  as  they 
passed  upwards  by  his  high  prison-tower,  no  voice  of  mercy  came 
from  below  to  cheer  him  in  his  desolation.  But  from  above,  from 
the  heaven  to  which  all  these  prayer-bearing  floods  of  incense  and 
harmony  ascended,  came  down  divine  consolation  and  miraculous 
delivery  to  this  poor,  despised  prisoner,  with  a  power  and  a  wit- 
ness that  not  all  the  solemn  pomp  of  the  passover  ceremony  could 
summon,  in  reply  to  its  costly  offerings.  The  feeble  band  of  sor- 
rowing Nazarenes,  from  their  little  chamber,  were  lifting  unceasing 
voices  of  supplication  for  their  brother  in  his  desperate  prospects, 
— which  entered  with  his  solitary  prayer  into  the  ears  of  the  God 
of  Hosts,  while  the  ostentatious  worship  of  king  Agrippa  and  his 
reverend  supporters,  only  brought  back  shame  and  woful  ruin  on 
their  impious  supplications  for  the  d:"ine  sanction  to  their  bloody 
plans  of  persecution.  At  length  the  solemn  passover-rites  of  "  the 
last  great  day  of  the  feast"  were  ended  ; — the  sacrifice,  the  incense, 
and  the  song  rose  no  more  from  the  sanctuary, — the  fires  on  the 
altars  went  out,  the  hum  and  the  roar  of  worshiping  voices  was 
hushed,  and  the  departing  throngs  poured  through  the  "  eter- 


PETER'S  APOSTLESHIP.  217 

Nal"  and  the  "  beautiful"  gates,  till  at  last  the  courts  and  porches 
of  the  temple  were  empty  through  all  their  vast  extent,  and  hushed 
in  a  silence  deep  as  the  ruinous  oblivion  to  which  the  voice  of 
their  God  had  doomed  them  shortly  to  pass  :  and  all  was  still,  save 
where  the  footfall  of  the  passing  priest  echoed  along  the  empty 
colonnades,  as  he  hurried  over  the  vast  pavements  into  the  dormi- 
tories of  the  inner  temple ;  or  where  the  mighty  gates  thundered 
awfully  as  they  swung  heavily  together  under  the  strong  hands  of 
the  weary  Levites,  and  sent  their  hollow  echoes  in  long  reverbe- 
rations among  the  walls.  Even  these  closing  sounds  soon  ceased 
also  ;  the  Levite  watchmen  took  their  stand  on  the  towers  of  the 
temple,  and  paced  their  nightly  rounds  along  its  dark  courts,  guard- 
ing with  careful  eyes  their  holy  shrine,  lest  the  impious  should, 
under  cover  of  night,  again  profane  it,  (as  the  Samaritans  had 
secretly  done  a  few  years  before.)  And  on  the  neighboring  castle 
of  Antonia,  the  Roman  garrison  too  had  set  their  nightly  watch, 
and  the  iron  warriors  slumbered,  each  in  his  turn,  till  the  round 
of  duty  should  summon  him  to  relieve  guard.  Within  the  dun- 
geon-keep  of  the  castle,  was  still  safely  held  the  weighty  trust  that 
was  to  be  answered  for,  on  peril  of  life  ;  and  all  arrangements  were 
made  which  so  great  a  responsibility  seemed  to  require.  The 
quaternion  on  duty  was  divided  into  two  portions  ;  each  half  being 
so  disposed  and  posted  as  to  effect  the  most  complete  supervision 
of  which  the  place  was  capable, — two  men  keeping  watch  outside 
of  the  well-bolted  door  of  the  cell,  and  two  within, — who,  not 
limited  to  the  charge  of  merely  keeping  their  eyes  on  the  prisoner, 
had  him  fastened  to  their  bodies  by  a  chain  on  each  side.  In  this 
neighborly  proximity  to  his  rough  companions,  Peter  was  in  the 
habit  of  passing  the  night ;  but  in  the  daytime  was  freed  from  one 
of  these  chains,  remaining  attached  to  only  one  soldier ; — an  ar- 
rangement in  accordance  with  the  standard  mode  of  guarding  im- 
portant state-prisoners  among  the  Romans.  All  these  strong 
securities  being  fixed  on  the  prisoner,  for  the  night,  and  the  watch 
being  set,  the  armed  personal  guards  of  Peter  gave  themselves 
without  scruple  to  repose,  and  stretched  themselves  out  in  heavy, 
tranquil  slumber.  Circumstanced  as  he  was,  Peter  had  nothing 
to  do  but  to  conform  to  their  example,  for  the  nature  of  his  attach- 
ment to  them  was  such,  that  he  had  no  room  for  the  indulgence 
of  his  own  fancies  about  his  position ;  and  he  also  lay  down  to 
repose.  He  slept.  The  sickening  and  feverish  confinement  of 
his  close  dungeon  had  not  yet  so  broken  his  firm  and  vigorous 


218  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

frame,  nor  so  drained  its  energies,  as  to  hinder  the  placid  enjoy- 
ment of  repose ;  nor  did  the  certainty  of  a  cruel  and  shameful 
death,  to  which  he  was  within  a  few  hours  to  be  dragged,  before 
the  eyes  of  a  scoffing  rabble,  move  his  high  spirit  from  its  self- 
possession  : — 

"  and  still  he  slumbered, 
While  in"  decree,  his  hours  "  were  numbered." 

He  slept.  And  from  that  dark  prison-bed,  what  visions  could  be- 
guile his  slumbering  thoughts  ?  Did  fancy  bear  them  back  against 
the  tide  of  time,  to  the  humble,  peaceful  home  of  his  early  days, 
— to  the  varied  scenes  of  the  lake  whereon  he  loved  to  dwell,  and 
along  whose  changeful  waters  he  had  learned  so  many  lessons  of 
immortal  faith  and  untrembling  hope  in  his  Lord  ?  Amid  the 
stormy  roar  of  its  dark  waters,  the  voice  of  that  Lord  once  called 
him  to  tempt  the  raging  deep  with  his  steady  foot ;  and  when 
his  feeble  faith,  before  untried,  failed  him  in  the  terrors  of  the 
effort.  His  supporting  hand  recalled  him  to  strength  and  safety. 
And  had  that  lesson  of  faith  and  hope  been  so  poorly  learned,  that 
in  this  dark  hour  he  could  draw  no  consolation  from  such  remem- 
brances? No.  He  could  even  now  find  that  consolation,  and  he 
did.  In  the  midst  of  this  "  sea  of  troubles,"  he  felt  the  same  mighty 
arm  now  upholding  him,  that  bore  him  above  the  waters,  "  when 
the  blue  wave  rolled  nightly  on  deep  Galilee."  Again  he  had 
stood  by  those  waters,  swelling  brightly  in  the  fresh  morning 
breeze,  with  his  risen  Lord  beside  him,  and  received  the  solemn 
commission,  oft-renewed,  to  feed  the  flock  that  was  so  soon  to  lose 
the  earthly  presence  of  its  great  Shepherd.  In  the  steady  and 
dauntless  execution  of  that  parting  commission,  he  had  in  the 
course  of  long  years  gone  on  in  the  face  of  death, — "  feeding  the 
lambs"  of  Christ's  gathering,  and  calling  vast  numbers  to  the  fold  ; 
and  for  the  faithful  adherence  to  that  command,  he  now  sat  wait- 
ing: the  fulfilment  of  the  doom  that  was  to  cut  him  down  in  the 
midst  of  life  and  in  the  fullness  of  his  vigor.  Yet  the  nearness 
of  this  sad  reward  of  his  labors,  seemingly  offering  so  dreadful  an 
interpretation  of  the  mystical  prophecy  that  accompanied  that 
charge,  moved  him  to  no  desperation  or  distress,  and  still  he  calmly 
slept,  with  as  little  agitation  and  dread  as  at  the  transfiguration, 
and  at  the  agony  of  the  crucifixion  eve  ;  nor  did  that  compunction 
for  heedless  inattention,  that  then  hung  upon  his  slumbering  senses, 
now  disturb  him  in  the  least.  It  is  really  worth  noticing,  in  jus- 
tice to  Peter,  that  his  sleepiness,  of  which  so  many  curious  in- 


Peter's  apostleship.  219 

stances  are  presented  in  the  sacred  narrative,  was  not  of  the 
criminally  selfish  kind  that  might  be  supposed  on  a  partial  view. 
If  he  slept  during  his  Master's  prayers  on  Mount  Hermon,  and  in 
Gethsemane,  he  slept  too  in  his  own  condemned  cell ;  and  if  in 
his  bodily  infirmity  he  had  forgotten  to  watch  and  pray  when 
death  threatened  his  Lord,  he  was  now  equally  indifferent  to  his 
own  impending  destruction.  He  was  evidently  a  person  of  inde- 
pendent and  regular  habits.  Brought  up  a  hard-working  man,  he 
had  all  his  life  been  accustomed  to  repose  whenever  he  was  at 
leisure,  if  he  needed  it ;  and  now,  too,  though  the  "  heathen  might 
rage,  and  the  people  imagine  a  vain  thing, — though  the  kings  of 
the  earth  set  themselves,  and  the  rulers  took  counsel  together" 
against  him,  and  doomed  him  to  a  cruel  death, — in  spite  of  all 
these,  Peter  would  sleep  on  and  take  his  rest.  Not  the  royal 
Agrippa  could  sleep  sounder  on  his  pavilioned  couch  of  purple. 
In  the  calm  confidence  of  one  steadily  fixed  in  a  high  course,  and 
perfectly  prepared  for  every  and  any  result,  the  chained  apostle 
gave  himself  coolly  to  his  natural  rest,  without  borrowing  any 
trouble  from  the  thought,  that  in  the  morning  the  bloody  sword 
Wcis  to  lay  him  in  "  the  sleep  that  knows  no  earthly  waking."  So 
slept  the  Athenian  sage,  on  the  eve  of  his  martyrdom  to  the  cause 
of  clearly  and  boldly  spoken  truth, — a  sleep  that  so  moved  the 
wonder  of  his  agonizing  disciples,  at  the  power  of  a  good  con- 
science and  a  practical  philosophy  to  sustain  the  soul  against  the 
horrors  of  such  distress, — but  a  sleep  not  sounder  nor  sweeter  than 
that  of  the  poor  Galilean  outcast,  who,  though  not  knowing  even 
the  name  of  philosophy,  had  a  consolation  far  higher,  in  the  faith 
that  his  martyred  Lord  had  taught  him  in  so  many  experimental 
instructions.  That  faith,  learned  by  the  painful  conviction  of  his 
own  weakness,  and  implanted  in  him  by  many  a  fall  when  over 
confident  in  his  own  strength,  was  now  his  stay  and  comfort ;  so 
that  he  might  say  to  his  soul — "  Hope  thou  in  God,  for  I  shall  yet 
praise  him,  who  is  the  help  of  my  countenance  and  my  God." 
Nor  did  that  hope  prove  groundless.  From  him  in  whom  he 
trusted,  came  a  messenger  of  deliverance ;  and  from  the  depths  of 
a  danger  the  most  appalling  and  threatening,  he  was  soon  brought, 
to  serve  that  helping-God  through  many  faithful  years,  feeding  the 
flock  till,  in  his  old  age,  "  another  should  gird  him,  and  carry  him 
whither  he  would  not."  He  who  had  prayed  for  him  in  the  reve- 
lation of  his  peculiar  glories  on  Mount  Hermon,  and  had  so  highly 
consecrated  him  to  the  great  cause,  had  yet  greater  things  for -him 


820  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

to  do ;  and  to  new  works  of  love  and  wonder  he  now  called  him, 
from  the  castle-prison  of  his  royal  persecutor. 

QiuUcrnion.^That  is,  a  band  of  fov/r.  See  Bloomfield  in  defense  of  my  mode  of 
disposing  them  about  the  prison, — also  Rosenmuller,  &c.  Wolf  quotes  appositely 
from  Polybius;  but  Kuinoel  is  richest  of  all  in  quotations  and  illustrations.  (Acts 
xii.  4.  5.) 

A  chain  on  each  side. — That  this  was  the  common  mode  of  fastening  such  prisoners 
among  the  Romans,  appears  from  the  authorities  referred  to  by  Wolf,  (Cur.  Phil,  in 
Acts  xii.  G,)  Kuinoel  and  Roseranuller,  (quoting  from  Walch,)  and  Bloomfield,  all 
inloc 

THE  DELIVERANCE. 

Through  the  iron  gates,  the  massive  walls,  and  the  armed  guards 
of  Castle  Antonia,  the  seraph  of  mercy  came  "  to  proclaim  deliver- 
ance to  the  captive,  and  the  opening  of  the  prison-doors  to  the 
bound."  From  the  depths  of  his  sound  and  calm  repose  the  chained 
apostle  was  suddenly  roused  to  active  sense,  by  the  dazzling  and 
awe-inspiring  apparition  of  a  divine  messenger  amid  a  blaze  of 
light  that  shone  through  the  dungeon,  making  bright  the  way  of 
deliverance.  The  overwhelmed  and  still  half-slumbering  cap- 
tive was  raised  from  the  ground  by  the  unlaiown  power,  and  after 
a  deliberate  resumption  of  dress,  was  led  out  of  the  dungeon,  free 
from  his  fallen  fetters,  and  over  the  bodies  of  his  unconscious 
guards.  The  whole  scene  bore  so  perfectly  the  character  of  one 
of  those  enchanting  dreams  of  liberty  with  which  painful  hope 
often  cheats  the  willing  senses  of  the  poor  captive  in  slumber, 
that  he  might  well  and  wisely  doubt  the  reality  of  an  appearance 
so  tempting,  and  which  his  wishes  would  so  readily  suggest  to  his 
forgetful  spirit.  The  two  passengers  soon  reached  the  great  iron 
gate  of  the  castle,  through  which  they  must  pass  in  order  to  enter 
the  city.  But  all  the  seeming  difficulties  of  this  passage  vanished 
as  soon  as  they  approached  it.  The  gate  swung  its  enormous  mass 
of  metal  self-moving  through  the  space,  and  the  half-entranced 
Peter  peissing  on  beneath  the  vacant  portal,  now  stood  without  the 
castle,  once  more  a  free  man,  in  the  fresh,  open  air.  The  difficul- 
ties and  dangers  were  not  all  over  yet,  however.  During  all  the 
great  feast-days,  when  large  assemblies  of  people  were  gathered  at 
Jerusalem  from  various  quarters,  to  guard  against  the  danger  of 
riots  and  insurrection  in  these  motley  throngs, — the  armed  Roman 
force  on  duty,  as  Josephus  relates,  was  doubled  and  tripled,  occu- 
pying several  new  posts  around  the  temple,  and,  as  the  same  his- 
torian particularly  mentions,  on  the  approaches  of  Castle  Antonia, 
where  its  foundations  descended  towards  the  terraces  of  the  temple, 
and  formed  a  passage  to  the  great  eastern  colonnades.    On  all  these 


Peter's  apostleship.  221 

places  the  guard  must  have  been  under  arms  during  this  passover, 
and  even  at  night  the  sentries  would  be  stationed  at  all  the  im- 
portant posts,  as  a  reasonable  security  against  the  numerous  stran- 
gers of  a  dubious  character  who  now  thronged  the  city  throughout. 
Yet  all  these  peculiar  precautions,  which,  at  this  time,  presented 
so  many  additional  difficulties  to  the  escaping  apostle,  hindered 
him  not  in  the  least.  Entering  the  city,  he  followed  the  footsteps 
of  his  blessed  guide,  unchecked,  till  they  had  passed  on  through 
the  first  street,  when,  all  at  once,  without  sign  or  word  of  farewell, 
the  mysterious  deliverer  vanished,  leaving  Peter  alone  in  the  silent 
city,  but  free  and  safe.  Then  flashed  upon  his  mind  the  conviction 
of  the  true  character  of  the  apparition.  The  departure  of  his 
guide  leaving  him  to  seek  his  own  way,  his  senses  were,  by  the 
necessity  of  self-direction,  recalled  from  the  state  of  stupefaction 
in  which  he  had  mechanically  followed  on  from  the  prison.  With 
the  first  burst  of  reflexion,  he  broke  out  in  the  exclamation — "  Now 
I  know  of  a  truth,  that  the  Lord  has  sent  forth  his  messenger, 
and  has  rescued  me  out  of  the  hand  of  Herod,  in  spite  of  all  the 
expectations  of  the  Jewish  people."  Refreshed  and  encouraged  by 
this  impression,  he  now  used  his  thoroughly  awakened  senses  to 
find  his  exact  situation,  and  after  looking  about  him,  he  made  his 
way  through  the  dark  streets  to  a  place  where  he  knew  he  should 
find  those  whose  despairing  hearts  would  be  inexpressibly  rejoiced 
by  the  news  of  his  deliverance.  This  was  the  house  of  Mary, 
the  mother  of  John  Mark,  where  the  disciples  were  accustomed  to 
assemble.  Going  up  to  the  gateway,  he  rapped  on  the  door,  and 
at  once  aroused  those  within ;  for  in  their  sleepless  distress  for  the 
imprisoned  apostle,  several  of  the  brethren  had  given  up  all 
thoughts  of  sleep,  and,  as  Peter  had  probably  suspected,  were  now 
watching  in  prayer  within  this  house.  After  no  small  delay  from 
the  overjoyed  incredulity  both  of  the  lively  portress  and  of  the 
assembled  brethren,  the  door  of  the  friendly  mansion  was  opened 
to  the  liberated  apostle,  who  was  received  with  the  delightful  re- 
cognitions of  all  there  assembled.  Their  amazement  and  joy  was 
bursting  forth  with  a  vivacity  which  quite  made  up  for  their  pre- 
vious incredulity ;  when  the  apostle,  making  a  hushing  sign  with 
his  hand, — with  a  reasonable  fear,  no  doubt,  that  their  obstreperous 
congratulations  might  be  heard  in  other  houses  around,  so  as  to 
alarm  the  neighbors,  and  bring  out  some  spiteful  Jews,  who  would 
procure  his  detection  and  recapture, — having  obtained  silence, 
went  on  to  give  them  a  full  account  of  his  being  brought  out  of 


222  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

prison  by  the  Lord,  and  after  finishing  his  wonderful  story,  said 
to  them — "  Tell  these  things  to  James  and  the  brethren."  From 
this  it  would  seem  that  the  apostles  were  all  somewhere  else,  pro- 
bably liaving  found  that  a  temporary  concealment  was  expedient 
for  their  safety ;  but  were  still  not  far  from  the  city.  His  own  per- 
sonal danger  was  of  so  imminent  a  character,  however,  that  Jeru 
salem  could  not  be  a  safe  place  for  him  during  the  search  that 
would  be  immediately  instituted  after  him  by  his  disappointed  and 
enraged  persecutors.  It  was  quite  worth  while,  therefore,  for  him 
to  use  the  remaining  darkness  of  the  night  to  complete  his  escape  : 
and  without  staying  to  enjoy  their  outflowing  sympathies,  he  bade 
them  a  hasty  farewell,  and  as  the  historian  briefly  says,  went  to 
ANOTHER  PLACE.  Where  this  "  other  place"  was,  he  does  not 
pretend  to  tell  or  know,  and  the  only  certain  inference  to  be  drawn 
from  the  circumstance  is,  that  it  was  beyond  the  reach  or  know- 
ledge of  the  mighty  and  far-ruling  king,  who  had  taken  such  par- 
ticular pains  to  secure  Peter's  death.  The  probabilities  as  to  the 
real  place  of  his  retirement  will,  however,  be  given,  as  soon  as  the 
sequel  of  events  in  Jerusalem  has  been  narrated,  as  far  as  concerns 
the  discovery  of  his  escape. 

Blaze  of  light. — Some  commentators  have  attempted  to  make  out  an  explanation 
of  this  phenomenon,  by  referring  the  whole  affair  to  the  effects  of  a  sudden  flash 
and  stroke  of  lightning',  falling  on  the  castle,  and  striking  all  the  keepers  senseless, — 
melting  Peter's  chains,  and  illuminating  the  place,  so  that  Peter,  unhurt  amid  the 
general  crash,  saw  this  opportunity  for  escaping,  and  stepping  over  their  prostrate 
bodies,  made  his  way  out  of  the  prison,  and  was  out  of  sight  before  they  came-to.  The 
most  important  objection  to  this  ingenious  speculation  is,  tliat  it  directly  contradicts 
every  verse  in  Luke's  account  of  the  escape,  as  well  as  the  general  spirit  of  the  nar- 
rative. Another  weighty  reason  is,  that  the  whole  series  of  natural  causes  and 
effects,  proposed  as  a  substitute  for  the  simple  meaning,  is  brought  together  in  such 
forced  and  uncommon  coincidences,  as  to  require  a  much  greater  effort  of  faith  and 
credulity  for  its  belief,  than  the  miraculous  view,  which  it  quite  transcends  in  incredi- 
bility. The  introduction  of  explanations  of  miracles  by  natural  phenomena,  is  jus- 
tifiable only  so  far  as  these  may  illustrate  the  accompaniments  of  the  event,  by  show- 
ing the  mode  in  which  those  things  which  are  actually  mentioned  as  physical  results, 
operated  in  producing  the  impressions  described.  Thus,  when  thunder  and  light- 
ning are  mentioned  in  connexion  with  miraculous  events,  they  are  to  be  considered 
as  real  electrical  discharges,  made  to  accompany  and  manifest  the  presence  of  God  , 
and  where  lambent  flames  are  described  as  appearing  in  a  storm,  they,  like  the  corpos 
Santos,  are  plainly  also  results  of  electrical  discharges.  So,  too,  when  mighty  winds 
are  mentioned,  they  are  most  honestly  taken  to  be  real  winds,  and  not  deceptive  sounds 
or  impressions;  and  when  a  cloud  is  mentioned,  it  is  but  fair  to  consider  it  a  real 
cloud,  made  up,  like  all  other  clouds,  of  vapor,  and  not  a  mere  non-entity,  or  a  delu- 
sion existing  only  in  the  minds  of  those  who  are  mentioned  as  beholding  it.  And  when 
a  person  is  distinctly  described  as  struck  blind  by  a  flash  of  light,  followed  by  a  heavy 
sound  heard  all  around,  these  phenomena,  too,  so  perfectly  resemble  in  character 
and  in  order  the  explosion  of  thunder  and  lightning,  that  the  most  rigid  established 
principles  of  common-sense  interpretation  allow  and  justify  the  belief  that,  in  such 
cases,  these  natural  agencies  were  the  means  used  for  the  production  of  the  miracle. 
But  where  nothing  of  this  kind  is  spoken  of,  and  where  a  distinct  personal  presence 
is  plainly  declared,  the  attempt  to  substitute  a  physical  accident  for  such  an  appari- 
tion, is  a  direct  attack  on  the  honesty  of  the  statement.    Such  attempts,  too,  are  devoid 


Peter's  apostleship.  223 

of  the  benefits  of  such  illustrations  as  I  have  alluded  to  as  desirable ;  they  bring  in  a 
new  set  of  difficulties  with  them,  without  removing  any  of  those  previously  obstruct- 
ing the  interpretation  of  the  facts.  In  this  case,  the  only  circumstance  which  could 
be  reasonably  made  to  agree  with  the  idea  of  lightning,  is  the  mention  of  the  bright 
light;  while  throughout  the  whole  account,  the  presence  of  a  supernatural  mysteri- 
ous person,  acting  and  speaking,  is  perfectly  unquestionable.  The  violation  of  all 
probability,  committed  in  this  forced  explanation,  will  serve  as  a  fair  instance  of  the 
mode  in  which  many  modern  German  critics  are  in  the  habit  of  distorting  the  simple, 
manifest  sense  of  the  sacred  writers,  for  the  sake  of  dispensing  with  all  supernatural 
occurrences.  (See  Kuinoel  for  an  enlarged  view  and  discussion  of  this  opinion. 
Other  views  of  the  nature  of  the  phenomenon  are  also  given  by  him,  and  by  Rosen- 
miiller,  on  Acts  xii.  7.) 

Josephus's  description  of  Castle  Antonia  is  so  distinct  and  graphic,  that  it  will  add 
very  much  to  the  reader's  means  of  appreciating  my  narrative ;  and  I  therefore  trans- 
late it  here  entire.  "  The  Antonia  was  situated  at  the  angle  of  two  of  the  colonnades 
of  the  outermost  temple, — the  western  and  the  northern.  It  was  built  upon  a  rock  fifty 
cubits  high  and  precipitous  all  around.  It  was  the  work  of  king  Herod,  in  which, 
most  of  all,  he  showed  the  magnificent  in  his  genius.  In  the  first  place,  the  rock, 
from  Its  very  root,  was  overlaid  with  polished  slabs  of  stone,  at  once  for  the  sake  of 
ornament,  and  that  every  one  attempting  either  to  go  up  or  come  down  might  slip  off. 
Then,  before  the  structure  of  the  castle  itself,  there  was  a  wall  three  cubits  high, 
[a  breastwork,]  and  within  this,  the  whole  mass  of  Antonia  rose  to  the  highth  of 
forty  cubits.  The  inside  had  the  dimensions  and  arrangements  of  a  palace;  for 
it  was  divided  into  apartments  of  every  form  and  use,— pillared  courts  and  baths 
and  spacious  barracks;  so  that,  in  having  all  things  that  were  convenient,  it  seemed 
to  be  a  city;  while  in  splendor  it  seemed  a  palace.  And  not  only  was  it  shaped 
like  a  tower  in  its  Avhole  plan,  but  it  was  surrounded  by  four  other  towers  at  the 
corners.  Of  these  some  were  fifty  cubits  high;  but  that  which  stood  at  the  south- 
east angle  of  the  castle  was  seventy  cubits  high ;  so  that  from  it  the  eye  could  survey 
the  whole  temple.  And  where  it  joined  the  colonnades  of  the  temple,  it  had  descents 
to  both :  [that  is,  staircases  descending  to  both  the  northern  and  western  colonnades  of 
the  temple,  which  it  joined;]  by  which  the  guards,  (for  there  was  always  a  Roman 
legion  in  the  castle,)  passing  down  and  being  stationed  under  arms  about  the  colon- 
nades, an  the  feast-days,  watched  the  people,  lest  they  should  attempt  a  revolution. 
For  the  temple  stood  as  the  key  of  the  city,  and  Antonia  as  that  of  the  temple.  In  it 
therefore  were  the  guards  of  all  three,  while  the  upper  town  [Sion,  or  the  southern 
section]  had,  as  its  peculiar  citadel,  the  palace  of  Herod.  The  hill  Bezetha  was,  as 
I  have  said,  separated  from  the  Antonia;  and,  being  the  highest  of  all,  it  was  built 
out  to  join  the  new  city,  [the  northern  section  of  Jerusalem,]  and  this  alone  obscured 
the  temple  on  the  north."  (Josephus,  Jewish  War,  V.  v.  8.)  A  careful  comparison 
of  this  graphic  statement  with  all  the  minute  details  of  my  narrative,  will  do  the  best 
justice  to  the  correctness  of  passages  that  might  otherwise  seem  purely  imaginative. 
The  high  tower  here  described  as  standing  at  the  southeastern  angle  of  the  castle, 
and  the  northwest  angle  of  the  temple-courts,  being  from  its  highth  (eighty-five  feet) 
and  position  the  most  secure  part  of  the  castle,  rnay  therefore,  very  properly,  be  taken 
as  the  true  dungeon-keep  of  the  Antonia,  though  not  in  the  centre  of  that  fortress; 
and  this  is  the  particular  place  that  I  have  somewhat  hypothetically  taken  as  the 
prison  of  Peter.  Certainly  this  castle  was  the  place  to  which  Paul  was  carried  to  be 
imprisoned,  when  he  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  same  corps  of  soldiers  that  constituted 
the  guard  at  this  time.  (Acts  xxi.  34,  37,  xxii.  24.)  It  will  be  observed  that  the  word 
"  castle"  {^rapcii/ioXr),  farevibole")  is  applied  to  the  fortress  of  Antonia  by  Luke;  and  I 
have  uniformly  used  this  as  the  proper  term,  because,  though  Josephus  calls  it  Trvpyos, 
(jmrgos,) — commonly  translated  "  tower" — yet  his  description  of  the  building  shows 
it  to  have  been  a  true  castle,  consisting  of  a  main  fortress,  with  corner  towers,  bar- 
bican, and  sides  inaccessible,  except  one  narrow,  steep  adit. 

IMorning  dawned  at  last  upon  the  towers  and  temple-columns 
of  the  Holy  City.  On  the  gold-sheeted  roofs  and  snowy-pillared 
colonnades  of  the  house  of  God,  the  sunlight  poured  with  a  splen- 
dor hardly  more  glorious  than  the  insupportable  brilliancy  that 
was  sent  back  from  their  dazzling  surfaces,  streaming  like  a  new 


224  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

morning  upon  the  objects  around,  whose  nearer  sides  would  other- 
wise have  been  left  in  shade  by  the  eastern  rays.  Castle  Antonia 
shared  in  this  general  illumination,  and  at  the  first  blaze  of  sun- 
rise, the  order  of  Roman  service  announced  the  moment  for  re- 
lieving guard.  The  bustle  of  the  movement  of  the  new  sentries 
towards  their  stands,  must  at  last  have  reached  the  ears  of  Peter's 
forsaken  companions.  Their  first  waking  thoughts  would  of 
course  be  on  their  responsible  charge,  and  they  now  became  for 
the  first  time  aware  of  the  important  deficiency.  But  they  had 
not  much  time  to  consider  their  misfortune,  or  condole  upon  it ; 
for  the  change  of  sentries  now  brought  to  the  door  the  quaternion 
whose  turn  on  duty  came  next.  Most  uncomfortable  must  have 
been  the  aspect  of  things  to  the  two  sentinels  who  had  been  keep- 
ing their  steady  watch  outside  of  the  door,  and  who  shared  equally 
with  the  inside  keepers,  in  the  undesirable  responsibilities  of  this 
accident.  The  ludicrous  distress  and  commotion  resulting  from 
this  unpleasant  revelation,  was  evidently  well  appreciated  even  by 
the  sacred  historian,  whose  brief  but  pithy  expression  is  not  with- 
out a  latent  comic  force.  "  There  was  no  small  stir  among  the 
soldiers  to  know  what  was  become  of  Peter,"  A  general  rummage 
into  all  the  holes  and  corners  of  the  dungeon,  of  course,  ensued ; 
and  the  castle  was  no  doubt  ransacked  from  top  to  bottom  for  the 
runaway,  whose  escape  from  its  massive  gates  seemed  still  impos- 
sible. But  not  even  his  cloak  and  sandals,  which  he  had  laid 
beside  him  at  the  last  change  of  guards, — not  a  shred,  not  a  thread 
had  been  left  to  hint  at  the  mode  of  his  abstraction. 

Baronius,  (Ann.  Ecc.  44,  §  8,)  speaking  of  Peter's  escape  from  his  chains,  favors 
us  with  a  solemn  statement  of  tlie  important  and  interesting  circumstance,  deriving 
the  proofs  from  Metaphrastes,  (that  prince  of  fable-mongers,  and  grand  source  of 
Romish  apostolical  tales,)  that  these  verychains  of  Peter  are  still  preserved  at  Rome, 
among  other  venerable  relics  of  equal  authenticity;  having  been  faithfully  preserved, 
and  at  last  found  after  the  lapse  of  four  hundred  years.  The  veritable  history  of  this 
miraculous  preservation,  as  given  by  the  inventive  Metaphrastes,  is,  that  the  said 
chains  happened  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  one  of  Agrippa's  servants,  who  was  a  be- 
liever in  Christ,  and  so  were  handed  down  for  four  centuries,  and  at  last  brought  to 
light.  It  is  lamentable  that  the  list  of  the  various  persons  through  whose  hands  they 
passed,  is  not  given,  though  second  in  importance  only  to  the  authentic  record  of  the 
papal  succession.  This  impudent  and  paltry  falsehood  will  serve  as  a  fair  specimen 
of  a  vast  quantity  of  such  stufl"  which  litters  up  the  pages  of  even  the  sober  ecclesi- 
astical histories  of  many  papistical  writers.  The  only  wonderful  thing  to  me  about 
this  story  is,  that  Cave  has  not  given  it  a  place  in  his  Lives  of  the  Apostles,  which  are 
made  up  with  so  great  a  portion  of  similar  trash. 

Meanwhile,  with  the  early  day,  up  rose  the  royal  Agrippa  from 
his  purple  couch,  to  seize  the  first  moment  after  the  close  of  the 
passover  for  the  consummation  of  the  doom  of  the  wretched  Gali- 
lean, who,  by  the  royal  decree,  must  now  yield  the  hfe  already  too 


Peter's  apostleship,  225 

many  days  spared,  out  of  delicate  scruple  about  the  inviolate  purity 
of  that  holy  week.  Up  rose  also  the  saintly  princes  of  the  Judaic 
law,  coming  forth  in  their  solemn  trains,  with  their  broad  phylac- 
teries, to  grace  this  most  religious  occasion  with  their  reverend 
presence,  out  of  respectful  gratitude  to  their  gxeat  sovran,  for  his 
considerate  disposition  to  accord  the  sanction  of  his  absolute  secu- 
lar power  to  their  religious  sentence.  Expectation  stood  on  tiptoe 
for  the  comfortable  spectacle  of  the  streaming  life-blood  of  this 
stubborn  leader  of  the  Nazarene  heresy  ;  and  nothing  was  wanting 
to  the  completion  of  the  ceremony,  but  the  criminal  himself  That 
desideratum  was,  however,  not  so  easily  supplied ;  for  the  entrance 
of  the  delinquent  sentinels  now  presented  the  non-est-inventus 
return  to  the  solemn  summons  for  the  body  of  their  prisoner. 
Confusion  thrice  confounded  now  fell  on  the  faces  that  were  just 
shining  with  anticipated  triumph  over  their  hated  foe,  while  secret, 
scornful  joy  illuminated  the  countenances  of  the  oppressed  friends 
of  Jesus.  But  on  the  devoted  minions  of  the  baffled  king,  did 
his  disappointed  vengeance  fall  most  cruelly,  in  his  paroxysm  of 
vexation ;  and  for  an  event  wholly  beyond  their  control,  they  now 
suffered  an  undeserved  death, — making  the  only  tragical  incident 
among  the  otherwise  decidedly  g-ratifying  results  of  Peter's  escape. 

agbippa's  end. 

King  Herod  Agrippa,  ailer  this  miserable  failure  in  his  attempt 
to  "  please  the  Jews,"  does  not  seem  to  have  made  a  very  long  stay 
in  Jerusalem.  Before  his  departure,  however, — to  secure  his  own 
solid  glory  and  his  kingdom's  safety,  as  well  as  the  favor  of  his 
subjects, — he  not  only  continued  the  repairs  of  the  temple,  but  in- 
stituted such  improvements  in  the  fortifications  of  the  city,  as,  if 
ever  completed,  would  have  made  it  utterly  impregnable  even  to 
a  Roman  force ; — so  that  the  emperor's  jealousy  soon  compelled 
him  to  abandon  this  work.  Soon  after,  he  left  Jerusalem,  and 
went  down  to  Caesarea  Augusta,  on  the  sea-coast,  long  the  seat  of 
the  government  of  Palestine,  and  a  more  agreeable  place  for  the 
operations  of  a  Gentile  court  and  administration,  (for  such  Agrip- 
pa's  must  have  been,  from  his  long  residence  at  the  imperial  court 
of  Rome,)  than  the  punctilious  religious  capital  of  Judea.  But 
he  was  not  allowed  to  remain  much  longer  on  tho  earth,  to  hinder 
the  progress  of  the  truth,  by  acts  of  tyranny  in  subservience  to 
the  base  purposes  of  winning  the  favor  of  his  more  powerful 
subjects.     The  hand  of  God  was  laid  destroydngly  on  him,  in 


226  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  midst  of  what  seemed  the  full  fruition  of  that  popular  adula- 
tion for  which  he  had  lived,  and  surrounded  by  which  he  now 
died.  Arrayed  in  a  splendid  and  massy  robe  of  polished  silver, 
he  seated  himself  on  the  throne  erected  by  his  grandfather  Herod, 
in  the  vast  Herodian  theatre  at  Caesarea,  early  in  the  morning 
of  the  day  which  was  appointed  for  the  celebration  of  the  great 
festal  games,  in  honor  of  his  royal  patron,  Claudius  Caesar.  On 
this  occasion,  to  crown  his  kingly  triumphs,  the  embassadors  of 
the  ancient  commercial  Phoenician  cities.  Tyre  and  Sidon,  appeared 
before  him,  to  receive  his  condescending  answer  to  their  submis- 
sive requests  for  the  re-establishment  of  a  friendly  intercourse  be- 
tween his  dominions  and  theirs, — the  agricultural  products  of  the 
former  being  quite  essential  to  the  thriving  trade  of  the  latter. 
Agrippa's  reply  was  now  pubUcly  given  to  them,  in  which  he 
graciously  granted  their  requests,  in  such  a  tone  of  eloquent 
benignity,  that  the  admiring  assembly  expressed  their  approbation 
in  shouts  of  praise ;  and  at  last  some  bold  adulators,  catching  the 
idea  from  the  rays  of  dazzling  light  which  flashed  from  the  pohshed 
surfaces  of  his  metallic  robe,  and  threw  a  sort  of  glory  over  and 
around  him,  cried  out,  in  impious  exclamation — "  It  is  the  voice 
of  a  god,  and  not  of  a  man."  So  little  taste  had  the  foolish  king, 
that  he  did  not  check  this  pitiful  outbreak  of  silly  blasphemy ;  but 
sat  listening  to  all,  in  the  most  unmoved  self-satisfaction.  But  in 
the  midst  of  this  profane  glory,  he  was  called  to  an  account  for 
which  it  ill  prepared  him.  In  the  expressive  though  figurative 
language  of  Luke, — "  immediately  the  messenger  of  the  Lord  struck 
him,  because  he  gave  not  the  glory  to  God."  The  Jewish  histo- 
rian, too,  in  a  similar  manner  assigns  the  reason, — "  The  king  did 
not  rebuke  the  flatterers,  nor  refuse  their  impious  adulation. 
Shortly  after,  he  was  seized  with  a  pain  in  the  bowels,  dreadfully 
violent  from  the  beginning.  Turning  to  his  friends,  he  said — 
'  Behold !  I,  your  god,  am  now  appointed  to  end  my  life, — the 
decree  of  fate  having  at  once  falsified  the  voices  that  but  just  now 
were  uttering  lies  about  me  ;  and  I,  who  have  been  called  immortal 
by  you,  am  now  carried  off"  dying.'  While  he  uttered  these 
words  he  was  tortured  by  the  increasing  violence  of  his  pain,  and 
was  accordingly  carried  back  to  his  palace.  After  five  days  of 
intense  anguish,  he  died,  in  the  fifty-fourth  year  of  his  age,  and 
in  the  seventh  of  his  reign  ;  having  reigned  four  years  under  Caius 
Caesar,  and  tiiree  under  Claudius."  Thus  ended  the  days  of  the 
conscience-stricken  tyrant,  while  the  glorious  gospel  cause  which 


Peter's  apostleship.  227 

he  had  so  vainly  thought  to  check  and  overthrow,  now,  in  the 
words  of  Luke,  "grew  and  was  muhiphed" — the  spiteful  Jews 
having  lost  the  right  arm  of  their  persecuting  authority,  in  the 
death  of  their  king,  and  all  Palestine  now  passing  again  under 
the  direct  Roman  rule,  whose  tolerant  principles  became  once  more 
the  great  protection  of  the  followers  of  Jesus. 

Agrippa's  death. — My  combination  of  the  two  different  accounts  given  by  Luke  and 
Josephus  of  this  event,  I  believe  accords  with  the  best  authorities ;  nor  am  I  disposed, 
as  Michaelis  is,  to  reject  Josephus's  statement  as  irreconcilable  with  that  in  the  Acts, 
though  deficient  in  some  particulars,  which  are  given  in  the  latter,  and  though  not 
rightly  apprehending  fully  the  motives  and  immediate  occasion  of  many  things 
which  he  mentions.  In  the  same  way,  too,  several  minor  circumstances  are  omitted 
in  Luke,  which  can  be  brought  in  from  Josephus,  so  as  to  give  a  much  more  vivid 
idea  of  the  whole  event  than  can  be  obtained  from  the  Acts  alone.  (See  Michaelis's 
Introduction  to  the  New  Testament, — on  Luke.)  But  Wolf,  Kuinoel,  and  Bloom- 
field,  are  very  successful  and  consistent  in  harmonizing  these  two  seemingly  different 
accounts.  (See  their  commentaries  m  loc.)  So  also  Grotius,  (Op.  theol.,  and  in 
Poole's  Synopsis,  i/i  loc.) 

Seized  with  a  pain  ill,  the  boioels. — This  is  all  that  Josephus  says  of  the  character 
of  the  disease ;  nor  does  the  expression  used  by  Luke,  in  fact,  imply  any  thing  more. 
The  word  (7Vf.j.\;jifj..Jp(jros  {skolekobrolos)  is  in  the  common  translations  properly  enough 
given  in  its  literal  primary  meaning — "  eaten  by  uwrms;"  but  the  idea  that  the  use  of 
'this  term  by  Luke  proves  him  to  have  believed  the  diseases  to  which  it  was  applied 
to  have  been  actually  caused  by  worms,  is  almost  too  preposterous  to  need  a  refuta- 
tion, among  medical  men  at  least.  Every  intelligent  man  knows  that  even  the  most 
correct  and  scientific  nosologies  of  modern  times  abound  in  terms  which,  if  trans- 
lated in  this  literal  way,  would  make  the  most  ludicrous  absurdities  in  the  established 
nomenclatures.  Terms  used  in  medicine  as  the  names  of  diseases  have  often  origi- 
nated in  the  most  monstrous  errors,  and  have  been  first  applied  with  an  actual  refer- 
ence to  some  false  speculation  literally  expressed  in  the  word ;  but  the  mere  explosion 
of  the  false  notion  which  first  suggested  the  name,  is  seldom  followed  by  the  exclu- 
sion of  the  term  itself  Terms  thus  applied  always  almost  immediately  acquire  the 
force  of  proper  names,  and  nobody  ever  thinks  of  the  primary  signification  or  ety- 
mology of  the  term  thus  used,  any  more  than  of  the  literal  meaning  of  the  proper 
names  of  men,  (which  were  all  originally  significant.)  This  is  seen  more  especially 
in  the  popular  names  of  diseases.  Thus  no  one  in  applying  the  term  "  Imiatic"  to  an 
insane  person  would  think  of  being  .supposed  to  attribute  the  disease  to  the  influence 
of  the  nwoti,  though  such  was  the  primary  idea  which  brought  the  word  into  use, 
(from  the  Latin  luna.)  Just  so  the  word  "  rheumatism"  means  a  Jloicing  or  running 
of  humors  to  the  part  affected;  and  the  word  "  gnut"  implies  the  presence  of  a  drop 
of  a  noxious  humor  in  the  joint;  but  no  mortal  is  ever  disposed  to  believe  this  foolish 
old  pathology,  from  the  ordinary  use  of  these  words.  And,  to  take  a  corresponding 
instance  in  the  new  Testament, — when  Matthew  applies  the  term  ac\rtina^oiitvovs 
(^selcniazomenous,  "moon-struck,"  "  lunatics,"  Matt.  iv.  24)  to  persons  who  are  el.se- 
where  described  with  the  most  palpable  symptoms  of  epilepsij,  are  we  to  believe  that 
the  inspired  evangelist  supposed  this  disease  was  caused  by  the  influence  of  the  moon, 
any  more  than  those  who  in  modern  times  apply  the  correspondent  term,  "lunatics," 
to  the  insane,  can  refer  insanity  to  that  cause  1  (Compare  Matt.  xvii.  15.  with  Mark 
ix.  18,  and  Luke  ix.  39.)  Then  why,  when  Luke  in  this  passage  used  a  word  mean- 
ing "  gnawed  by  worms"  to  designate  a  violent  pain  in  the  bowels,  are  we  to  suppose 
that  the  term  is  to  be  taken  more  literally  than  the  former  1  The  crude  and  absurd 
pathology  of  the  ancients  was  full  of  these  idle  notions  of  disease  being  caused  by 
worvis  or  insects  in  some  shape  or  other;  (just  as  old  nurses  and  quacks,  in  our  times, 
refer  nine-tenths  of  the  ailments  of  children  to  the  same  cause.)  This  had,  no  doubt, 
given  occasion  for  the  application  of  this  word  to  a  violent  intestinal  pain;  (the  result 
of  v.-hat  is  even  now  a  common  error  in  diagnosis;)  and  Luke  knew  that  all  his 
readers  would  at  once  best  conceive  the  character  of  the  di.sease  by  the  application  of 
the  word  which,  though  with  a  false  notion,  was  used  as  the  name  of  such  aflections. 
Many  commentators  (see  Kuinoel)  have,  in  a  comparison  of  Luke  with  Josephus, 
conclud  'd  the  disease  to  have  been  a  dysentery :  and  the  conjecture  is  not  extremely 


228  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

unreasonable.  My  own  conjecture  (which  may  be  allowed  in  the  professional  way) 
would  be  that  the  disease  was,  in  inilh,  tliat  form  of  neuralgia  which  attacks  the 
stomach  and  upper  intestines,  forming  the  most  agonizing  disease  to  which  the 
human  frame  is  liable, — being  at  the  same  time  extremely  dangerous,  sometimes  de- 
stroying life  by  mere  intensity  of  pain.  (This  is  the  gastrodynia  of  medical  authors ; 
in  more  properly  correct  systematic  nosology,  Linwsis  gastrodynica.)  The  symp- 
toms of  this  answer  very  well  to  the  history  of  Herod's  case,  as  gathered  from  both 
Luke  and  Josephus;  and  this  supposition  agrees  with  the  sacred  narrative  altogether 
more  rationally  than  the  gratuitously  absurd  assumption  of  Mede,  Eisner,  &c.,  that 
Herod  died  of  phl/iiriasis,  or  the  lousy  disease,  against  which  it  is  enough  to  urge, 
if  it  claims  to  be  favored  by  a  literal  interpretation,  that  a  louse  is  not  a  wcrm,  nor 
is  a  worm  a  louse.  The  disease  which  I  have  named  was  as  fit  an  instniment  ol 
divine  vengeance  as  any  other  that  has  been  supposed ;  and  has  an  advantage  over 
Kuinoel's  supposition,  inasmuch  as  Josephus  gives  no  specific  symptom  of  dysentery, 
but  merely  mentions  an  "  acute  pain,  dreadfully  violent  from  the  beginning,"  which 
'•after  five  days  of  intense  anguish"  caused  the  death  of  the  patient.  As  it  is,  no 
well-educated  physician  can  be  made  (without  the  literal  meaning  is  proved)  to  be- 
lieve in  any  acute  attack  of  Helminthia  carrying  off  a  patient  in  this  way. 

Peter's  place  of  refuge. 

Luke,  in  mentioning  the  departure  of  Peter  from  Jerusalem 
after  his  escape  from  prison  by  night,  merely  says — "  And  going 
out,  he  went  to  another  flace.""  The  vague,  uncertain  manner* 
in  which  the  circumstance  is  mentioned,  seems  to  imply  that  the' 
writer  really  knew  nothing  about  this  "  other  place."  It  was  not 
a  point  essential  to  the  integrity  of  the  narrative,  though  interest- 
ing to  all  the  readers  of  the  history,  since  the  most  trifling  par- 
ticulars about  the  chief  apostle  might  well  be  supposed  desirable 
to  be  known.  But  though,  if  it  had  been  known,  it  would  have 
been  well  worth  recording,  it  was  too  trifling  a  matter  to  deserve 
any  investigation,  if  it  had  not  been  mentioned  to  Luke  by  those 
from  whom  he  received  the  accounts  which  he  gives  of  Peter ; 
and  since  he  is  uniformly  particular  in  mentioning  even  these 
smaller  details,  Avhen  they  fall  in  the  way  of  his  narrative,  it  is  but 
fair  to  conclude  that  in  this  instance  he  would  have  satisfied  the 
natural  and  reasonable  curiosity  of  his  readers,  if  he  had  had  the 
means  of  doing  so.  There  could  have  been  no  motive  when  he 
wrote,  for  concealing  the  fact,  and  he  could  have  expressed  the 
whole  truth  in  as  few  words  as  he  has  given  to  show  his  own 
ignorance  of  the  point.  From  the  nature  of  the  apostle's  motives 
in  departing  from  Jerusalem,  it  must  have  been  at  that  time  de- 
sirable to  have  his  place  of  refuge  known  to  as  few  as  possible  ; 
and  the  fact,  at  that  time  unknown,  would,  after  the  motive  for 
concealment  had  disappeared,  be  of  too  little  interest  to  be  very 
carefully  inquired  after  by  those  to  whom  it  was  not  obvious.  In 
this  way  it  happened,  that  this  circumstance  was  never  revealed 
to  Luke,  who  not  being  among  the  disciples  at  Jerusalem,  would 


Peter's  apostleship.  229 

not  be  in  the  way  of  readily  hearing  of  it,  and  in  writing  the  story 
would  not  think  it  worth  inquiring  for.  But  one  thing  seems 
morally  certain ;  if  Peter  had  taken  refuge  in  any  important  place 
or  well  known  city,  it  must  have  been  far  more  likely  to  have  been 
afterwards  a  fact  sufficiently  notorious  to  have  come  within  the 
knowledge  of  his  historian  ;  but  as  the  most  likely  place  for  a  secret 
retirement  would  have  been  some  obscure  region,  this  would  in- 
crease the  chances  of  its  remaining  subsequently  unknown.  This 
consideration  is  of  some  importance  in  settling  a  few  negative 
facts  in  relation  to  various  conjectures  which  have  at  different 
times  been  offered  on  the  place  of  Peter's  refuge. 

Among  these,  the  most  idle  and  unfounded  is,  that  on  leaving 
Jerusalem  he  went  to  Caesarea.  What  could  have  suggested  this 
queer  fancy  to  its  author,  it  is  hard  to  say ;  but  it  certainly  implies 
the  most  senseless  folly  in  Peter,  when  seeking  a  hiding  place 
from  the  persecution  of  king  Herod  Agrippa,  to  go  directly  to  the 
capital  of  his  dominions,  where  he  might  be  expected  to  reside  for 
the  greater  part  of  the  time,  and  whither  he  actually  did  go,  imme- 
diately after  his  disappointment  about  this  very  ppostle.  It  was 
jumping  out  of  the  frying-pan  into  the  fire,  to  go  thus  away  from 
among  numerous  friends  who  might  have  found  a  barely  possible 
safety  for  him  in  Jerusalem,  and  to ,  seek  a  refuge  in  Caesarea, 
where  there  were  but  very  few  friends  of  the  apostles,  and  where 
he  would  be  in  constant  danger  of  discovery,  from  the  numerous 
minions  of  the  king,  who  thronged  all  parts  of  that  royal  city,  and 
from  the  great  number  of  Greeks,  Romans,  and  Syrians,  making 
up  the  majority  of  the  population,  who  hated  the  very  sight  of  a 
Jew,  and  would  have  taken  vast  pleasure  in  gratifying  their  spite, 
and  at  the  same  time  gaining  high  favor  with  the  king,  by  hunting 
out  and  giving  up  to  wrath  an  obscure  heretic  of  that  hated  race. 
It  would  not  have  been  at  all  accordant  with  the  serpent- wisdom 
enjoined  on  the  apostle,  to  have  run  his  head  thus  into  the  lion's 
mouth,  by  seeking  a  quiet  and  safe  dwelling-place  beneath  the 
very  eye  of  his  powerful  persecutor. 

Another  conjecture  much  less  absurd,  but  still  not  highly  pro- 
bable, is,  that  Antioch  was  the  "  other  place"  to  which  Peter  went 
from  Jerusalem ;  but  an  objection  of  great  force  against  this,  is 
that  already  alluded  to  above,  in  reference  to  the  ineligibility  of  a 
great  city  as  a  place  of  concealment ;  and  in  this  instance  is  super- 
added the  difficulty  of  his  immediately  making  this  long  journey 
over  the  whole  extent  of  Agrippa's  dominions,  northward,  at  such 


230  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

a  time,  when  the  king's  officers  would  be  every^vhere  put  on  the 
alert  for  him,  more  particularly  in  the  direction  of  his  old  home  in 
Galilee,  which  would  be  in  the  nearest  way  to  Antioch,  His  most 
politic  movement,  therefore,  would  be  to  take  some  shorter  course 
out  of  Palestine.  Moreover,  in  this  case,  there  is  no  reason  why 
Luke  should  not  have  mentioned  the  name  of  Antioch,  if  that  had 
been  the  place.  On  the  contrary,  his  silence  on  the  point  would 
be  very  remarkable ;  since  he  is  in  other  things  so  full  on  all  the 
apostolic  acts,  when  they  concern  the  church  of  Antioch. 

It  has  been  suggested  by  others  that  the  expression  "  to  another 
place" — does  not  imply  a  departure  from  Jerusalem,  but  is  per- 
fectly reconcilable  with  the  supposition  that  Peter  remained  con- 
cealed in  some  safe  and  unknown  part  of  the  city.  This  view 
would  very  unobjectionably  accord  with  the  vagueness  of  the  pas- 
sage,— since,  if  merely  another  part  of  Jerusalem  was  meant,  no 
name  could  be  expected  to  describe  it.  But  it  would  certainly 
seem  like  a  presumptuous  rashness  in  Peter,  to  risk  in  so  idle  a 
manner  the  freedom  which  he  owed  to  a  miraculous  interposition  ; 
for  the  circumstance  of  such  an  interposition  could  not  be  intended 
to  justify  him  in  dispensing  with  a  single  precaution  which  would 
be  proper  and  necessary  after  an  escape  in  any  other  mode.  Such 
is  not  the  course  of  divine  dealings,  whether  miraculous  or  ordi- 
nary; and  in  a  religious  as  well  as  an  economical  view,  the  force 
and  truth  of  Poor  Richard's  saying  is  undoubted, — "  God  helps 
them  who  help  themselves ;"  nor  is  his  helping  them  any  reason 
why  they  should  cease  to  help  themselves.  Peter's  natural  im- 
pulse, as  well  as  a  considerate  prudence,  then,  would  lead  him  to 
immediate  exertions  to  keep  the  freedom  so  wonderfully  obtained ; 
and  such  an  impulse  and  such  a  consideration  would  at  once  teach 
him  that  the  city  was  no  place  for  him,  at  a  time  when  the  most 
desperately  diligent  search  might  be  expected.  For  as  soon  as  his 
escape  was  discovered,  Luke  says,  that  the  king  "sought  most 
earnestly  for  him,"  and  in  a  search  thus  characterized,  inspired, 
too,  by  the  most  furious  rage  at  the  disappointment,  hardly  a  hole 
or  corner  of  Jerusalem  could  have  been  left  unransacked ;  so  that 
this  preservation  of  the  apostle  from  pursuers  so  determined,  would 
have  required  a  continued  series  of  miracles,  fully  as  wonderful  as 
that  which  effected  his  deliverance  from  Caste  Antonia.  His  most 
proper  and  reasonable  course  would  then  huve  been  directly  east- 
ward from  Jerusalem, — a  route  which  would  give  him  the  shortest 
exit  from  the  territories  of  Herod  Agrippa,  leading  him  directly 


Peter's  apostleship.  231 

into  Arabia,  a  region  that  was,  in  another  great  instance  hereafter 
mentioned,  a  place  of  comfortable  and  nndisturbed  refuge  for  a  person 
similarly  circumstanced.  A  journey  of  fifty  or  sixty  miles,  throuo-h 
an  unfrequented  and  lonely  country,  would  put  him  entirely  beyond 
pursuit ;  and  the  character  of  the  route  would  make  it  exceedingly 
difficult  to  trace  his  flight,  as  the  nature  of  the  country  would  fa- 
cilitate his  concealment,  while  its  proximity  to  Jerusalem  would 
make  his  return,  after  the  removal  of  the  danger  by  the  death  of 
Agrippa,  as  easy  as  his  flight  thither  in  the  first  place. 

At  Jerusalem. — This  notion  I  find  no  where  but  in  Lardner,  who  approves  it, 
quoting  Lenfant.    (Lard.  Hist,  of  Apost.  and  Evang.,  Life  of  Peter.) 

HIS    SUPPOSED    TOUR    THROUGH  ASIA    MINOR. 

One  series  of  papistical  fables  carries  him  on  his  supposed  tour  on  the 
coast  beyond  Caesarea,  and,  uniting  two  theories,  makes  him  visit  Antioch 
also  ;  and  finally  extends  his  pilgrimage  into  the  central  and  northern  parts 
of  Asia  Minor.  This  fabulous  legend,  though  different  in  its  character 
from  the  preceding  accounts,  because  it  impudently  attempts  to  pass  off  a 
bald  invention  as  an  authentic  history,  while  those  are  only  offered  honestly 
as  probable  conjectures,  yet  may  be  worthy  of  a  place  here, — because  it  is 
necessary,  in  giving  a  complete  view  of  all  the  stories  which  have  been  re- 
ceived, to  present  dishonest  inventions  as  well  as  justifiable  speculations. 
The  clearest  fabulous  account  given  of  his  journey  thither  is — that  parting 
from  Jerusalem  as  above-mentioned,  he  directed  fiis  way  westward  toward 
the  sea-coast  of  Palestine,  first  to  Caesarea  Stratonis,  (or  Augusta,)  where 
he  constituted  one  of  the  presbyters  who  attended  him  from  Jerusalem, 
bishop  of  the  church  founded  there  by  him  on  his  visit; — that  leavincr 
Caesarea  he  went  northward  along  the  coast,  into  Phoenicia,  arriving  at  the 
city  of  Sidon ;  that  there  he  performed  many  cures  and  also  appointed  a 
bishop ; — next  to  Berytus,  (now  Beyroot,)  in  Syria,  and  there  also  appoint- 
ed a  bishop.  Going  on  through  Syria,  along  the  coast  of  the  Mediterra- 
nean, they  bring  him  next,  in  liis  curiously  detailed  track,  to  Biblys ;  then 
to  the  Phoenician  Tripoli,  to  Orthosia,  to  Antandros,  to  the  island  of  Ara- 
dus,  near  the  coast,  to  Balaenas,  to  Panta,  to  Laodicea,  and  at  last  to  Anti- 
och,— planting  churches  in  all  these  hard-named  towns  on  the  way,  and 
appointing  numerous  bishops,  as  before,  as  well  as  performing  vast  quanti- 
ties of  miracles.  The  story  of  Peter's  journey  goes  on  to  say,  that  after 
leaving  Antioch  he  went  into  Cappadocia,  and  stayed  some  time  in  Tyana, 
a  city  of  that  province.  Proceeding  westward  thence,  he  came  to  Ancyra, 
in  Galatia,  where  he  raised  a  dead  person,  baptized  believers,  and  instituted 
a  church,  over  which  he  ordained  a  bishop.  Thence  northward,  into  Pon- 
tus,  where  he  visited  the  cities  of  Sinope  and  Amasea,  on  the  coast  of  the 
Euxine  sea.  Then  turning  eastward  into  Paphlagonia,  stopped  at  Gangra 
and  Claudiopolis ;  next  into  Bithynia,  to  the  cities  of  Nicomedia  and  Ni- 
caea  ;  and  thence  returned  directly  to  Antioch,  whence  he  shortly  afterwards 
went  to  Jerusalem. 

This  ingenious  piece  of  apostolic  romance  is  due  to  the  same  veracious  Meta- 
phrastes,  above  quoted.     I  have  derived  it  from  him  through  Caesar  Baron i us,  who 


232  LIVES  OF  THE   APOSTLES. 

gives  it  in  his  Annales  Ecclesiastici.  (44,  §  10,  11.)  The  great  annalist  approves  and 
adopts  it  however,  only  as  far  as  it  describes  the  journey  of  Peter  to  Antioch;  and 
there  he  leaves  the  narrative  of  Metaphrastcs,  and  instead  of  taking  Peter  on  his 
long  journey  through  Asia  Minor  ana  back  to  Jerusalem,  as  just  described,  carries 
him  off  upon  a  far  different  route,  achieving  the  great  journey  westward,  which  ac- 
cords M  ith  the  view  taken  by  the  vast  majority  of  the  old  ecclesiastical  writers,  and 
which  is  next  given  here.  Metaphrastcs  also  maintains  this  view,  indeed,  but  sup- 
poses and  invents  all  the  events  just  narrated,  as  intermediate  occurrences,  between 
Peter's  escape  and  his  great  journey ;  and  begins  the  account  of  this  latter,  after  his 
return  from  his  Asian  circuit. 

To  connect  all  this  long  pilgrimage  with  the  story  given  in  the  sacred  record,  the 
sage  Baronius  makes  the  ingenious  suggestion,  that  this  was  the  occult  reason  why 
Agrippa  was  wroth  with  those  of  Tyre  and  Sidon, — namely,  that  Peter  had  gone 
through  their  country  when  a  fugitive  from  the  royal  vengeance,  and  had  been  favor- 
ably received  by  the  Tyrians  and  Sidonians,  who  should  have  seized  him  as  a  run- 
away from  justice,  and  sent  him  back  to  Agrippa.  This  acute  guess,  he  thinks,  will 
show  a  reason  also  for  the  otherwise  unaccountable  fact,  that  Luke  should  mention 
this  quarrel  between  Agrippa  and  these  cities,  in  connexion  with  the  events  of  Peter's 
escape  and  Agrippa's  death.  For  the  great  Cardinal  does  not  seem  to  appreciate  the 
circumstance  of  its  close  relation  to  the  latter  event,  in  presenting  the  occasion  of  the 
reconciliation  between  the  king  and  the  offending  cities,  on  which  the  king  made  his 
speech  to  the  people,  and  received  the  impious  tribute  of  praise,  which  was  followed 
by  his  death ; — the  whole  constituting  a  relation  sufficiently  close  between  the  two 
events,  to  justify  the  connexion  in  Luke. 

THE  FIRST  SUPPOSED  VISIT  TO    ROME. 

But  the  view  of  this  passage  in  Peter's  history,  Avhich  was  long  adopted 
universally  by  those  who  took  the  pains  to  ask  about  this  "  other  place," 
mentioned  by  Luke,  and  the  view  which  involves  the  most  important  rela- 
tions to  other  far  greater  questions,  is — that  Rome  Avas  the  chief  apostle's 
refuge  from  the  Agrippine  persecution,  and  that  in  the  imperial  city  he  now 
laid  the  deep  foundations  of  the  church  universal.  On  this  point  some  of 
the  greatest  champions  of  papistry  have  expended  vast  labor,  to  establish 
a  circumstance  so  convenient  for  the  support  of  the  dogma  of  the  divinely 
appointed  supremacy  of  the  Romish  church, — since  the  belief  of  this  early 
visit  of  Peter  would  afford  a  very  convenient  basis  for  the  very  early  apos- 
tolical foundation  of  the  Roman  see.  But  though  this  notion  of  his  refuge 
has  received  the  support  of  a  vast  number  of  great  names  from  the  very 
early  periods  of  Christian  literature,  and  though  for  a  long  period  this  view 
was  considered  indubitable,  from  the  sanction  of  ancient  authorities,  there 
is  not  one  of  the  various  conjectures  offered,  which  is  so  easily  overthrown 
on  examination,  from  the  manner  in  which  it  is  connected  with  other  no- 
tions most  palpably  false  and  baseless.  The  old  papistical  notion  was  that 
Peter  at  this  time  visited  Rome,  founded  the  church  there,  and  presided  over 
it,  as  bishop,  twenty-five  years,  but  occasionally  visiting  the  east.  As  respects 
the  minute  details  of  this  journey  to  Rome,  the  papist  historians  are  by  no 
means  agreed ;  few  of  them  having  put  any  value  upon  the  particulars  of 
such  an  itinerary,  until  those  periods  when  such  fables  were  sought  after  by 
common  readers  with  more  avidity.  But  there  is  at  least  one  hard-con- 
scienced  narrator,  who  undertakes  to  go  over  all  the  steps  of  the  apostle  on 
the  road  to  the  eternal  city ;  and  from  his  narrative  are  brought  these  cir- 
cumstances. The  companions  assigned  him  by  this  romance,  on  his  jour- 
ney, were  the  evangelist  Mark, — Appollinaris,  afterwards,  as  the  story  goes, 
appointed  by  him  bishop  of  Ravenna,  in  Italy, — Martial,  afterwards  a  mis- 
sionary in  Gaul,  and  Rufus,  bishop  of  Capua,"in  Italy.     Pancratius  of  Tau- 


Peter's  apostleship.  233 

lomenius,  and  Marcian  of  Syracuse,  in  Sicily,  had  been  sent  on  by  Peter  to 
that  island,  while  he  was  yet  staying  at  Antioch ;  but  on  his  voyage  he 
landed  there  and  made  them  his  companions  also.  His  great  route  is  said 
to  have  led  him  to  Troy,  on  the  northern  part  of  the  Asian  coast  of  the 
Aegean  sea,  whence  they  seem  to  have  made  him  cross  to  the  eastern  port 
of  Corinth.  At  this  great  city  of  Greece,  they  bring  him  into  the  company 
of  Paul  and  Silas,  who  were  sent  thither,  to  be  sure,  on  a  mission,  but  evi- 
dently at  a  diflerent  time, — a  circumstance  which,  among  many  others,  helps 
to  show  the  bungling  manner  in  which  the  story  is  made  up.  From  Cor- 
inth they  carry  him  next  to  Syracuse,  as  just  mentioned.  Thence  to  Nea- 
polis,  (Naples,)  in  Campania,  where,  as  the  monkish  legend  says,  this  chief 
of  the  apostles  celebrated  with  his  companions  a  mass,  for  the  safe  progress 
of  his  voyage  to  Italy.  Having  now  reached  Italy,  he  is  made  the  subject 
of  a  new  fable,  for  the  benefit  of  every  city  along  the  coast,  and  is  accord- 
ingly said  to  have  touched  at  Liburnum,  {Livorno  of  the  Italians,  called 
Leghorn  by  the  English,)  being  driven  thither  by  stress  of  weather,  and 
thence  to  Pisa,  near  by,  where  he  offered  up  another  mass  for  his  preserva- 
tion, as  is  still  maintained  in  local  fables  ;  but  the  general  Romish  legend 
does  not  so  favor  these  places,  but  brings  the  apostle,  without  any  more  ma- 
rine delay  or  difficulty,  directly  over  land  from  Naples  to  Rome ;  and  on 
this  route  again,  a  local  superstition  commemorates  the  veritable  circum- 
stances, that  he  made  this  land-journey  from  Naples  to  Rome,  on  foot ; 
and  on  the  way  stopped  at  the  house  of  a  Galilean  countryman  of  his  own, 
named  Mark,  in  a  town  called  Atina,  of  which  the  said  Mark  was  after- 
wards made  bishop. 

Respecting  these  minute  accounts  of  Peter's  stopping-places  on  this  apocryphal 
journe}^,  Baronius  says — "  Nobilia  in  iis  remanserant  antiquitatis  vestigia,  sed  tra- 
ditiones  potius  quam  scriptura  iirmata."  "  There  are  in  those  places  some  noble 
remains  of  this  ancient  history,  but  rather  traditions  than  well  assured  written  ac- 
counts." The  part  of  the  route  from  Antioch  to  Sicily  he  takes  on  the  authority  of 
the  imaginative  Metaphrastes;  but  the  rest  is  made  up  from  different  local  supersti- 
tions of  a  very  modern  date,  not  one  of  which  can  be  traced  farther  back  than  the 
time  when  every  fable  of  this  sort  had  a  high  pecuniary  value  to  the  inventors, 
in  bringing  crowds  of  money-giving  pilgrims  to  the  spot  which  had  been  hallowed 
by  the  footsteps  of  the  chief  apostle.  Even  the  devout  Baronius,  however,  is  obliged 
to  confess  at  the  end  of  the  story — "  Sed  de  rebus  tam  antiquis  et  incertis,  quid  potis- 
simum  affirmare  debeamus,  non  satis  constat." — "  But  as  to  matters  so  ancient  and 
uncertain,  it  is  not  suificiently  well  established  what  opinion  we  may  most  safely 
pronounce." 

As  to  the  early  part  of  the  route,  speaking  of  the  account  given  by  Metaphrastes  of 
Peter's  having  on  his  way  through  Troy  ordained  Cornelius,  the  centurion,  bishop 
of  that  place,  Baronius  objects  to  the  truth  of  this  statement  the  assertion  that  Cor- 
nelius had  been  previously  ordained  bishop  of  Caesarea,  where  he  was  converted. 
A  very  valuable  refutation  of  one  fable,  by  another  as  utterly  unfounded. 

Respecting  the  causes  of  this  great  journey  of  the  apostle  to  the  capital 
of  the  world,  the  opinions  even  of  papist  writers  are  as  various  as  they  are 
about  the  route  honored  by  his  passage.  Some  suppose  his  motive  to  have 
been  merely  a  desire  for  a  refuge  from  the  persecution  of  Agrippa  ; — a  most 
unlikely  resort,  however, — for  nothing  could  be  more  easy  than  his  de- 
tection, in  passing  over  such  a  route,  especially  by  sea,  where  every  vessel 
could  be  so  easily  searched  at  the  command  of  Agrippa,  whose  influence 
extended  far  beyond  his  own  territory,  supported  as  he  was,  by  the  un- 
bounded  possession  of  the  imperial  Caesar's  favor,  which  would  also  make 
the  seizure  of  the  fugitive  within  the  great  city  itself,  a  very  easy  thing. 


234  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

Others,  however,  do  not  consider  this  journey  as  connected  in  any  way  with 
his  flight  from  Agrippa,  (for  many  suppose  it  to  have  been  made  after  the 
death  of  that  king,)  and  find  the  motive  for  such  an  effort  in  the  vast  im- 
portance of  the  field  opened  for  his  labors  in  the  great  capital  of  the  world, 
where  were  so  many  strong  holds  of  error  to  be  assaulted,  and  from  which 
an  influence  so  wide  and  effectual  might  be  exerted  through  numerous 
channels  of  communication  to  all  parts  of  the  world.  Others  have  sought 
a  reason  of  more  definite  and  limited  character,  and  with  vast  pains  have 
invented  and  compiled  a  fable  of  most  absurdly  amusing  character,  to  make 
an  object  for  Peter's  labors  in  the  distant  capital.  The  story  which  has 
the  greatest  number  of  supporters,  is  one  connected  with  Simon  Magus, 
mentioned  in  the  sacred  record  in  the  account  of  the  labors  of  Philip  in 
Samaria,  and  the  visit  of  Peter 'and  John  to  that  place.  The  fable  begins 
with  the  assertion  that  this  magician  had  returned  to  his  former  tricks,  after 
his  insincere  conformity  to  the  Christian  faith,  and  had  devoted  himself 
with  new  energy  to  the  easy  work  of  popular  deception,  adding  to  his  former 
evil  motives,  that  of  deadly  spite  against  the  faith  to  which  he  appeared  so 
friendly,  at  the  time  when  the  sacred  narrative  speaks  of  him  last.  In  order 
to  find  a  field  sufficiently  ample  for  his  enlarged  plans,  he  went  to  Rome, 
and  there,  in  the  reign  of  Claudius  Caesar,  attained  a  vast  renown  by  his 
magical  tricks,  so  that  he  was  actually  esteemed  a  god,  and  was  even  so  pro- 
nounced by  a  solemn  decree  of  the  Roman  senate,  confirmed  by  Claudius 
himself,  who  was  perfectly  carried  away  with  the  delusion,  which  seems 
thus  to  have  involved  the  highest  and  the  lowest  alike.  The  fable  proceeds 
to  introduce  Peter  on  the  scene,  by  the  circumstance  of  his  being  called  by 
a  divine  vision  to  go  to  Rome  and  war  against  this  great  impostor,  thus 
advancing  in  his  impious  supremacy,  who  had  already  in  Samaria  been 
made  to  acknowledge  the  miraculous  efficacy  of  the  apostolic  word.  Peter, 
thus  brought  to  Rome  by  the  hand  of  God,  publicly  preached  abroad  the 
doctrine  of  salvation,  and  meeting  the  arch-magician  himself,  with  the  same 
divine  weapons  whose  efficacy  he  had  before  experienced,  overcame  him 
utterly,  and  drove  him  in  confusion  and  disgrace  from  the  city.  Nor  were 
the  blessings  that  resulted  to  Rome  from  this  visit  of  Peter,  of  a  merely 
spiritual  kind.  So  specially  favored  with  the  divine  presence  and  blessing 
were  all  places  where  this  great  apostle  happened  to  be,  that  even  their 
temporal  interests  shared  in  the  advantages  of  the  divine  influence  that  every 
where  followed  him.  To  this  cause,  therefore,  are  gravely  referred  by 
papistical  commentators,  the  remarkable  success  which,  according  to  hea- 
then historians,  attended  the  Roman  arms  in  different  parts  of  the  \TOrld 
during  the  second  year  of  Claudius,  to  which  date  this  fabulous  visit  is 
unanimously  referred  by  all  who  pretend  to  believe  in  its  occurrence. 

Success  of  the  Roman  arms  in  the  second  year  of  Claudius.  The  miraculous 
quelling  of  the  rebellion  of  Scribonianiis  in  Dalmatia,  (Dio.  60,  Suet,  in  Claud.  13^ 
Plin.  iii.  ep.  16,")  is  quoted  by  Orosius  (vii.  7)  as  an  instance  of  a  benefit  resulting 
to  Rome  from  tne  arrival  of  Peter  that  same  year.  Baronius  improves  upon  him  by 
enumerating  other  successes,  recorded  by  Dio,  as  the  conquest  of  Mauritania, — the 
victories  of  Sulpicius  Galba  over  the  Catti,  (in  Germany,)  and  of  Gabinius  over  the 
Marsi.     (See  Baronius,  Vol.  I.  pp.  329,  330,  A.  C.  44,  IT  60.) 

Importance  of  the  field  of  labor. — This  is  the  view  taken  by  Leo,  (in  serm.  1.  in 
nat.  apost.  quoted  by  Baronius,  Ann.  44.  §  26.)  "  When  the  twelve  apostles,  afier  re- 
ceiving from  the  Holy  Spirit  the  power  of  speaking  all  languages,"  (an  assertion,  by 
the  way,  no  where  found  in  the  sacred  record,)  "  had  undertaken  the  labor  of  imbu- 
ing the  world  with  the  gospel,  dividing  its  several  portions  among  themselves. — the 


Peter's  apostleship.  235 

most  blessed  Peter,  the  chief  of  the  apostolic  order,  was  appointed  to  the  capital  of 
the  Roman  empire,  so  that  the  light  ol"  truth,  which  was  revealed  for  the  salvation  of 
all  nations,  might,  from  the  very  head,  diffuse  itself  with  the  more  power  through  the 
whole  body  of  the  world.  For,  what  country  had  not  some  citizens  in  this  city !  Or 
what  nation  anywhere,  could  be  ignorant  of  any  thing  which  Rome  had  been  taught  1 
Here  were  philosophical  dogmas  to  be  put  down — vanities  of  worldly  wisdom  to  be 
weakened — idol-worship  to  be  overthrown," — &c.  "  To  this  city  therefore,  thou, 
most  blessed  apostle  Peter !  didst  not  fear  to  come,  and  (sharing  thy  glory  with  the 
apostle  Paul,  there  occupied  with  the  arrangement  of  other  churches)  didst  enter  that 
forest  of  raging  beasts,  and  didst  pass  upon  that  ocean  of  boisterous  depths,  with 
more  firmness  than  when  thou  walkedst  on  the  sea.  Nor  didst  thou  fear  Rome,  the 
mistress  of  the  world,  though  thou  didst  once,  in  the  hou.se  of  Caiaphas,  dread  the 
servant-maid  of  the  priest.  Not  because  the  power  of  Claudius,  or  the  cruelty  of 
Nero,  were  less  dreadful  than  the  judgment  of  Pilate,  or  the  rage  of  the  Jews  ;  but 
because  the  power  of  love  overcame  the  occasion  of  fear,  since  thy  regard  for  the 
salvation  of  souls  would  not  suffer  thee  to  yield  to  terror.  *  *  *  The  miracu- 
lous signs,  gifts  of  grace,  and  trials  of  virtue,  which  had  already  been  so  multiplied 
to  thee,  now  increased  thy  boldness.  Already  hadst  thou  taught  those  nations  of  the 
circumcision  who  believed.  Already  hadst  thou  filled  Pontus,  Galatia,  Cappadocia, 
Asia,  and  Bithj'^nia  with  the  gospel;  and  now,  without  a  doubt  of  the  advance  of  the 
work,  or  of  the  certainty  of  thy  own  fate,  thou  didst  plant  the  trophy  of  the  cross  of 
Christ  upon  the  towers  of  Rome."  Arnobius  is  also  quoted  by  Baronius,  to  similar 
effect. 

Simon  Magus. — This  fable  has  received  a  wonderfully  wide  circulation,  and  long 
maintained  a  place  among  the  credible  accounts  of  early  Christian  history,  probably 
from  the  circumstance  of  its  taking  its  origin  from  so  early  a  source.  Justin  Martyr, 
who  flourished  from  the  year  140  and  afterAvai'ds,  in  his  apology  for  the  Christian 
religion,  addressed  to  the  emperor  Antoninus  Pius,  says — "  Simon,  a  Samaritan,  born 
in  a  village  named  Gitthon,  in  the  time  of  Claudius  Caesar,  was  received  as  a  god 
in  your  imperial  city  of  Rome,  and  honored  with  a  statue,  like  other  gods,  on  account 
of  his  magical  powers  there  exhibited  by  the  aid  of  demons;  and  this  statue  was  set 
up  in  the  river  Tiber,  between  two  bridges,  and  had  this  Latin  inscription, — Simoni 
DEO  SANCTo.  Him,  too,  all  the  Samaritans  worship,  and  a  few  of  other  nations,  ac- 
knowledging him  as  the  highest  god,  {ttpCjtov  dcdu.)  They  also  worship  a  certain 
Helena,  who  at  that  time  followed  him  about,"  &c.  &c.  &c.  with  more  silly  trash 
besides,  than  I  can  find  room  for.  And  in  another  passage  of  the  same  work,  he 
alludes  to  the  same  circumstances.  "  In  your  city,  the  mistress  of  the  world,  in  the 
time  of  Claudius  Caesar,  Simon  Magus  struck  the  Roman  Senate  and  people  with 
such  admiration  of  himself,  that  he  was  ranked  among  the  gods,  and  was  honored 
with  a  statue."  Irenaeus,  who  flourished  about  the  year  180,  also  gives  this  story, 
with  hardly  any  variation  from  Jusiin.  Tertullian,  about  A.  D.  200,  repeats  the 
same,  with  the  addition  of  the  circumstance,  that,  not  satisfied  with  the  honors  paid 
to  himself,  he  caused  the  people  to  debase  themselves  still  further,  by  paying  divine 
honors  to  a  woman  called  (by  Tertullian)  Larentina,  who  was  exalted  by  them  to  a 
rank  with  the  goddesses  of  the  ancient  mythology,  though  the  good  father  gives  her 
but  a  bad  name.  Eusebius,  also,  about  A.  D.  320,  refers  to  the  testimonies  of  Justin 
and  Irenaeus,  and  adds  some  strange  particulars  about  a  sect,  existing  in  his  time, 
the  members  of  which  were  said  to  acknowledge  this  Simon  as  the  author  of  their 
faith,  whom  they  worshiped  along  with  this  woman  Helena,  falling  prostrate  before 
the  pictures  of  both  of  them,  with  incense  and  sacrifices  and  libations  to  them,  with 
other  rites,  unutterably  and  unwritably  bad.    (See  Euseb.  Hist.  Ecc,  II.  13.) 

In  the  three  former  writers,  Jusiin,  Irenaeus,  and  Tertullian,  this  absurd  story 
stands  by  itself,  and  has  no  connexion  with  the  life  of  Peter;  but  Eusebius  goes  on 
to  commemorate  the  circumstance,  previously  unrecorded,  that  Peter  Avent  to  Rome 
for  the  express  purpose  of  putting  down  this  blasphemous  wretch,  as  specified  above, 
in  the  text  of  my  narrative  from  this  author.    (See  Euseb.  Hist.  Ecc,  II.  14.) 

Now  all  this  fine  series  of  accounts,  though  seeming  to  bear  such  an  overwhelming 
weight  of  testimony  in  favor  of  the  truth  and  reality  of  Simon  Magus's  visit  to  Rome, 
is  proved  to  be  originally  based  on  an  absolute  falsehood ;  and  the  nature  of  this  false- 
hood was  exposed,  as  if  by  a  special  dispensation  of  Providence.  In  the  year  1574, 
during  the  pontificate  of  Pope  Gregory  XIII.  there  was  an  excavation  made  for 
some  indifferent  purpose  in  Rome,  on  the  very  island  in  the  Tiber,  so  particularly 
described  by  Justin,  as  lying  in  the  centre  of  the  river  between  the  two  bridges,  each 
of  which  rested  an  abutment  on  it.  and  ran  from  it  to  the  opposite  shores.    In  the 


236  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

progress  of  this  excavation,  ihe  workmen,  as  is  very  common  in  that  vast  city  ot 
buried  ruins,  turned  up,  among  other  remains  of  antiquity,  the  remnant  of  a  statue 
with  its  pedestal,  which  had  evidently  once  stood  erect  on  the  spot.  Upon  the  pedes* 
lai  was  an  inscription  most  distinctly  legible,  in  these  words:  Skmoni  sanco  ded  noio 

SACRUiM — Sex.  PoMPEIUS   S.    p.    F.  COI..  MUSSIANUS — QUINQUENNAI-IS    UEClJn.   bidientai.is — 

noNUM  DEorr.  (This  was  in  four  lines,  each  line  ending  were  the  blank  spaces  are 
marked  in  the  copy.)  In  order  to  understand  this  sentence,  it  must  be  known,  that 
the  Roman.s,  among  the  innumerable  objects  of  worship  in  their  complicated  religion, 
had  a  peculiar  set  of  deities  which  they  called  Semonf,.s.  A  Se.mo  was  a  kind  of  inle- 
rior  god,  of  an  earthly  character  andoflice,  so  low  as  to  unfit  him  for  a  place  among  the 
great  gods  of  heaven,  Jupiier,  Juno,  Apollo,  &c.,  and  was  accordingly  confined  in  his 
residence  entirely  to  the  earth;  where  the  Semones  received  high  honors  and  devout 
worship,  and  Avere  commemorated  in  many  places,  both  in  city  and  country,  by 
statues,  before  which  the  passer  might  pay  his  worship,  if  devoutly  disposed.  These 
statues  were  often  of  a  votive  character,  erected  by  wealthy  or  distinguished  persons, 
for  fancied  aid  received  from  some  one  of  these  Semones,  in  some  particular  season 
of  distress,  or  for  general  prosfierity.  This  was  evidently  the  object  of  the  statue  in 
question.  Priapus,  Hipporea,  Vertumnus,  and  such  minor  gods,  were  included  under 
the  general  title  of  Semones;  and  among  them  was  also  ranked  a  Sabine  divinity, 
named  Sangus,  or  Sancus,  who  is,  by  some  writers,  considered  as  corresponding  in 
character  to  the  Hercules  of  the  Greeks.  Sangus  or  Sancus  is  often  alluded  to  in 
the  Roman  classics.  Propertius  (book  4)  has  a  verse  referring  to  him  as  a  Sabine 
deity.  "  Sic  Sancum  Tatiae  composuere  Cures."  Ovid  also, — "  Cluaerebam  Nonas 
Sanco  fidio  ne  referrem."  As  to  this  providentially-recovered  remnant  of  antiquity, 
therefore,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  was  a  votive  monument,  erected  by  Sextus 
Pompey  to  Sangus  the  Semo,  for  some  reason  not  very  clearly  expressed. 
Baronius  tells,  also,  that  he  had  seen  a  stone  similarly  inscribed.    "  sango  sancto 

SEMON. — DEO  FIDro  SACRUM — DECURIO  SACERDOTUM  BIDENTALIUM — RECIPERATKS  VECTIGALI- 

BL'.s."  That  is,  "  Sacred  to  Sangus,  the  holy  Semo,  the  god  of  faith, — a  decury  (com- 
pany of  ten)  of  the  prie.sts  of  the  Bidental  sacrifices  have  raised  this  in  gratitude  for 
their  recovered  incomes."  Dionysius  Halicarnassaeus  is  also  quoted  by  Baronius, 
as  referring  to  the  worship  of  the  Semo,  Sangus;  and  from  him  and  various  other 
ancient  writers,  it  appears  that  vows  and  sacrifices  were  offered  to  this  Sangus,  for  a 
safe  journey  and  happy  return  from  a  distance. 

From  a  consideration  of  all  the  circumstances  of  this  remarkable  discovery,  and 
from  the  palpable  evidence  afforded  by  the  inherent  absurdity  of  the  story  told  by 
Justin  Martyr  and  his  copyists,  the  conclusion  is  justifiable  and  irresistible,  that 
Justin  himself,  being  a  native  of  Syria,  and  having  read  the  story  of  Simon  Magus 
in  the  Acts,  where  it  is  recorded  that  he  was  profoundly  reverenced  by  the  Samari- 
tans, and  was  silenced  and  rebuked  by  Peter  when  he  visited  that  place, — with  all 
this  story  fresh  in  his  mind,  (for  he  was  but  a  new  convert  to  Christianity,)  came  to 
Rome,  and  going  through  that  city,  an  ignorant  foreigner,  without  any  knowledge  of 
the  religion,  or  superstitions,  or  deities,  and  with  but  an  indifferent  acquaintance  with 
their  language,  came  along  this  bridge  over  the  Tiber,  to  the  island,  where  had  been 
erected  this  votive  statue  to  Semo  Sangus;  and  looking  at  the  inscription  in  the  way 
that  might  be  expected  of  one  to  whom  the  language  and  religion  were  strange,  he 
was  struck  at  once  with  the  name  Semon,  as  so  much  resembling  the  well  known 
eastern  name  Simon,  and  began  speculating  at  once,  about  what  person  of  that  name 
could  ever  have  come  from  the  east  to  Rome,  and  there  received  the  honors  of  a  god. 
Justin's  want  of  familiarity  with  the  language  of  the  Romans,  would  prevent  his  ob- 
taining any  satisfactory  information  on  the  subject,  from  the  passers-by;  and  if  he 
attempted  to  question  them  about  it,  he  would  be  very  apt  to  interpret  their  imperfect 
communications  in  such  a  way  as  suited  the  notion  he  had  taken  up.  If  he  asKed  his 
Christian  brethren  about  the  matter — their  very  low  character  for  general  intelli- 
gence— the  circumstance  that  those  with  whom  he  was  most  familiar,  must  have 
been  of  eastern  origin,  and  as  ignorant  as  he  of  the  minute  peculiarities  of  the  Roman 
religion — and  their  common  disposition  to  wilfully  pervert  the  truth,  and  invent  fables 
for  the  sake  of  a  good  story  connected  with  their  own  faith,  (of  which  we  have  evi- 
dences vastly  numerous,  and  sadly  powerful,  in  the  multitucle  of  such  legends  that 
have  come  down  from  the  Christians  of  those  times,)  would  all  conspire  to  help  the 
invention  and  completion  of  the  foolish  and  unfounded  notion,  that  this  statue  here 
erected,  Scmoni  Sancn  Deo,  was  the  same  as  that  Simoni  Deo  Sancto,  that  is — "  to  the 
holy  god  Simon;"  and  as  it  was  always  necessary  to  the  introduction  of  a  new  god 
among  those  at  Rome,  that  the  senate  should  pass  a  solemn  act  and  decree  to  that 


Peter's  aposti.esiiip.  237 

effect,  -which  should  be  confirmed  by  tlie  approbation  of  the  emperor,  it  would  at 
once  occur  to  his  own  imaginative  mind,  or  to  the  inventions  of  his  fabricating  in- 
formers, that  Simon  must  of  course  have  received  such  a  decree  from  the  senate  and 
Caesar.  This  necessarily  also  implied  vast  renown,  and  extensive  favor  with  all  the 
Romans,  which  he  must  have  acquired,  to  be  sure,  by  his  magical  tricks,  aided  by 
the  demoniac  powers;  and  so  all  the  foolish  particulars  of  the  story  would  be  made 
out  as  fast  as  wanted.  The  paltry  fable  also  appended  to  this,  by  all  the  Fathers  who 
gave  the  former  story,  to  the  eAect,  that  some  woman  closely  connected  with  him, 
was  worshiped  along  with  him,  variously  named  Helena,  Selena,  and  Larentina,  has 
no  doubt  a  similarly  baseless  origin  ;  but  is  harder  to  trace  to  its  beginnings,  because 
it  was  not  connected  with  an  assertion,  capable  of  direct  ocular,  as  well  as  historical 
refutation,  as  that  about  Simon's  statue  most  fortvmately  was.  The  second  name, 
Selena,  given  by  Irenaeus,  is  exactly  the  Greek  word  for  the  moon,  which  was  often 
worshiped  under  its  appropriate  name;  and  this  tale  may  have  been  gaught  up  from 
some  connexion  between  such  a  ceremony  and  the  worship  of  some  of  the  Semones, 
— all  the  elegant  details  of  her  life  and  character  being  invented  to  suit  the  fancies 
of  the  reverend  fathers.  The  story  that  she  had  followed  Simon  to  Rome  from  the 
Phoenician  cities.  Tyre  and  Sidon,  suggests  to  my  mind  at  this  moment,  that  there 
may  have  been  a  connexion  between  this  and  some  old  story  of  the  importation  of  a 
piece  of  idolatry  from  that  region,  so  famed  -for  the  worship  of  the  "  mooned  Ashta- 
roth,  heaven's  queen  and  mother  both."  But  this  trash  is  not  worth  the  time  and 
paper  I  am  spending  upon  it,  since  the  main  part  of  the  story,  concerning  Simon 
Magus  as  having  ever  been  seen  or  heard  of  in  Rome,  by  senate,  prince,  or  people, 
in  tiie  days  of  Ctaudius,  is  shown,  beyond  all  reasonable  question,  to  be  utterly  false, 
and  based  merely  on  a  blunder  of  Justin  Martyr,  who  did  not  know  Latin  enough  to 
tell  the  difference  between  sanco  and  sanclo,  nor  between  Semoni  and  Sivioni.  And 
after  all,  this  is  but  a  specimen  of  Justin  Martyr's  erroneous  statements,  of  which 
his  few  pages  present  other  instances  for  the  inquiring  reader  to  stumble  over  and 
bewilder  himself  upon.  Take,  for  example,  the  gross  confusion  of  names  and  dates 
which  he  makes  in  a  passage  which  accidentally  meets  my  eye,  on  a  page  near 
that  from  which  the  above  extract  is  taken.  In  attempting  to  give  an  account  of  the 
way  in  which  the  Hebrew  Bible  was  first  translated  into  Greek,  he  says  that  Ptolemy, 
king  of  Egypt,  sent  to  Herod,  king  of  the  Jew's,  for  a  copy  of  the  Bible.  But  when  or 
■where  doe's  any  history,  sacred  or  piofane,  give  any  account  whatever  of  any  Ptolemy, 
king  of  Eg\-pt,'who  was  contemporary  with  either  of  the  Herods  1  The  last  of  the  Ptole- 
mies was  killed,  while  a  boy,  in  the  Egyptian  war  with  Julius  Caesar,  before  Herod 
the  Great  had  himself  attained  to  manhood,  or  could  have  had  the  most  distant  thought 
of  the  throne  of  Palestine.  The  Ptolemy  who  is  said  to  have  procured  the  Greek 
translation  of  the  Bible,  however,  lived  about  three  hundred  years  before  the  first 
Herod !  It  is  lamentable  to  think  that  such  is  the  character  of  the  earliest  Christian 
Father  who  has  left  works  of  any  magnitude.  Who  can  wonder  that  Apologies 
for  the  Christian  religion,  full  of  such  blunders,  should  have  failed  to  secure  the 
belief,  or  move  the  attention  of  either  of  the  Antonines,  to  whom  they  were  addressed, 
— the  Philosophic,  or  the  Pious  1  By  a  writer,  too,  who  pretended  to  tell  the  wisest 
of  the  Caesars,  that,  in  his  imperial  city,  had  been  worshiped,  from  the  days  of  Clau- 
dius, a  miserable  Samaritan  impostor,  who,  an  outcast  from  his  own  outcast  land, 
had  in  Rome,  by  a  solemn  senatorial  and  imperial  decree,  been  exalted  to  the  high- 
est godship,  and  that  the  evidence  of  this  fact  was  found  in  a  statue  which  that  em- 
peror well  knew  to  be  dedicated  to  the  most  ancient  deities  of  Etruscan  origin,  wor- 
shiped there  ever  since  the  days  of  Numa  Pompilius,but  Avhich  this  Syrian  Christian 
had  supposed  to  commemorate  a  man  who  had  never  been  heard  of  out  of  Samaria, 
except  among  Christians ! 

The  other  copyists  of  Justin  hardly  deserve  any  notice ;  but  it  is  interesting  and 
instructive  to  observe  how,  in  the  progress  of  fabulous  invention,  one  fabrication 
is  pinned  upon  another,  to  form  a  glorious  chain  of  historical  sequences,  for  some 
distant  ecclesiastical  annalist  to  hang  his  faith  upon.  Euscbius,  for  instance,  en- 
larges the  stories  of  Justin  and  Irenaeus,  by  an  addition  of  his  own, — that  in  his 
day  there  existed  a  sect  which  acknowledged  this  same  Simon  as  god,  and  worshiped 
him  and  Helena  or  Selena,  with  some  mysteriously  wicked  rites.  Now,  all  that  his 
story  amounts  to,  is,  that  in  his  time  there  was  a  sect  called  by  a  name  resembling 
that  of  Simon;  how  nearly  like  it,  no  one  knows;  but  that  by  his  own  account  their 
worship  was  of  a  secret  character,  so  that  he  could,  of  course,  know  nothing  certainly. 
But  this  is  enough  for  him  to  add,  as  a  solemn  confirmation  of  a  story  now  known  to 
have  been  founded  in  falsehood.     From  this  beginning,  Eusebius  goes  on  to  say  that 


238  LIVES   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

Peter  went  \n  Rome  in  the  second  year  of  Claudius,  to  war  against  this  Simon 
Magus,  who  never  went  there ;  so  that  we  know  how  much  this  whole  tale  is  worth 
bv  looking  into  the  circumstance  which  constitutes  its  essential  foundation.  The 
idea  of  Peter's  visit  to  Rome  at  that  time,  is  no  where  given  before  Eusebius,  except 
in  some  part  of  the  Clementina,  a  long  series  of  most  unmitigated  falsehoods,  forged 
in  the  name  of  Clemens  Romanus,  without  any  certain  date,  but  commonly  supposed 
to  have  been  made  up  of  the  continued  contributions  of  various  authors,  during  difler- 
ent  portions  of  the  second,  third,  and  fourth  centuries. 

The  fullest  account  ever  given  of  this  fable  and  all  its  progress,  is  found  in  the 
Annales  Ecclesiastici  of  Caesar  Baronius,  (A.  C.  44.  §§  51 — 59,)  who,  after  furnish- 
ing the  most  ample  references  to  sacred  and  profane  authorities,  which  palpably  de- 
monstrate the  falsity  of  the  story,  returns  with  all  his  usual  irrational  bigotry  to  the 
solemn  conviction  that  the  Fathers  and  the  saints  who  tell  the  slory,  must  have  had 
some  very  good  reason  for  believing  it. 

The  learne'd  and  critical  Valesius,  in  his  notes  on  Eusebius's  account  of  this  mat- 
ter, (Annot.  in  Euseb.  Hisi.  Ecc.  II.  13,)  very  decidedly  condemns  the  fable,  and  his 
few  remarks  are  so  satisfactory  in  explaining  the  occasion  of  Justin's  deception,  as 
to  be  worth  translating  entire.  "  Learned  men  have  long  since  remarked  that  Justin 
made  a  mistake,  through  ignorance  of  the  Latin  language,  in  supposing  that  a  statue 
set  up  to  the  Semon  Sancus,  was  consecrated  to  Simon  Magus.  That  very  statue 
which  Justin  saw  on  the  island  of  the  Tiber,  was  not  long  ago  dug  up  with  this  in- 
scription, as  just  said, — '  Semoni  Sango  deo  fidio.' — Sancus  was  a  god  among  the 
Sabines,  presiding  over  contracts  and  promises,  and  was  named  Sangus  or  Sancus, 
from  this  circumstance  of  sa7i,ctioning  engagements, — {a  sanciendo.)  For  the  same 
reason  he  was  called  Deus  Fidius,  (the  faithful  god,)  from  the  faith  {a  fide)  which 
he  was  invoked  to  guard."  (In  the  form  of  a  familiar  oath  this  name  often  occurs 
in  Cicero  and  other  Latin  classics,  as  is  well  known  to  every  Latin  scholar.  "  Me 
Deus  Fidius!" — or,  in  one  word,  "  medius-fidius !" — was  the  colloquial  invocation  of 
this  god,  corresponding  to  "  Me  Hercule!" — which  was  that  of  his  Grecian  type.) 
"  Some  Samaritans  deceived  Justin,  persuading  him  that  this  statue  was  raised  to 
Simon  Magus,  who  was  a  Samaritan.  As  if  the  Romans  would  have  deified  a  ma- 
gician and  fortune-teller  before  his  death!  Or  as  if  the  Romans  would  have  named 
a  god  with  the  superfluous  epithet  of  '  hohf  added !" — Valesius  is  undoubtedly  just  in 
thus  scornfully  rejecting  this  fable;  but  instead  of  attributing  all  Justin's  mistake  to 
the  misinformation  of  Samaritan  friends  in  Rome,  it  seems  reasonable  that  the  notion 
might  have  originated  in  Justin's  own  head;  for  he  was  himself  born  and  brought 
up  in  Samaria,  the  very  scene  of  Simon's  magical  tricks,  and  he  had  probably  heard 
so  much  of  him  as  to  think  him  great  sorcerer  enough  for  the  heathen  Romans  to 
adore  and  deify. 

Antony  Pagi  quotes  the  opinion  of  Valesius  approvingly,  and  says  himself  of 
Justin,  that  he  was  "  itaque  aut  nominum  vicinitate  aut  falsa  relatione  deceptus." 
Pagi,  therefore,  himself  a  Romanist,  condemns  Baronius  for  his  adoption  and  sup- 
port of  the  fable.    (A.  Pagi,  Critic.  Baron.  A.  42. — page  36.) 

Mosheim  also  grants  that  "  the  accounts  of  Simon's  tragical  death,  and  of  a  statue 
decreed  him  at  Rome,  are  rejected  with  great  unanimity  by  the  learned  at  the  present 
day."  (Ecc.  Hist.  I.  i.  2.  chap.  5.  §  12.)  But  this  eminent  historian  .seems  disposed 
to  place  much  more  credit  on  the  patristic  accounts  of  Simon's  heresies  than  many 
others  do.  He  considers  Simon  Magus  to  have  been  actually  the  founder  of  the  sect 
which  is  described  by  Justin,  Irenaeus,  Tertullian,  and  Eusebius,  as  claiming  his 
name.  But  it  deserves  consideration  that  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  give  no  account 
of  any  return  of  Simon  Magus  to  his  former  courses,  and  to  an  opposition  to  Chris- 
tianity, though  he  manifested,  after  his  partial  conversion,  a  most  lamentable  igno- 
rance of  the  faith  which  he  had  espoused ;  and  there  is  certainly  much  reason  to 
question  the  stories  which  give  such  strange  accounts  of  his  subsequent  actions,  since 
the  writers  who  present  them  stand  already  convicted  of  gross  and  palpable  error  in 
respect  to  the  most  important  of  the  incidents  which  they  connect  with  these  state- 
ments. All  that  really  appears  from  this  testimony  is,  that  there  was  in  the  third  and 
fourth  centuries  a  set  of  Gnostical  heretics  who  claimed  Simon  Magus  for  their 
founder;  but  whether  this  was  merely  a  trick  of  their  founder  in  assuming  that 
name — or  was  a  bare  invention  of  the  members  of  the  sect  to  give  themselves  char- 
acter, by  referring  to  a  person  described  so  remarkably  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles, — 
or  was  the  actual  truth,  does  in  no  way  appear.  Many  have  supposed  that  there 
■were  really  two  persons  named  Simon  Magus ;  first,  the  one  mentioned  in  Acts  viii. 


Peter's  apostleship.  239 

9_24,  and  second,  the  founder  of  this  sect.    Mosheim,  indeed,  condemns  the  suppo- 
sition, but  without  offering:  a  reason. 

Dr.  Murdock  says — "  Probably  some  follower  of  Simon  Magus  imposed  on  Justin, 
(who  did  not  understand  Latin,  being  a  Syrian,)  representing  this  monument  as  being 
erected  to  that  magician. — The  whole  story  of  Simon  Magus  going  to  Rome,  and 
there  having  this  monument  erected  to  him,  {5  now  universally  discarded,  and  has 
been,  from  near  the  time  when  the  monument  was  discovered  in  1574.  But  this  story 
being  believed  in  the  second  century,  some  ingenious  Jewish  Christian,  about  A.  D. 
200,  composed  a  long  fictitious  hi.story  of  Peter's  conflicts  with  Simon  Magus.  The 
narrative  in  the  book  of  Acts  is  here  spread  out  to  a  great  length;  and  Peter  is  made 
to  pursue  Simon,  for  many  months,  and  hunt  him  from  Caesarea  all  the  way  to  An- 
tioch;  whence  Simon  fled  to  Rome.  There  he  now  practised  his  black  art  success- 
fully; till  Peter,  being  .sent  for,  went  to  Rome  to  confront  him. — This  work  was  re- 
written and  extensively  circulated  in  different  forms.  The  Fathers  of  the  third  and 
following  centuries  all  regarded  it  as  a  novel,  yet  as  a  novel  founded  on  fact,  and 
therefore  as  partly  true  and  partly  false.  It,  of  course,  became  a  storehouse  for  such 
as  Avishcd  to  eulogize  Peter;  and  from  it  large  drafts  were  made  in  subsequent  ages. 
The  work  is  still  extant  in  Latin,  as  translated  by  Rufinus  in  ten  books,  called — '  Re- 
cognitions of  Clement,'  and  in  Greek,  called — '  Clementina,'  and  also  abridged, 
called — '  The  Acts  of  Peter.'  "  (Murdock's  MS.  Lectures.  Abridged  series.  No.  V. 
pp.  11,  12.) 

On  the  passage  from  Mosheim  also,  just  quoted.  Dr.  Murdock,  in  a  note,  remarks 
at  the  close  of  his  comments  on  the  story, — "  this  inscription,  which  Justin,  being  an 
Asiatic,  might  easily  misunderstand,  was  undoubtedly  intended  for  an  ancient  pagaa 
god."    (Transl.  Mosheim,  Vol.  I.  p.  114,  note  11.) 

Creuzer  also,  in  his  deep  and  extensive  researches  into  the  religions  of  antiquity, 
in  giving  a  "  view  of  some  of  the  older  Italian  nations,"  speaks  of  "  Sancus  Se^o." 
He  quotes  Augustin  (De  civitate  Dei.  XVIII.  19)  as  authority  for  the  opinion '^at  he 
was  an  ancient  king,  deified.  He  also  alludes  to  the  passage  in  Ovid,  (quoted  above 
by  Baronius,)  where  he  is  connected  with  Hercules,  and  alluded  to  under  fftree  titles, 
as  Semo,  Sancus,  and  Fidius.  (Ovid,  Fast.  VI.  213,  et  seq.)  But  the  learned  Creuzer 
does  not  seem  to  have  any  correct  notion  of  the  character  of  the  Semones,  as  a  dis- 
tinct order  of  inferior  deities  ; — a  fact  perfectly  certain,  as  given  above,  for  which 
abundant  authority  is  found  in  Varro,  (de  Mystag.)  as  quoted  by  Fulgentius  and  Ba- 
ronius. From  Creuzer  I  also  notice,  in  an  accidental  immediate  connexion  with 
Semo  Sancus,  the  fact  that  the  worship  of  the  moon  (Luna)  wasalsoof  Sabine  origin; 
and  being  introduced  along  with  that  of  Sancus,  by  Numa,  may  have  had  some  rela- 
tion to  that  Semo,  and  may  have  concurred  in  originating  the  notion  of  the  Fathers 
about  the  woman  Selena,  or  Helena,  as  worshiped  along  with  Simon.  He  also  just 
barelv  alludes  to  the  fact  that  Justin  and  Irenaeus  have  confounded  this  Semo  Sancus 
with  "Simon  Magus.  (See  Creuzer's  "  Symbolik  und  Mythologie  der  alter  Volker," 
II.  Theil,  pp.  964—965.)  x.       x.        , 

The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  then  most  reasonably  seems  to  be— that,  of 
Simon  Magus  nothing  is  known,  except  what  is  related  in  Acts  via.,  and  that  the 
stories  concerning  the  visit  of  Simon  to  Rome,  and  the  foundation  of  a  Gnostical 
sect,  must  either  be  referred  to  another  person  of  the  same  name  m  later  times,  or  be 
condemned  as  sheer  inventions.  .  . 

This  fable,  as  connected  with  the  notion  of  Peter's  visit  to  Rome,  has  been  made, 
among  some  skeptical  Protestants,  the  occasion  of  a  tolerable  joke,  the  point  of  which 
consists  in  the  identity  of  the  first  names  of  the  apostle  and  the  magician,  and  in  the 
connexion  of  the  latter  with  the  crime  from  him  named  Simony,  which  is  the  impart- 
ing and  obtaining  of  spiritual  and  ecclesiastical  gifts  for  money;  (Acts  viii.  18,  20;) 
and  as  a  grand  source  of  the  papal  income  is  the  sale  of  indulgences,  absolutions, 
benefices,  &c.,  the  hit  on  the  court  of  Rome  is  palpable.  The  original  Latin  of  the 
joke  is — 

"  An  Petrus  Romae  fuerit,  sub  judice  lis  est: 
Simonem  Romae  nemo  fuisse  negat." 

It  has  been  thus  freely  rendered  into  English  rhyme:— 

"  If  Peter  went  to  Rome,  has  long  been  mooted: 
That  Simon  has  been,  cannot  be  disputed." 

The  next  conclusion  authorized  by  those  who  support  this  fable  is,  that 
Peter,  after  achieving  this  great  work  of  vanquishing  the  impostor  Simon, 


240  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

proceeded  to  preach  the  gospel  generally ;  yet  not  at  first  to  the  hereditary 
citizens  of  imperial  Rome,  nor  to  any  of  the  Gentiles,  but  to  his  own  coun- 
trymen the  Jews,  great  numbers  of  whom  then  made  their  permanent  abode 
in  the  great  city.     These  foreigners,  at  that  time,  were  limited  in  Rome  to 
a  peculiar  section  of  the  suburbs,  and  hardly  dwelt  within  the  walls  of  the 
city  itself; — an  allotment  corresponding  with  similar  limitations  existing  in 
some  of  the  modern  cities  of  Europe,  Asia,  and  northern  Africa,  and  even 
in  London,  though  there,  only  in  accordance  with  long  usage,  and  with 
actual  convenience,  but  not  with  any  existing  law.     The  quarter  of  Rome 
in  which  the  Jews  dwelt  in  the  days  of  Claudius,  was  west  of  the  central 
section  of  the  city,  beyond  the  Tiber ;  and  to  this  suburban  portion,  the 
story  supposes  the  residence  and  labors  of  Peter  to  have  been  at  first  con- 
fined.    But  after  a  time,  the  fame  of  this  mighty  preacher  of  a  new  faith 
spread  beyond,  from  this  despised  foreign  portion  of  the  environs,  across  the 
Tiber,  over  the  seven  hills  themselves,  and  even  into  the  halls  of  the  patri- 
cian lords  of  Rome.     Such  an  extension  of  fame,  indeed,  seems  quite  neces- 
sary to  make  these  two  parts  of  this  likely  story  hang  together  at  all ;  for 
it  is  hard  to  see  how  a  stranger,  from  a  distant  eastern  land,  could  thus  ap- 
pear suddenly  among  them,  and  overturn,  with  a  defeat  so  total  and  signal, 
the  pretensions  of  one  who  had  lately  been  exalted  by  the  opinions  of  an 
adviring  people  to  the  character  of  a  god,  and  had  even  received  the  solemn 
national  sanction  of  this  exaltation  by  a  formal  decree  of  the  senate  of  Rome, 
confirmed  by  the  absolute  voice  of  the  Caesar  himself;  and  after  such  a 
victory,  over  such  a  person,  be  left  long  unnoticed  in  an  obscure  suburb. 
In  accordancf^,,  therefore,  with  this  reasonable  notion,   it  is  recorded  in  the 
continuation  of  the  story,  that  when  Peter,  preaching  at  Rome,  grew  famous 
among  the  Gentiles,  he  was  no  longer  allowed  to  occupy  himself  wholly 
among  the  Jews,  but  was  thereafter  taken  by  Pudens,  a  senator  who  believed 
in  Christ,  into  his  own  house,  on  the  Viminal  Mount,  one  of  the  seven  hills, 
but  near  the  Jewish  suburb.     In  the  neighborhood  of  this  house,  as  the 
legend  relates,  was  afterwards  erected  a  monument,  called  "  the  Shepherd's," 
— a  name  which  serves  to  identify  this  important  locality  to  the  modern 
Romans  to  this  day.     Being  thus  established  in  these  lordly  patrician  quar- 
ters, the  poor  Galilean  fisherman  might  well  have  thought  himself  blessed, 
in  such  a  pleasant  change  from  the  uncomfortable  lodgings  with  which  the 
royal  Agrippa  had  lately  accommodated  him,  and  from  which  he  had  made 
so  willing  an  exit.     But  the  legend  does  the  faithful  and  devoted  apostle  the 
justice  to  represent  him  as  by  no  means  moved  by  these  luxurious  circum- 
stances, to  the  least  forgetfulness  of  the  high  commission  which  was  to  be 
followed  through  all  sorts  of  self  denial, — no  less  that  which  drew  him  from 
the  soft  and  soul-relaxing  enjoyments  of  a  patrician  palace,  than  that  which 
led  him  to  renounce  the  simple,  hard-earned  profits  of  a  fisherman,  on  the 
changeful  sea  of  Gennesaret,  or  to  calmly  meet  the  threats,  the  stripes,  the 
chains,  and  the  condemned  cell,  with  which  the  enmity  of  the  Jewish  magis- 
trates had  steadily  striven  to  quench  his  fiery  and  energetic  spirit.     He  is 
described  as  steadily  laboring  in  the  cause  of  the  gospel  among  the  Gentiles 
as  well  as  the  Jews,  and  with  such  success  during  the  whole  of  the  first 
year  of  his  stay,  that  in  the  beginning  of  the  following  year  he  is  said  by 
papist  writers  to  have  solemnly  and  formally  founded  the  church  of 
Rome.     This  important  fictitious  event  is  dated  with  the  most  exact  par- 
ticularity, on  the  fifteenth  of  February,  in  the  forty-third  year  of  Christ, 


Peter's  apostleship.  241 

and  the  third  year  of  the  reign  of  the  emperor  Claudius.  The  empty,  un- 
meaning pomposity  of  this  announcement  is  a  sufficient  evidence  of  its  fic- 
titious character.  According  to  the  story  itself,  here  Peter  had  been 
preaching  nearly  a  whole  year  at  Rome ;  and  if  preaching,  having  a  regu- 
lar congregation,  of  course,  and  performing  the  usual  accompaniments  of  ^ 
preaching,  as  baptism,  &c.  Now  there  is  not  in  the  whole  apostolic  his- 
tory the  least  account,  nor  the  shadow  of  a  hint,  of  any  such  ceremony  as 
the  founding  of  a  church,  distinct  from  the  mere  gathering  of  an  assembly 
of  believing  listeners,  who  acknowledged  their  faith  in  Jesus  by  profession 
and  by  the  sacraments.  The  organization  of  this  religious  assembly  might 
indeed  be  made  more  perfect  at  one  time  than  at  another  •  as  for  instance,  a 
new  church,  which  during  an  apostle's  stay  with  it  and  preaching  to  it,  had 
been  abundantly  well  governed  by  the  simple  guidance  of  his  wise,  fatherly 
care,  would,  on  his  departure,  need  some  more  regular,  permanent  provi- 
sion for  its  government,  lest  among  those  who  were  all  religious  co-equals, 
there  should  arise  disputes  which  would  require  a  regularly  constituted 
authority  to  allay  them.  The  apostle  might,  therefore,  in  such  advanced 
requirements  of  the  church,  ordain  elders,  and  so  on  ;  but  such  an  appendix 
could  not,  with  the  slightest  regard  to  common  sense  or  the  rules  of  honest 
interpretation  of  language,  be  said  to  constitute  the  founding  of  a  church. 
The  very  phrase  of  ordaining  elders  in  a  church,  palpably  implies  and  re- 
quires the  previous  distinct,  complete  existence  of  the  church.  In  fact  the 
entity  of  a  church  implies  nothing  more  than  a  regular  assembly  of  believ- 
ers, with  an  authorized  ministry ;  and  if  Peter  had  been  preaching  several 
months  to  the  Jews  of  the  trans-Tiberine  suburb,  or  to  the  Romans  of  the 
Viminal  mount,  there  must  have  been  in  one  or  both  of  those  places,  a 
church,  to  all  intents,  purposes,  definitions,  and  etymolog/es  of  a  church. — 
So  that  for  him,  almost  a  year  after,  to  proceed  to  found  f^  church  in  Rome, 
was  the  most  idle  work  of  supererogation  in  the  world.  And  all  the 
pompous  statements  of  papist  writers  about  any  such  iformality,  and  all  the 
quotations  that  might  be  brought  out  of  the  Fathe-'S  in  its  support,  from 
Clement  downwards,  could  not  relieve  the  assertion  of  one  particle  of  its 
palpable,  self-evident  absurdity.  But  the  fable  proceeds  in  the  account  of 
this  important  movement,  dating  the  apostolic  reign  of  Peter  from  this  very 
occasion,  as  above  fixed,  and  running  over  various  imaginary  acts  of  his, 
during  the  tedious  seven  years  for  which  the  story  ties  him  do^vn  to  this 
one  spot.  Among  many  other  unfounded  matters,  is  specified  the  assertion, 
that  from  this  city  during  the  first  year  of  his  episcopate,  he  wrote  his  first 
epistle,  which  he  addressed  to  the  believers  in  Pontus,  Galatia,  Cappadocia, 
Asia,  and  Bithynia, — the  countries  which  are  enumerated  as  visited  by  him 
in  his  fictitious  tour.  This  opinion  is  grounded  on  the  circumstance  of  its 
being  dated  from  Babylon,  which  several  later  Fathers  understood  as  a  term 
spiritually  applied  to  Rome ;  but  in  the  proper  place  this  notion  will  be 
fully  discussed,  and  the  true  origin  of  the  epistle  more  satisfactorily  given. 
Another  important  event  in  the  history  of  the  scriptures, — the  writing  of 
the  gospel  of  Mark, — is  also  commonly  connected  with  this  part  of  Peter's 
life,  by  the  popish  historians  ;  but  this  event,  with  an  account  of  the  nature 
of  this  supposed  connexion,  and  the  discussion  of  all  points  in  this  subject, 
can  be  better  shown  in  the  life  of  that  evangelist ;  and  to  that  it  is  therefore 
deferred.  These  matters  and  several  others  as  little  in  place,  seem  to  be 
introduced  into  this  part  of  Peter's  life,  mainly  for  the  sake  of  giving  him 


242^  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

something  particular  to  do,  during  his  somewhat  tedious  stay  ir.   Rome, 
where  they  make  him  remain  seven  years  after  his  first  journey  thither; 
and  give  him  here  the  character,  office,  and  title  of  bishop, — a  piece  of  nom- 
enclature perfectly  unscriptural  and  absurd,  because  no  apostle,  in  the  New 
Testament,  is  ever  called  a  bishop :  but  on  the  contrary,  the  office  was  evi- 
dently created  to  provide  a  substitute  for  an  apostle, — a  person  who  might 
perform  the  pastoral  duties  to  the  church,  in  the  absence  of  its  apostolic 
founder,  overseeing  and  managing  all  its  affairs  in  his  stead,  to  report  to 
him  at  his  visitations,  or  in  reply  to  his  epistolary  charges.     To  call  an 
apostle  a  bishop,  therefore,  implies  the  absurdity  of  calling  a  superior  offi- 
cer by  the  title  of  his  inferior, — as  to  call  a  captain,  lieutenant,  or  a  general- 
in-chief,  colonel,  or  even  as  to  call  a  bishop,  deacon.     During  the  life-time 
of  the  apostles,  "  bishop^^  was  only  a  secondary  title,  and  it  was  not  till  the 
death  of  all  those  commissioned  by  Christ,  that  this  became  the  supreme 
officer  in  all  churches.     But  the  papists,  not  appreciating  any  difficulty  of 
this  kind,  go  on  crowning  one  absurdity  with  another,  Avhich  claims,  how- 
ever, the  additional  merit  of  being  amusing  in  its  folly.     This  is  the  minute 
particularization  of  the  shape,  stuff,  accoutrements,  and  so  on,  of  the  chair 
in  which  bishop  Peter  sat  at  Rome  in  his  episcopal  character.     This  identi- 
cal wooden  chair  in  which  his  apostolic  body  was  seated  when  he  was  ex- 
erting the  functions  of  his  bishopric,   is  still,  according  to  the  same  high 
papal  authorities  which  maintain  the  fact  of  his  ever  having  been  bishop, 
preserved  in  the  great  Basilica  of  St.  Peter's,  at  Rome,  and  is  even  now,  on 
certain  high  occasions,  brought  out  from  its  holy  storehouse  to  bless  with 
its  presence  the  eyes  of  the  adoring  people.     This  chair  is  kept  covered 
with  a  linen  vei\.  among  the  various  similar  treasures  of  the  Vatican,  and 
has  been  eminent  for  the  vast  numbers  of  great  miracles  wrought  by  its 
presence.     As  a  preliminary  step,  however,  to  a  real  faith  in  the  efficacy  of 
this  old  piece  of  furniture,  it  is  necessary  that  those  who  hear  the  stories 
should  believe  that  Peter  was  ever  at  Rome,  to  sit  in  this  or  any  other  chair 
there.     It  is  observed,  however,  in  connexion  with  this  lumbering  article, 
in  the  papist  histories,  that  on  taking  possession  of  this  chair,  as  bishop  of 
Rome,  Peter  resigned  the  bishopric  of  Antioch,  committing  that  see  to  the 
charge  of  Euodius,  it  having  been  the  original  diocese  of  this  chief  apos- 
tle,— a  story  about  as  true,  as  that  any  apostle  was  ever  bishop  anywhere. 
The  apostles  were  missionaries  for  the  most  part,  preaching  the  word  oi 
God  from  place  to  place,  appointing  bishops  to  govern  and  manage  the 
churches  in  their  absence,  and  after  their  final  departure ;  but  no  apostle  is, 
on  any  occasion  whatever,  called  a  bishop  in  any  part  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, or  by  any  early  writer.     The  most  important  objection,  however,  to 
all  this  absurd  account  of  Peter,  as  bishop  of  Rome,  is  the  fact  uniformly 
attested  by  those  early  Fathers,  who  allude  to  his  having  ever  visited  that 
city,  that  having  founded  the  church  there,  he  appointed  Linus  the  first 
BISHOP, — a  statement  in  exact  accordance  with  the  view  here  given  of  the 
office  of  a  bishop,  and  of  the  mode  in  which  the  apostles  constituted  that 
office  in  the  churches  founded  and  visited  by  them. 

The  date  of  the  foundation. — All  this  is  announced  with  the  most  elaborate  so- 
lemnity, in  all  the  older  papist  writers,  because  on  this  point  of  the  foundation  of  the 
Roman  church  by  Peter,  they  were  long  in  the  habit  of  basing  the  whole  right  and 
title  of  the  bishop  of  Rome,  as  Peter's  successor,  to  the  supremacy  of  the  church 
\uiiversal.    The  great  authorities,  quoted  by  them  in  support  of  this  exact  account  of 


Peter's  apostleship.  243 

the  whole  affair,  with  all  its  dates,  even  to  the  month  and  day,  are  the  bulls  of  some  of 
the  popes,  enforcing  the  celebration  of  that  day  throughout  all  the  churches  under  the 
Romish  see,  and  the  forms  of  prayer  in  which  this  occasion  is  commemorated  even 
to  this  day.  Moreover,  a  particular  form  is  quoted  from  some  of  the  old  rituals  of 
the  church,  not  now  in  use,  in  which  the  ancient  mode  of  celebrating  this  event,  in 
prayer  and  thanksgiving,  is  verbally  given.  "  Omnipotens  sempiterne  Deus,  qui  in- 
effabili  sacramento,  apostolo  tuo  Petro  principatum  Romae  urbis  tribuisti,  unde  se 
evangelica  Veritas  per  tota  mundi  regna  diffunderet:  praesta  quaesnmus,  ul  quod  in 
orbem  terrarum  ejus  praedicatione  manavit,  universitas  Christiana  devotione  sequa- 
lur." — "  Almighty,  eternal  God!  who  by  an  ineffable  consecration  didst  give  to  thy 
apostle  Peter  the  dominion  of  the  city  of  Rome,  that  thence  the  gospel  truth  might 
diffuse  itself  throughout  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world:  grant,  we  pray,  that  what  has 
flowed  into  the  whole  circuit  of  the  earth  by  his  preaching,  all  Christendom  may  de- 
voutly follow." — A  prayer  so  melodiously  expressed,  and  in  such  beautiful  Latin, 
that  it  is  a  great  pity  it'should  have  been  a  mere  trick,  to  spread  and  perpetuate  a 
downright,  baseless  lie,  which  had  no  other  object  than  the  extension  of  the  gloomy, 
soul-darkening  tyranny  of  the  papal  sway.  Other  forms  of  prayer,  for  private  occa- 
sions, are  also  mentioned  by  Baronius,  as  commemorating  the  foundation  of  the 
church  of  Rome  by  Peter;  and  all  these,  as  well  as  the  former,  being  fixed  for  the 
fifteenth  of  February,  as  above  quoted.  Those  records  of  fables,  also,  the  old  Roman 
martyrologies,  are  cited  for  evidence.  The  later  Latin  Fathers  add  their  testi- 
mony, and  even  the  devout  Augustin  (serm.  15,  IG,  de  sanct.  &c.)  is  quoted  in  sup- 
port of  it.  Baronius  gives  all  these  evidences,  (Ann.  45,  §  1,)  and  goes  on  to  earn 
the  cardinal's  hat,  which  finally  rewarded  his  zealous  efforts,  by  maintaining  the 
unity  and  universality  of  this  apostolic  foundation,  and  the  absolute  supremacy  con- 
sequently appertaining  to  the  succession  of  Peter  in  the  Roman  see. 

Peler\  chair. — This  fable  is  from  Baronius,  who  wrote  about  1580;  but  alas!  mo- 
dern accidental  discoveries  make  dreadful  havoc  with  papistical  antiquities,  and  have 
done  as  much  to  correct  the  mistake  in  this  matter,  as  in  Justin's  blunder  about  Simon 
Magus.  I  had  transcribed  Baronius's  story  into  the  text,  as  above,  without  knowing 
of  the  fact,  till  a  glance  at  the  investigations  of  the  sagacious  Bower  gave  me  the 
information  which  I  here  extract  from  him. 

"  They  had,  as  ihey  thought,  till  the  year  1662,  a  pregnant  proof,  not  only  of  St. 
Peter's  erecting  their  chair,  but  of  his  sitting  in  it  himself;  for  till  that  year,  the  very 
chair,  on  which  they  believed,  or  would  make  others  believe,  he  had  sat,  was  shown 
and  exposed  to  public  adoration  on  the  18th  of  January,  the  festival  of  the  said  chair. 
But  while  it  was  cleaning,  in  order  to  be  set  up  in  some  conspicuous  place  of  the 
Vatican,  the  twelve  labors  of  Hercules  unluckily  appeared  engraved  on  it.  '  Our 
worship,  however,'  says  Giacomo  Bartolini,  who  was  present  at  this  discovery,  and 
relates  it,  '  was  nor  misplaced,  since  it  was  not  to  the  wood  we  paid  it,  but  to  the 
prince  of  the  apostles,  St.  Peter.'  An  author  of  no  mean  character,  unwilling  to  give 
up  the  holy  chair,  even  after  this  discovery,  as  having  a  place  and  a  peculiar  solemnity 
among  the  other  saints,  has  attempted  to  explain  the  labors  of  Hercules  in  a  mystical 
?ense,  as  emblems  representing  the  future  exploits  of  the  popes.  (Luchesini  catedra 
restituita  a  S.  Pietro.)  But  the  ridiculous  and  distorted  conceits  of  that  writer  are 
not  worthy  our  notice,  though  by  Pope  Clement  X.  they  were  judged  not  unworthy 
of  a  reward."    (Bower's  Lives  of  the  Popes,  Vol.  L  p.  7,  4io.  ed.  1749.) 

The  next  noticeable  thing  that  Peter  is  made  to  do  at  Rome,  is  the  send- 
ing out  of  his  disciples  from  Rome  to  act  as  missionaries  and  bishops  in  the 
various  wide  divisions  of  the  RoiTian  empire,  westward  from  the  capital, 
which  were  yet  wholly  unoccupied  by  the  preachers  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ.  In  his  supposed  character  of  keeper  of  the  great  flock  of  Christ, 
having  now  fully  established  the  Roman  see,  he  turned  his  eyes  to  those 
distant  regions,  and  considering  their  religious  wants  and  utter  spiritual 
destitution,  sent  into  them  several  disciples  whom  he  is  supposed  to  have 
qualified  for  such  labors  by  his  own  minute  personal  instructions.  "  Thus, 
as  rays  from  the  sun,  and  as  streams  from  the  fountain,  did  the  Christian 
faith  go  forth  through  these  from  the  see  of  Peter,  and  spread  far  and  wide 
throughout  the  world."  So  say  the  imaginative  papist  historians,  whose 
fancy  not  resting  satisfied  with  merely  naming  the  regions  to  which  these 


244  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

new  missionaries  were  now  sent,  goes  on  with  a  catalogue  of  the  personsv 
and  of  the  places  where  they  became  finally  established  in  their  bishoprics. 
But  it  would  be  honoring  such  fables  too  much,  to  record  the  long  string 
of  names  which  are  in  the  papist  annals  given  to  designate  the  missiona- 
ries thus  sent  out,  and  the  particular  places  to  which  they  were  sent,  Iti' 
enough  to  notice  that  the  sum  of  the  whole  story  is,  that  preachers  of  tV  ; 
gospel  were  thus  sent  not  only  into  the  western  regions  alluded  to,  but  into 
many  cities  of  Italy  and  Sicily.  In  Gaul,  Spain,  and  Germany,  many  are 
said  to  have  been  certainly  established;  and  to  extend  the  fable  as  far  as 
possible,  it  is  even  hinted  that  Britain  received  the  gospel  through  the 
preaching  of  some  of  these  missionaries  of  Peter  ;  but  this  distant  circum- 
stance is  stated  rather  as  a  conjecture,  while  the  rest  are  minutely  and 
seriously  given,  in  all  the  grave  details  of  persons  and  places. 

In  various  works  of  this  character,  Peter  is  said  by  the  propagators  of 
this  fable,  to  have  passed  seven  years  at  Rome,  during  all  which  time  he  is 
not  supposed  to  have  gone  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  city.  The  occasion  of 
his  departure  at  the  end  of  this  long  period,  as  stated  by  the  fabulous  records 
from  which  the  whole  story  is  drawn,  \vas  the  great  edict  of  Claudius 
Caesar,  banishing  all  Jews  from  Rome,  among  whom  Peter  must  of  course 
have  been  included.  This  imperial  sentence  of  general  banishment,  is  not 
only  alluded  to  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  but  is  particularly  specified  in 
the  Roman  and  Jewish  historians  of  those  times  ;  from  which  its  exact  date 
is  ascertained  to  have  been  the  ninth  year  of  the  reign  of  Claudius,  from 
which,  as  Peter  is  supposed  to  have  gone  to  Rome  in  the  second  year  of 
that  reign,  the  intervening  time  must  have  been,  as  above  stated,  seven  years. 
The  particulars  of  this  general  banishment,  its  motives  and  results,  will  bo 
better  given  in  that  part  of  this  work,  where  important  points  in  authentic, 
true  history,  are  connected  with  the  event.  Under  these  circumstances, 
however,  the  great  first  bishop  of  Rome  is  supposed  to  have  left  this  now- 
consecrated  capital  of  Christendom,  and  traveled  oflf  eastward,  along  with 
the  general  throng  of  Jewish  fugitives.  Some  of  the  papist  commentators 
on  this  story  are,  nevertheless,  so  much  scandalized  at  the  thought  of  Peter's 
running  away  in  this  seemingly  undignified  manner,  (though  this  is  in  fact 
the  part  of  the  story  which  is  most  consistent  with  the  real  truth,  since  no 
apostle  was  ever  taught  to  consider  it  beneath  his  dignity  to  get  out  of  dan- 
ger,) that  they  therefore  strive  to  make  it  appear  that  he  still  stayed  in 
Rome,  in  spite  of  the  imperial  edict,  and  boldly  preached  the  gospel,  with- 
out reference  to  danger,  until,  soon  after,  it  became  necessary  for  him  to  go 
to  the  east  on  important  business.  The  majority,  however,  are  agreed  that 
he  did  remove  from  Rome  along  with  the  rest  of  the  Jews,  though  while 
he  remained  there,  he  is  supposed  to  have  kept  up  the  apostolic  dignity  by 
preaching  at  all  risks.  His  journey  eastward  is  made  out  in  rather  a  cir- 
cuitous manner,  probably  for  no  better  reason  than  to  make  their  stories  as 
long  as  possible  ;  and  therefore  it  is  enough  to  say,  that  he  is  carried  by  the 
continuation  of  the  fable,  from  Rome  first  into  Africa,  where  he  erected  a 
church  at  Carthage,  over  which  he  ordained  Crescens,  one  of  his  Roman 
disciples,  as  bishop.  Proceeding  next  along  the  northern  coast  of  the  cor?- 
tinent,  he  is  brought  to  Ale.xandria,  where,  of  course,  he  founds  a  church, 
leaving  the  evangelist  Mark  in  it,  as  bishop;  and  passing  up  the  Nile  to 
Thebes,  constitutes  Rufus  there,  in  the  same  capacity.  Thence  the  fabu- 
lous chroniclers  carry  him  at  once  to  Jerusalem;  and  here  ends  this  tedious 


Peter's  apostleship.  245 

string  of  details,  the  story  being  now  resumed  from  the  clear  and  honest 
record  of  the  sacred  historian,  to  the  great  refreshment  of  the  writer  as  well 
as  the  reader,  after  detailing  so  long  what  is  utterly  unalloyed  falsehood. 

Peter,  bishop  of  Rome. —  The  great  question  of  his  having  ever  visited  this  city,  has 
two  separate  and  distinct  parts,  resting  on  totally  different  grounds,  since  they  refer 
to  two  widely  distant  periods  of  time ;  but  that  part  which  refers  to  his  early  visit, 
being  connected  with  this  portion  of  the  history,  I  proceed  in  this  place  to  the  full 
examination  of  all  ihe  evidences,  which  have  ever  been  brought  in  support  of  both 
divisions  of  this  great  subject  in  papal  dogmatic  history,  from  the  supposed  records 
of  this  event  in  the  writings  of  the  early  Christian  Fathers.  On  this  head,  instead 
of  myself  entering  into  a  course  of  investigations  among  these  writers,  which  my 
comparatively  slight  acquaintance  with  their  works  would  make  exceedingly  labori- 
ous to  me,  and  perhaps  very  incomplete  after  all,  I  here  avail  myself  of  the  learned 
and  industrious  research  of  my  friend,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Murdock,  widely  and  honorably 
known  as  the  Translator  and  Annotator  of  Mosheim's  Ecclesiastical  History. 
Through  his  kindness,  I  am  allowed  the  free  use  of  a  series  of  instructive  lectures, 
(in  MS.)  formerly  delivered  by  him  as  a  professor  of  Ecclesiastical  History,  M-hich 
having  been  subsequently  modified  to  suit  a  popular  audience,  will  present  the  whole 
of  this  learned  matter,  with  the  fullest  details  of  the  argument,  in  a  form  perfectly 
intelligible  and  acceptable  to  my  readers. 

THE  TESTIMONY  OF  THE  EARLY  FATHERS. 

"In  the  latter  part  of  the  first  century,  Clement,  bishop  of  Rome,  fEp.  I. 
ad  Corinth,  §  5,)  speaks  of  Paul  and  Peter  as  persecuted,  and  as  havmg  be- 
come martyrs.     But  he  does  not  say  when,  or  where. — In  the  middle  of  the 
second  century,  Justin  Martyr  speaks  of  Simon  Magus,  his  magic  and  his 
deification,  at  Rome  ;  but  makes  no  mention  of  Peter's  going  to  Rome,  to 
combat  him.     Nor  does  any  other  Father,  so  far  as  I  know,  till  after  A.  D. 
300. — About  twenty  years  after  Justin  Martyr,  Irenaeus,  bishop  of  Lyons, 
wrote  his  five  books  against  the  heretics  ;  in  which  he  confutes  them,  by  the 
testimony  of  those  churches  which  were  said  to  have  been  founded  imme- 
diately by  the  apostles.     The  following  extract  from  him  will  fully  illustrate 
that  mode  of  reasoning,  and  also  show  us  what  Irenaeus  knew  of  Peter's  being 
at  Rome.     He  says — '  The  doctrine  preached  lo  all  the  world  by  the  apostles, 
is  now  found  in  the  church  ; — as  all  may  see  if  they  are  willing  to  learn  ;  and 
we  are  able  to  name  the  persons  whom  the  apostles  constituted  the  bishops 
of  the  churches,  and  their  successors  down  to  our  times  ;  Avho  have  never 
taught  or  known  any  such  doctrine  as  the  heretics  advance.     Now  if  the 
apostles  had  been  acquainted  with  [certain]  recondite  mysteries,  which  they 
taught  privately,  and  only  to  such  as  were  the  most  perfect,  they  would  cer- 
tainly have  taught  them  to  those  men  to  whom  they  committed  the  care  of 
the  churches  ;  for  they  required  them  to  be  very  perfect  and  blameless  in  all 
things,  whom  they  made  their  successors  and  substitutes  in  office ; — because, 
if  they  conducted  aright,  great  advantage  would  result ;  but  if  they  should  go 
wrong,  immense  evils  would  ensue.     But,  as  it  would  be  tedious,  in  the 
present  work,  to  enumerate  the  successions  in  all  the  churches,  I  will  men- 
tion but  one,  viz.  the  greatest,  most  ancient,  and  well-known  by  all,  the  church 
foundfid  and  established  at  Rome,  by  the  two  most  glorious  apostles,  Peter 
and  Paul.     The  faith  of  this  church  was  the  result  of  apostolic  teaching,  and 
the  same  as  was  every  where  preached ;  and  it  has  come  down  to  us  through 
a  succession  of  bishops  ;  and  by  this  example  we  confound  all  those  who,  in 
any  manner,  either  from  selfish  views  and  vain  glory,  or  from  blindness  to 
truth  and  erroneous  belief,  hold  forth  false  doctrine.     For  with  this  church, 
on  account  of  its  superior  pre-eminence,  every  other  church, — that  is,  the  true 
believers  every  where, — must  agree  ;  because,  in  it  has  ever  been  preserved 
the  doctrine  derived  immediately  from  the  apostles,  and  which  was  every 
where  propagated.     The  blessed  apostles  having  founded  and  instructed  this 
church,  committed  the  episcopacy  of  it  to  Lintts  j  who  is  mentioned  by  Paul, 


246  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

in  his  epistle  to  Timothy.  Anacletus  succeeded  Linus ;  and  after  him,  the 
third  bishop  from  the  apostles  was  Clement,  who  saw  the  apostles  themselves, 
and  conferred  with  them,  while  their  preaching  and  instruction  was  still 
sounding  in  his  ears.'  Irenaeus  then  enumerates  the  succeeding  bishops, 
down  to  Eleutherius,  '  who,'  he  says,  '  is  now  the  twelfth  bishop  from  the 
apostles.'  In  the  preceding  section,  Irenaeus  tells  us  that  Matthew  wrote  his 
gospel  '  while  Peter  and  Paul  were  preaching,  and  founding  the  church  at 
Rome.'  Here  is  full  and  explicit  testimony,  that  Paul  and  Peter,  unitedly, 
preached  and  founded  the  church  at  Rome;  and  ihat  they  constituted  Linos 
THE  FIRST  BISHOP  there.  The  language  excludes  both  Peter  and  Paul, — and 
excludes  both  equally, — from  the  episcopal  chair  at  Rome.  '  They  com- 
mitted the  episcopacy  to  Linus  ;'  who  was  the  first  bishop,  as  Clement  was 
the  third,  and  Eleutherius  the  twelfth. — Contemporary  with  Irenaeus  was 
DioNYSius,  bishop  of  Corinth.  In  reply  to  a  monitory  letter  from  the  Romish 
church,  of  which  Eusebius  (H.  E.  II.  25)  has  preserved  an  extract,  Dionysius 
says — '  By  this  your  excellent  admonition,  you  have  united  in  one  the  plant- 
ing, by  Peter  and  Paul,  of  the  Romans  and  Corinthians.  For  both  of  them 
coming  to  our  Corinth,  planted  and  instructed  us  ; — and  in  like  manner,  going 
to  Italy  together, — after  teaching  there,  they  became  martyrs  at  the  same 
time.'  From  this  testimony  we  may  learn  how  and  when  Peter  went  to 
Rome  ;  as  well  as  what  relation  he  sustained  to  the  church  there.  He  and 
Paul  came  to  Corinth  together ;  and  when  they  had  regulated  and  instructed 
that  church,  they  Avent  on  together  to  Italy,  and  did  the  same  things  at  Rome 
as  before  at  Corinth.  Now  this,  if  true,  must  have  been  after  the  captivity  of 
Paul  at  Rome,  mentioned  in  the  book  of  Acts.  For  Paul  never  went  directly 
from  Corinth  to  Rome  before  that  captivity,  since  he  never  was  at  Rome  be- 
fore he  was  carried  there  a  prisoner,  in  the  year  of  Christ,  62.  But,  if  released 
in  the  year  64,  he  might  have  visited  Corinth  afterwards,  with  Peter,  and  then 
have  traveled  with  him  to  Rome.  To  the  church  of  Rome,  Peter  and  Paul 
sustained  the  same  relation  ;  and  that  was  the  same  as  they  had  sustained  to 
the  church  of  Corinth,  viz.  that  of  apostolic  teachers  andfo^mders, — not  that 
of  ORDINARY  BISHOPS.  That  is,  Peter  was  no  more  the  bishop  of  Rome  than 
Paul  was  ;  and  neither  of  them,  any  more  the  bishop  of  Rome  than  both  were 
bishops  of  Corinth.  Dionysius  likewise,  here  affirms,  that  Peter  and  Paul 
suflered  martyrdom  '  at  the  same  time  ;'  and  probably  at  Rome,  where  they 
last  taught. — That  Rome  Avas  the  place  is  asserted  by  Caius,  a  Romish 
ecclesiastic,  (about  A.D.  200,)  as  quoted  by  Eusebius,  (H.  E.  II.  25.)  '  I  am 
able,'  says  he,  'to  shoAV  the  trophies  [the  sepulchres]  of  the  apostles.  For 
if  you  will  go  to  the  Vatican,  or  along  the  Via  Ostia,  you  will  find  the  trophies 
of  those  who  established  this  church.' 

"  The  next  father,  Clement  of  Alexandria,  (about  A.  D.  200,)  reports  it  as 
tradition,  that  Mark  wrote  his  gospel  at  Rome,  while  Peter  was  preaching 
there.  (Euseb.  H.  E.  VI.  14.) — In  the  fore  part  of  the  third  century,  lived 
Tertullian,  a  fervid  and  learned  writer.  He  assailed  the  heretics  with  the 
same  argument  as  Irenaeus  did.  '  Run  over,'  says  he,  '  the  apostolic  churches, 
in  Avhich  the  chairs  of  apjstles  still  preside  in  their  places,  and  in  which  the 
autographs  of  their  epistles  are  still  read.  If  you  are  near  to  Italy,  you  have 
Rome,  a  witness  for  us  ;  and  how  blessed  a  church  is  that  on  which  apostles 
poured  out  their  whole  doctrine,  together  with  their  blood  !  where  Peter 
equaled  our  Lord  in  his  mode  of  suffering ;  and  where  Paul  was  crowned 
with  the  exit  of  John  the  Baptist.'  (de  Praescript.  c.  36.)  In  another  work 
he  says  :  '  Let  us  see  what  the  Romans  hold  forth  ;  to  whom  Peter  and  Paul 
imparted  the  gospel  sealed  with  their  OAvn  blood.'  (adv.  Marcion,  IV.  c.  5.) 
Again  he  says  :  '  Neither  is  there  a  disparity  between  those  whom  John  bap- 
tized in  the  Jordan,  and  Peter  in  the  Tiber.'  (de  Baptismo.)  He  moreover 
testifies  that  Peter  suffered  in  the  reign  of  Nero,  (Scorpiac.  c.  15,)  and  that 
this  apostle  ordained  Clement  bishop  of  Rome.     (Praescript.  c.  32.) — In  the 


Peter's  apostleship.  247 

middle  of  the  third  century,  Cyprian  of  Carthage,  writing  to  the  hishop  of 
Rome,  (Ep.  55,  ad  Cornel.)  calls  the  church  of  Rome  '  the  principal  church  ;' 
and  that  where  'Peter's  chair'  was; — and  'whose  faith  was  derived  from 
apostolic  preaching.' — In  the  end  of  the  third  century  or  the  beginning  of  the 
fourth,  Lactantius  (Institt.  L.  IV.  c.  21)  speaks  of  '  Peter  and  Paul'  as 
having  wrought  miracles,  and  uttered  predictions  at  Rome;  and  describes 
their  prediction  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem.  And  in  his  work  on  the 
Deaths  of  Persecutors,  (chap.  2,)  he  says  :  '  During  the  reign  of  Nero,  Peter 
came  to  Rome  ;  and  having  wrought  several  miracles  by  the  power  of  God, 
which  rested  on  him,  he  converted  many  to  righteousness,  and  erected  a  faith- 
ful and  abiding  temple  for  God.  This  became  known  to  Nero,  who,  learning 
that  multitudes,  not  only  at  Rome,  but  in  all  other  places,  were  abandoning 
idolatry  and  embracing  the  new  religion,  and  being  hurried  on  to  all  sorts  of 
cruelty  by  his  brutal  tyranny,  set  himself,  the  first  of  all,  to  destroy  this  reli- 
gion, and  to  persecute  the  servants  of  God.  So  he  ordered  Peter  to  be  cru- 
cified and  Paul  to  be  beheaded.' 

"I  have  now  detailed  every  important  testimony  which  I  could  find  in  the 
genuine  works  of  the  Fathers,  in  the  three  first  centuries.  The  witnesses 
agree  very  well ;  and  they  relate  nothing  but  what  may  be  true.  They  make 
Peter  and  Paul  to  go  from  Corinth  to  Rome,  in  company,  during  the  reign  of 
Nero ;  and  after  preaching  and  strengthening  the  church  at  Rome,  and  ordain- 
ing Linus  to  be  its  first  bishop, — both  suffering  martyrdom  at  Rome  on  the 
same  day  ;  Peter  being  crucified  and  Paul  decapitated.  There  is  no  repre- 
sentation of  Peter's  being  any  more  bishop  of  Rome  than  Paul  was  ; — and 
Irenaeus  in  particular,  expressly  makes  Linus  the  first  bishop,  and  to  be 
ordained  by  the  two  apostles. 

"  We  now  come  to  Eusf.bius,  who  wrote  about  A.  D.  325.  He  quotes  most 
of  the  Fathers  above  cited,  but  departs  Avidely  from  them  in  regard  to  the  time, 
and  the  occasion,  of  Peter's  going  to  Rome,  He  says  it  was  in  the  reign  of 
Claudius  ; — and  for  the  purpose  of  opposing  Simon  Magus,  (as  the  Clemen- 
line  novels  represented  the  matter.)  Yet  he  does  not  make  Peter  to  be  bishop 
of  Rome.  The  subsequent  writers  of  the  fourth  and  following  centuries,  agree 
with  Eusebius  as  to  the  time  and  the  occasion  of  Peter's  going  to  Rome;  and 
most  of  them  make  Peter  to  be  the  first  bishop  of  Rome.  According  to  them, 
Peter  remained  in  Judea  only  about  four  years  after  the  ascension  ;  then  he 
was  bishop  of  Antioch  seven  years,  and  in  the  second  year  of  Claudius,  A.  D. 
43,  removed  his  chair  to  Rome,  where  he  was  bishop  for  twenty-five  years,  or 
until  his  death,  A.  D.  68.  And  this  is  the  account  generally  given  by  the 
papists,  quite  down  to  the  present  times. 

OBJECTIONS  TO  THE  TRADITIONARY  HISTORY  OF  PETER. 

"  1.  So  far  as  the  later  Fathers  contradict  those  of  the  three  first  centu- 
ries^ they  ought  to  be  rejected  ;  because,  they  could  not  have  so  good  means  of 
information.  Oral  tradition  must,  in  three  centuries,  have  become  worthless, 
compared  with  what  it  was  in  the  second  and  third  centuries  ; — and  written 
testimony,  which  could  be  relied  on,  they  had  none,  except  that  of  the  early 
Fathers.  Besides,  we  have  seen  how  these  later  Fathers  were  led  astray. 
They  believed  the  fable  of  Simon  Magus's  legerdemain  at  Rome,  and  his 
deification  there.  They  read  the  Clementine  fictions,  and  supposed  them  to 
be  novels  founded  on  facts.  In  their  eulogies  of  Peter,  they  were  fond  of 
relating  marvellous  and  affecting  stories  about  him,  and  therefore  too  readily 
admitted  fabulous  traditions.  And  lastly,  the  bishops  of  Rome  and  their 
numerous  adherents  had  a  direct  and  an  immense  interest  depending  on  this 
traditional  history ; — for  by  it  alone,  they  made  out  their  succession  to  the 
chair  of  Peter,  and  the  legitimacy  of  their  ghostly  power. 

"2.  The  later  Fathers  invalidate  their  own  testimony,  by  stating  what  is 
incredible,  and  what  neither  'hey  nor  their  modern  adherents  can  satisfacto- 


248  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

rily  explain.  They  state  that  Linus  succeeded  Peter,  for  about  twelve  years  ; 
then  followed  Cletus  or  Anacletus,  for  about  twelve  years  more  ;  and  then 
succeeded  Clement.  And  yet  they  tell  us,  ail  the  three  were  ordained  by  the 
hands  of  Peter.  Row  could  this  be  ?  Did  Peter  ordain  three  successive 
bishops,  after  he  was  dead  ? — or  did  he  resign  his  office  to  these  bishops,  and 
retire  to  a  private  station,  more  than  twenty-five  years  before  his  crucifixion  ? 
No,  says  Epiphanius,  (Haer.  27,)  and  after  him  most  of  the  modern  papists  ; 
(Nat.  Alex.  H.  E.  saecul.  I.  Diss.  XIII.  Burius,  &c.)  but  Peter  being  often 
absent  from  Rome,  and  having  a  vast  weight  of  cares,  had  assistent  bishops  ; 
and  Linus  and  Cletus  were  not  the  successors  but  the  assistents  of  Peter. 
But  Irenaeus,  Eusebius,  Jerome,  and  all  the  authorized  catalogues  of  popes, 
explicitly  make  Linus  and  Cletus  to  be  successors  to  Peter,  Besides,  why 
did  Peter  need  an  assistent  any  more  than  the  succeeding  pontifls  ?  And 
"what  age  since  has  ever  witnessed  an  assistent  pope  at  Rome  7  A  more  plau- 
sible solution  (but  which  the  papists  cannot  admit)  is  given  by  Rufinus. 
(Praef  ad  Recogn.  Clem.)  '  As  I  understand  it,'  says  he,  '  Linus  and  Cletus 
were  the  bishops  of  Rome  in  Peter's  life-time ;  so  that  they  performed  the 
episcopal  functions,  and  he,  those  of  an  apostle.  And,  in  this  Avay  the  whole 
may  be  true,'  says  Rufinus.  Granted,  if  this  Avere  the  only  objection ;  and  if 
it  could  be  made  out  that  Peter  went  to  Rome  full  twenty-four  years  before 
his  martyrdom.  But  supposing  it  true,  how  can  the  successors  of  Linus  and 
Cletus,  the  bishops,  be  successors  of  Peter,  the  apostle  ? 

"  3.  Peter  removed  his  chair  to  Borne,  (say  the  later  Fathers  and  most  of 
the  Catholics,)  in  the  second  year  of  Claudius,  that  is,  A.  D.  43;  and  he  re- 
sided there  twenty-four  years,  or  till  his  death.  But  we  have  the  best  proof, 
— that  of  holy  writ, — that  Peter  was  resident  at  Jerusalem,  as  late  as  the 
year  A.  D.  44;  when  king  Agrippa  seized  him  there,  and  imprisoned  him, 
with  intent  to  kill  him.  (Acts  xii.  3—19.)  And  we  have  similar  proof  that 
he  was  still  there  in  the  ye^r  51;  when  he  deliberated  and  acted  with  the 
other  apostles  and  brethren  .o  Jerusalem,  on  the  question  of  obliging  Gentiles 
to  observe  the  law  of  Most^s  -.Acts  xv.  7,  &c. ;  Gal.  ii.  1 — 9.)  And  more- 
over, some  time  after  this,  a^  i-aul  lells  us,  (Gal.  ii.  l\ — J4,)  he  came  to  An- 
tioch,  in  Syria,  and  there  dissembled  about  eating  with  the  Gentiles.  The 
common  reply  of  the  Catholics  is,  that  Peter  often  made  long  journeys ;  and 
he  might  happen  to  be  at  Jerusalem,  and  at  Antioch,  at  these  times.  But 
this  solution  is  rejected  by  the  more  candid  Romanists  themselves,  who  agree 
with  the  early  Fathers,  asserting  that  Peter  first  went  to  Rome  in  the  reign 
of  Nero.     (See  Pagi  Crit.  Bar.  ann.  43.) 

"  4.  Paul  wrote  his  epistle  to  the  Romans  in  the  year  59,  as  is  supposed. 
And  from  this  epistle  it  is  almost  certain,  Peter  was  not  then  at  Rome,  and 
highly  probable  he  had  never  been  there.  Throughout  the  epistle,  Peter's 
name  is  not  even  mentioned ;  nor  is  that  of  Linus  or  Cletus,  his  supposed  as- 
sistents, who  always,  it  is  said,  supplied  his  place  when  he  was  absent. 
Indeed,  so  far  as  can  be  gathered  from  Paul's  epistle,  the  Romish  Christians 
appear  not  to  have  had,  at  that  time  nor  previously,  any  bishop  or  any  eccle- 
siastical head.  The  epistle  is  addressed  '  To  all  that  be  in  Rome,  beloved  of 
God,  called  to  be  saints.'  (Rom.  i.  7.)  It  exhorts  them  to  obey  magistrates ; — 
but  not  to  reverence  and  obey  their  spiritual  rulers.  (Rom.  xiii.  1,  &c.)  It 
inculcates  on  them  all,  the  duty  of  living  in  harmony, — of  being  modest  and 
humble, — of  using  their  different  gifts  for  the  common  good  ;  (Rom.  xii.  3, 
&c. ;)  but  gives  no  intimation  that  they  were  amenable  to  any  ecclesiastical 
authorities.  It  gives  them  rules  for  conducting  their  disciplinary  acts,  as  a 
popular  body,  (Rom.  xiv.  1,  &c. ;)  but  does  not  refer  to  any  regulations  given 
them  by  St.  Peter  and  his  assistents.  It  contains  salutations  to  near  thirty 
persons,  male  and  female,  whom  Paul  knew  personally,  or  by  hearsay,  (chap, 
xvi. ;)  but  neither  Peter,  nor  Linus,  nor  Cletus,  is  of  the  number;  nor  is  any 
one  spoken  of  as  bishop,  or  elder,  or  pastor,  or  as  clothed  with  any  ecclesias- 


Peter's  apostleship.  249 

tical  authority.  Priscilla  and  Aquila,  and  several  others  whom  he  had  known 
in  Greece  or  Asia,  are  named ;  and  seem  to  be  the  leading  persons  in  the 
church.  Indeed,  it  would  seem  that  no  apostle  had,  as  yet,  ever  been  at 
Rome.  Paul  says  he  had  'had  a  great  desire,  for  many  years,'  to  visit  them, 
and  he  intended  to  do  so  as  soon  as  possible.  (Rom.  xv.  23.)  And  he  tells 
them  why  he  longed  to  see  them,  that  he  might  impart  to  them  '  some  spiritual 
gifts;' — that  is,  some  of  those  miraculous  gifts,  which  none  but  apostles 
could  confer.  (Rom.  i.  11.)  I  may  add,  that  Paul  gives  them  a  whole  sys- 
tem of  divinity  in  this  epistle ;  and  crowds  more  theology  into  it,  than  into 
any  other  he  ever  wrote ; — as  if  he  considered  this  church  as  needing  fun- 
damental instruction  in  the  gospel,  more  than  any  other.  Now,  how  could 
all  this  be,  if  Peter  had  been  there  fifteen  years,  with  an  assistent  bishop  to 
aid  him ;  and  had  completely  organized,  and  regulated,  and  instructed  this 
central  church  of  all  Christendom  ?  What  Catholic  bishop,  at  the  present 
day,  would  dare  to  address  the  church  of  Rome  without  once  naming  his 
liege  lord,  the  pope;  and  would  give  them  a  Avhole  system  of  theology,  and 
numerous  rules  and  regulations  for  their  private  conduct  and  for  their  public 
discipline,  without  even  an  intimation  that  they  had  any  spiritual  guides  and 
rulers,  to  whom  they  were  accountable? 

"  5.  Three  years  after  this  epistle  was  written,  (that  is,  A.  D.  62,)  Paul 
arrived  at  Rome,  and  was  there  detained  a  prisoner  for  two  years,  or  until 
A.  D.  64.  Now  let  us  see  if  we  can  find  Peter  there,  at  or  during  this  period. 
When  it  was  known  at  Rome  that  Paul  was  approaching  the  city,  the  Chris- 
tians there  went  twenty  miles  to  meet  him,  and  escort  him  ; — so  eager  were 
they  to  see  an  apostle  of  Jesus  Christ.  Three  days  after  his  arrival,  '  Paul 
called  the  chief  of  the  Jews  together,'  to  have  conversation  with  them.  They 
had  heard  nothing  against  him,  and  they  were  glad  to  see  him, — for  they 
wished  to  hear  more  about  the  Christian  sect;  '  for,'  said  they,  '  as  concerning 
this  sect,  we  know  that  it  is  every  where  spoken  against;'  and  '  we  desire  to 
hear  of  thee  what  thou  thinkest.'  (Acts  xxviii.  22.)  They  appointed  him  a 
day,  Avhen  they  all  assembled  for  the  purpose,  and  he  addressed  them  '  from 
morning  till  evening.'  Now  could  Peter,  the  apostle  of  the  circumcision, 
have  been  near  twenty  years  bishop  of  Rome,  and  so  full  of  business  as  to 
employ  an  assistent  bishop,  and  yet  the  Jews  there  be  so  ignorant  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  so  glad  to  meet  with  one  who  could  satisfy  their  curiosity  to 
learn  something  about  it  ?  Moreover,  Paul  now  continued  to  preach  the 
gospel  in  '  his  own  hired  house,'  at  Rome,  for  two  years  ;  (Acts  xxviii.  30, 
31 ;)  and  it  would  seem,  was  very  successful.  During  this  time  he  wrote  his 
epistles  to  the  Ephesians,  Philippians,  Colossians,  Philemon,  and,  perhaps, 
that  to  the  Hebrews.  In  these  epistles  he  often  speaks  of  his  success  in 
making  converts,  and  of  the  brethren  who  labored  with  him ; — but  he  does 
not  once  even  name  Peter,  or  Linus,  or  Cletus, — or  intimate,  at  all,  that  there 
was  a  cathedral  church  at  Rome  with  an  apostle  or  any  bishop  at  its  head. 
He  sends  numerous  salutations  from  individuals  whom  he  names,  and  from 
little  companies  of  Christians  in  their  houses, — but  no  salutations  from  Peter, 
or  from  any  bishop,  or  other  officer  of  the  church  there.  The  Catholics  tell  us, 
Peter  might  happen  to  be  absent  during  this  period.  What !  absent  two  whole 
years  !  and  his  assistent  bishop  also?  Very  negligent  shepherds!  But  where 
was  the  church  all  this  time, — the  enlightened  Christian  community,  and  the 
elders  and  deacons,  who  governed  and  instructed  it,  from  Sabbath  to  Sabbath? 
Were  all  these,  too,  gone  a  journey?  No:  it  is  manifest  Paul  was  now  the  only 
regular  preacher  of  the  gospel  at  Rome :  and  he  was  breaking  up  fallow  ground, 
that  had  never  before  been  cultivated,  and  sown,  and  made  to  bear  fruit. 

"  Such  are  the  general  objections  to  the  general  doctrine  of  the  papists, 
and  to  the  testimony  of  the  Fathers  of  the  fourth  and  following  centuries, 
who  make  Peter  to  have  removed  to  Rome,  and  to  have  been  bishop  there 
anterior  to  A.  D,  64."  *  *  *  *  *  * 


250  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

[Dr.  Murdock  next  proceeds  to  remark  on  the  testimony  of  the  earlier  Fathers 
respecting  the  point  of  Peter's  having  visiied  Rome  at  some  later  period;  but  these 
remarks  will  come  in  place  better  at  that  part  of  the  narrative  where  this  final  ques- 
tion is  discussed.] 

Lardner  also  gives  a  sort  of  abstract  of  the  passages  in  the  Fathers,  which  refer  to 
this  subject,  but  not  near  so  full,  nor  so  just  to  the  original  passages,  as  that  of  Dr. 
Murdock,  altliough  he  refers  to  a  few  authors  not  alluded  to  here,  whose  testimony, 
however,  amounts  to  liille  or  nothing.  Lardner's  disposition  to  believe  all  these  long- 
established  Roman  fables,  seems  very  great,  and,  on  these  points,  his  critical  accuracy 
appears  to  fail  in  maintaining  its  general  character.  However,  in  the  simple  passage 
from  Clemens  Romanus,  referred  to  above,  he  is  very  full,  not  only  translating  the 
whole  passage  relating  to  Peter  and  Paul,  but  entering  into  a  very  elaborate  discus- 
sion of  the  views  taken  of  it;  but  after  all  he  fails  so  utterly  in  rearing  an  historical 
argument  on  this  slender  basis,  that  I  cannot  feel  called  on,  in  this  place,  to  do  any 
thing  more  than  barely  refer  the  critical  reader  to  the  passage  in  his  life  of  Peter, 
(VII.)  Lardner's  quotation  from  Clement  will  be  fully  discussed,  however,  in  the 
concluding  part  of  Peter's  life. 

Bovver  has  given  numerous  quotations,  too,  from  those  sources,  but  nothing  not 
contained  in  the  abstract  above,  of  which  a  great  merit  is,  that  it  gives  all  the  pas- 
sages in  full,  in  a  faithful  and  highly  expressive  translation.  (See  Bower's  Lives  of 
the  Popes.  "Peter.")  Cave  also  (Hist.  Lit.  pp.  7 — II)  makes  a  full  statement  of 
patristic  testimony,  and  a  long  argument  thereon,  in  favor  of  the  Romanist  view. 


THE  CONSULTATION  OF  THE  APOSTLES  AT  JERUSALEM. 

The  last  circumstance  of  Peter's  life  and  actions,  recorded  in 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  is  one  so  deeply  involved  also  in  the 
conduct  of  others  of  the  holy  band,  that  the  history  of  the  whole 
affair  can  be  best  given  in  connexion  with  their  lives;  more  espe- 
cially as  the  immediate  occasion  of  it  arose  under  the  labors  of 
these  other  persons.  All  the  statement  which  is  here  necessary 
to  introduce  the  part  which  Peter  took  in  the  sayings  and  doings 
on  this  occasion,  is  simply  as  follows.  Paul  and  Barnabas,  having 
returned  to  Antioch  from  their  first  great  mission  from  that  city, 
throughout  almost  the  whole  circuit  of  Asia  Minor,  were,  soon 
after  their  arrival  in  that  city,  involved  in  a  vexatious  dispute  with 
a  set  of  persons,  who,  having  come  down  from  .Terusalem,  had 
undertaken  to  give  the  Syrian  Christians  more  careful  instructions 
in  the  minuter  essentials  of  religious  duty,  than  they  had  received 
from  those  who  had  originally  effected  their  conversion.  These 
new  teachers  being  directly  from  that  holy  city,  which,  having 
been  the  great  scene  of  the  instructions  and  sufferings  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  still  being  the  seat  of  the  apostolic  college,  was  re- 
garded by  all  as  the  true  source  of  religious  light  to  Christians 
as  well  as  Jews  throuffhout  the  world,  therefore  made  no  small 
commotion  in  the  church  of  Antioch,  when  they  began  to  incul- 
cate, as  essential  to  salvation,  a  full  conformity  to  all  the  minute 
ritual  observances  of  the  Mosaic  law.  The  church  of  Antioch, 
having  been  plcuUed  and  taught  by  men  of  a  more  catholic  spirit. 


Peter's  apostleship.  251 

had  gathered  within  itself  a  large  number  of  heathen  from  that 
Gentile  city,  who,  led  by  their  convictions  of  the  truth  and  spirit- 
uality of  the  Christian  faith,  had  renounced  entirely  all  the  idola- 
tries in  which  they  had  been  brought  up,  giving  themselves,  as 
it  would  seem,  with  honest  resolution,  to  a  life  of  such  moral 
purity,  as  they  considered  alone  essential  to  the  maintenance  of 
their  new  religious  character.  Still,  they  had  never  supposed, 
that  in  renouncing  their  idolatrous  superstitions,  they  had  bound 
themselves  to  throw  off  also  those  customs  of  their  country  which 
could  have  no  connexion  with  moral  purity  of  conduct,  and  had 
therefore  still  remained  in  national  peculiarities.  Gentiles ;  though 
in  creed,  and  religious  practice.  Christians.  In  this  course  they 
had  been  encouraged  by  the  liberal  and  enlarged  views  of  their 
rehgious  instructors,  who  had  never  once  hinted  at  the  necessity 
of  imposing  upon  Gentile  Christians  the  burden  of  the  Jewish  law, 
which  all  the  impressions  of  education  and  their  previous  habits  of 
life  would  have  made  quite  intolerable.  The  wisdom  of  this  en- 
lightened spirit  was  seen  in  the  great  accessions  of  Gentiles,  who, 
being  convinced  of  the  necessity  of  a  moral  change,  were  not  met 
by  any  ceremonial  impediments  to  the  full  adoption  of  a  pure 
religion.  Paul  and  Barnabas  were  therefore  not  a  little  troubled 
with  the  new  difficulty  brought  in  by  these  Jewish  teachers,  who, 
being  fresh  from  the  fountain  of  religious  knowledge,  claimed  great 
authority  in  reference  to  all  delicate  points  of  this  nature.  At  last, 
after  long  and  violent  disputes  between  these  old-school  and  new- 
school  theologians,  it  was  resolved  to  refer  the  whole  matter  to  the 
twelve  apostles  themselves,  at  Jerusalem,  who  might  well  be  sup- 
posed qualified  to  say  what  they  considered  to  be  the  essential 
doctrines  and  observances  of  Christianity.  Paul  and  Barnabas, 
therefore,  with  some  of  the  rest  engaged  in  the  discussion,  went 
up  to  Jerusalem  as  a  delegation,  for  this  purpose,  and  presented 
the  whole  difficulty  to  the  consideration  of  the  apostles  and  elders. 
So  little  settled,  after  all,  were  the  views  and  feelings  of  these  first 
preachers  of  Christianity  about  the  degree  of  freedom  to  be  en- 
joyed by  the  numerous  Gentile  converts,  that  all  the  Jewish  pre- 
judices of  many  of  them  burst  out  at  once,  and  high  ground  was 
taken  against  any  dispensation  in  favor  of  Gentile  prejudices. 
After  a  long  discussion,  in  full  assembly  of  both  apostles  and 
church-ofiicers,  Peter  arose  in  the  midst  of  the  debate,  taking  the 
superiority  to  which  his  peculiar  cormnission  and  his  long  prece- 
dence among  them  entitled  him,  and  in  a  tone  of  dignified  decision 


252 


LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


addressed  them.  He  reminded  them,  in  the  first  place,  of  that  un- 
questionable call  by  which  God  had  chosen  him  from  among  all 
the  apostles,  to  proclaim  to  the  heathen  the  word  of  the  gospel, 
and  of  that  solemn  sign  by  which  God  had  attested  the  complete- 
ness of  their  conversion,  knowing,  as  he  did,  the  hearts  of  all  his 
creatures.  The  signs  of  the  Holy  Spirit  having  been  imparted  to 
the  heathen  converts  with  the  same  perfection  of  regenerating 
influence  that  had  been  manifested  in  those  of  the  Jewish  faith 
who  had  believed,  it  was  manifestly  challenging  the  testimony  ot 
God  himself,  to  try  to  put  on  them  the  irksome  yoke  of  the  tedious 
Mosaic  ritual,  a  yoke  which  not  even  the  Jewish  disciples,  nor  their 
fathers  before  them,  had  been  able  to  bear  in  all  the  appointed 
strictness  of  its  observances ;  and  much  less,  then,  could  they 
expect  a  burden  so  intolerable,  to  be  supported  by  those  to  whom 
it  had  none  of  the  sanctions  of  national  and  educational  prejudice, 
which  so  much  assisted  its  dominion  over  the  feelings  of  the  Jews. 
And  all  the  disciples,  even  those  of  the  Jewish  race,  must  be  per- 
fectly satisfied  that  their  whole  reliance  for  salvation  should  be, 
not  on  any  legal  conformity,  but  on  that  common  favor  of  their 
Lord,  Jesus  Christ,  in  which  the  Gentile  converts  also  trusted. 

Chosen  him.  (Acts  xv.  7.) — This  passage  has  been  the  subject  of  much  discussion, 
but  I  have  given  a  free  translation  which  disagrees  with  no  one  of  the  views  of  its 
literal  force.  The  fairest  opinion  of  the  matter  is,  that  the  expression  i^cU^aro  h  hjiXv, 
{exelexato  en  hemin,)  is  a  Hebraism.  (See  Vorstius  and  others  quoted  by  Bloom- 
field.) 

Challenge  the  testimony  of  God. — This  is  the  substance  of  Kumoel's  ideas  of  the 
force  of  this  passage,  (Acts  xv.  10,)  mipd^eTC  tov  Qedu,  (peirdzete  ton  Theon.)  His 
words  are — "  Tentare  Deum  dicuntur,  qui  veritatem,  omnipotentiam,  omniscientiam, 
etc.  Dei  in  dubium  vocare,  vel  nova  divinae  potentiae  ac  voluntatis  documenta  de- 
siderant,  adeoque  Deo  obnituntur." — "  Those  are  said  to  tempt  God  who  call  in  ques- 
tion God's  truth,  omnipotence,  omniscience,  &c.,  or  demand  new  evidence  of  the 
divine  power  or  will,  and  thus  strive  against  God."  He  quotes  Pott  and  Schleusner 
in  support  of  this  view  of  the  passage.  Rosenmiiller  and  Bloomfield  take  the  same 
view,  as  well  as  many  others  quoted  by  the  latter  and  by  Poole.  Bloomfield  is  very 
full  on  the  whole  of  Peter's  speech,  and  on  all  the  discussion,  with  the  occasions 
of  it. 

This  logically  clear  statement  of  the  whole  difficulty,  sup^wrted 
by  the  decisive  authority  of  the  chief  of  the  apostles,  most  eflfect- 
ually  hushed  all  discussion  at  once ;  and  the  whole  assembly  kept 
silence,  while  Paul  and  Barnabas  recounted  the  extent  and  success 
of  their  labors.  After  they  had  finished,  James,  as  the  leader  of 
the  Mosaic  faction,  arose  and  expressed  his  own  perfect  acquies- 
cence in  the  decision  of  Simon  Peter,  and  proposed  an  arrange- 
ment for  a  dispensation  in  favor  of  the  Gentile  converts,  perfectly 
satisfactory  to  all.  This  conclusion,  establishing  the  correctness  of 
tlie  tolerant  and  accommodating  views  of  the  chief  apostle,  ended 


Peter's  apostleship.  253 

the  business  in  a  prudent  manner,  the  details  of  which  will  be 
given  in  the  lives  of  those  more  immediately  concerned  in  the  re- 
sults. 

Peter's  visit  to  antioch. 

The  historian  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  after  the  narration 
of  the  preceding  occurrence,  makes  no  farther  allusion  to  Peter : 
devoting  himself  wholly  to  the  account  of  the  far  more  extensive 
labors  of  Paul  and  his  companions,  so  that  for  the  remaining  re- 
cords of  Peter's  life,  reference  must  be  had  to  other  sources. 
These  sources,  however,  are  but  few,  £ind  the  results  of  inquiries 
into  them  must  be  very  brief. 

From  some  passages  in  the  first  part  of  Paul's  epistle  to  the 
Galatians,  in  which  he  gives  an  account  of  his  previous  inter- 
course with  the  twelve  apostles,  having  mentioned  his  own  visit 
to  Jerusalem  and  its  results,  as  just  described  above,  he  speaks  of 
Peter  as  coming  down  to  Antioch,  soon  after,  where  his  conduct, 
in  some  particulars,  was  such  as  to  meet  the  very  decided  repre- 
hension of  Paul.  On  his  first  arrival  in  that  Gentile  city,  Peter, 
in  accordance  with  the  liberal  views  taught  him  by  the  revelation 
at  Joppa  and  Caesarea,  mingled,  without  scruple,  among  all  classes 
of  believers  in  Christ,  claiming  their  hospitahties  and  all  the 
pleasures  of  social  intercourse,  making  no  distinction  between 
those  of  Jewish  and  of  heathen  origin.  But  in  a  short  time,  a 
company  of  persons  came  down  from  Jerusalem,  sent  particularly 
by  James,  no  doubt  with  a  reference  to  some  especial  observations 
on  the  behavior  of  the  chief  apostle,  to  see  how  it  accorded  with 
the  Jerusalem  standard  of  demeanor  towards  those,  whom,  by  the 
Mosaic  law,  he  must  consider  improper  persons  for  the  familiar 
intercourse  of  a  Jew.  Peter,  probably  knowing  that  they  were 
disposed  to  notice  his  conduct  critically  on  these  matters  of  cere- 
monial punctilio,  prudently  determined  to  quiet  these  censors  by 
avoiding  all  occasion  for  any  collision  with  their  prejudices.  Be- 
fore their  arrival,  he  had  mingled  freely  with  the  Grecian  and 
Syrian  members  of  the  Christian  community,  eating  with  them, 
and  conforming  to  their  customs  as  far  as  was  convenient  for  un 
restrained  social  intercourse.  But  he  now  withdrew  himself  from 
their  society,  and  kept  himself  much  more  retired  than  when  free 
from  critical  observation.  The  sharp-eyed  Paul,  on  noticing  this 
sudden  change  in  Peter's  habits,  immediately  attacked  him  with 
his  characteristic  boldness,  charging  him  with  unworthy  dissimu- 


254  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

lation,  in  thus  accommodating  his  behavior  to  the  whims  of  these 
sticklers  for  Judaical  strictness  of  manners.  The  common  sup- 
position has  been,  that  Peter  was  here  wholly  in  the  wrong,  and 
Paul  wholly  in  the  right :  a  conclusion  by  no  means  justified  by 
what  is  known  of  the  facts,  and  of  the  characters  of  the  persons 
concerned.  Peter  was  a  much  older  man  than  Paul,  and  much 
more  disposed,  by  his  cooler  blood,  to  prudent  and  careful  measures. 
His  long  personal  intercourse  with  Jesus  himself,  also  gave  him  a 
great  advantage  over  Paul,  in  judging  of  what  would  be  the  con- 
duct in  such  a  case  most  conformable  to  the  spirit  of  his  divine 
Master ;  nor  was  his  behavior  marked  by  any  thing  discordant 
with  real  honesty.  The  precept  of  Christ  was — "  Be  wise  as  ser- 
pents ;"  and  a  mere  desire  to  avoid  offending  an  over-scrupulous 
brother  in  a  trifling  matter,  implied  no  more  wariness  than  that 
divine  maxim  inculcated,  and  was,  moreover,  in  the  spirit  of  what 
Paul  himself  enjoined  in  very  similar  cases,  in  advising  to  avoid 
"  offending  a  brother  by  eating  meat  which  had  been  offered  in 
sacrifice  to  idols."  There  is  no  scriptural  authority  to  favor  the 
opinion  that  Peter  ever  acknowledged  he  was  wrong ;  for  all  that 
Paul  says  is — "  I  rebuked  him," — but  he  does  not  say  what  effect 
it  had  on  one  who  was  an  older  and  a  wiser  man  than  his  reprover, 
and  quite  as  likely  to  be  guided  by  the  Spirit  of  Truth  ;  nor  is  it  wise 
or  just  for  presuming  moderns  to  condemn  Peter  in  this  matter 
without  a  hearing:.  The  decision  which  seems  safest  to  the  ra- 
tional  defender  of  Peter  is,  that  he  had  good  reasons  for  his  own 
conduct,  which  he  doubtless  was  not  slow  to  give  his  youthful 
reprover ;  and  his  answer  might,  if  recorded,  have  thrown  much 
new  light  on  this  controversy.  It  is  probable,  certainly,  that  Peter 
had  something  to  say  for  himself;  since  it  is  quite  discordant  with 
all  common  ideas,  to  suppose  that  a  great  apostle  would,  in  the 
face  of  those  who  looked  up  to  him  as  a  source  of  eternal  truth, 
act  a  part  which  implied  an  unjustifiable  practical  falsehood.  After 
all,  the  difference  seems  to  have  been  on  a  point  of  very  trifling 
importance,  connected  merely  with  the  ceremonials  of  familiar  in- 
tercourse, between  individuals  of  nations  widely  different  in  man- 
ners, habits,  prejudices,  and  the  whole  tenor  of  their  feelings,  as 
far  as  country,  language,  and  education  would  affect  them ;  and 
a  fair  consideration  of  the  whole  difficulty,  by  modern  ethical 
standards,  will  do  much  to  justify  Peter  in  a  course  designed  to 
avoid  unnecessary  occasions  of  quarrel,  until  the  slow  operations 
of  time  should  have  worn  away  all  these   national    prejudices. 


.PETERS  APOSTLESHIP.  255 

— the  rigid  sticklers  quietly  accommodating  themselves  to  the 
neglect  of  ceremonies,  which  experience  would  prove  perfectly 
impracticable  among  those  professing  the  free  faith  of  Christ. 

Except  this  fact  thus  incidentally  derived  from  Paul's  epistle, 
not  one  circumstance  of  Peter's  residence  in  Antioch  has  been  re- 
corded, or  in  any  way  brought  to  the  knowledge  of  later  times. 
The  only  reasonable  inference,  however,  from  the  statements  of 
Paul  is — that  this  was  a  mere  visit  to  the  capital  of  Syria,  and  not 
a  prolonged  residence  in  it.     His  object  was  probably  to  satisfy 
himself,  personally,  as  to  the  condition  of  the  new  church  which 
had  there  sprung  up  and  grown  to  a  flourishing  prosperity  under 
circumstances  so  peculiar.     The  doctrines  of  the  faith  of  Jesus 
had  there  been  presented  under  new  forms,  to  a  new  class  of  con- 
verts, with  new  exemptions  from  religious  ceremonials,  and  by  a 
set  of  teachers  who  were  wholly  without  the  advantage  of  the 
personal  instructions  of  Jesus.     Peter  was  entitled,  moreover,  to 
a  special  interest  in  the  prosperity  and  spiritual  soundness  of  the 
Syrian  churches,  from  the  circumstance  that  in  the  grand  consul- 
tation held  by  the  apostles,  on  the  question  of  enforcing  Mosaical 
observances   among  the  Gentile   converts,  he   had   taken  strong 
ground  in  favor  of  affording  liberal  indulgences  to  them  in  mere 
ceremonials,  except  so  far  as  breaches  of  Judaical  purity  might  be 
connected  with  practical  morality.     The  maintenance  of  a  blame- 
less moral  standard  among  the  Syrian  Christians  was  therefore 
highly  important  to  the  support  and  permanent  adoption  of  the 
truly  catholic  and  accommodating  principles  advanced  by  Peter, 
in  the  noble  speech  by  which  he  decided  the  question  at  the  Jeru- 
salem dispute.     To  assure  himself  of  this  moral  soundness  among 
the  brethren  at  Antioch,  and   to  assure   them  still  farther  of  the 
perfect  simplicity  of  the  trut?i  as  it  was  in  Jesus,  and  of  the  ac- 
commodating tolerance  extended  by  the  free  spirit  of  the  gospel  to 
its  adopted  and  adopting  children — must  therefore  have  been  among 
the  main  motives  of  tliis  apostolic  visit  of  the  great  chief  to  An- 
tioch. 

Here  would  be  the  place  for  introducing  the  somewhat  amusing  details  of  the  ficti- 
tious narrative  given  by  the  Romish  fable-mongers,  of  the  history  of  Peter's  residence 
at  Antioch ;  but  the  ultimate  results  of  such  a  fabulous  conceit  would  hardly  reward 
the  labor  and  expense  of  transcription ;  more  especially  since  as  many  specimens  of 
these  inventions  have  been  given  as  the  claims  of  historical  truth  and  other  more 
valuable  matter  will  allow  within  the  defined  limits  of  this  work.  It  is  worth  while 
just  to  state,  however,  that  the  common  fable  represents  Peter  as  residing  for  seven 
years  at  Antioch.  after  having  there  founded  the  Antiochene  church,  over  which  he 
was  supposed  to  nave  presided  in  the  episcopal  character  during  all  this  period.    It 


256  LIVES   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

will,  however,  be  observed  at  once,  that  the  idea  of  his  founding  the  church  of  An- 
tioch  is  wholly  inconsistent  with  the  view  above  taken  of  the  order  of  events.  I 
have  considered  Peter's  visit  to  Antioch  as  occurring  after  his  escape  from  the  prison 
of  Herod  Agrippa,  and  also  after  his  return  from  those  regions  ot  Arabia  and  Par- 
thia,  in  which  I  found  reason  to  fix  his  probable  place  of  refuge  from  Roman  and 
Jewish  persecution,  until  the  death  of  his  royal  oppressor  had  again  made  the  pro- 
vinces of  the  Roman  empire  safe  for  the  chief  apo,  tie  of  Jesus.  Other  writers,  how- 
ever, Protestant  as  well  as  Papist,  have  seen  fit  to  arrange  this  Syrian  journey  before 
his  imprisonment  by  Herod  Agrippa,  and  make  it  a  part  of  that  apostolic  survey  (re- 
corded in  Acts  viii.  32,  &c.)  in  which  he  visited  Lydda,  Joppa,  and  Caesarea,  as  well 
as  Samaria.  To  this  supposition  it  is  enough  to  reply,  that  the  profound  silence  of 
Luke,  as  to  any  such  remarkable  extension  of  this  journey,  is  of  itself  strong  proof 
against  the  probabilities  of  such  a  long  tour.  Luke  is  quite  precise  about  what  seem 
to  have  been  the  important  incidents  of  this  survey ;  and  it  seems  palpable  that  if  it 
had  been  extended  north  of  Samaria,  or,  at  any  rate,  beyond  the  bounds  of  Palestine, 
such  a  grand  incident  in  the  apostolic  course  could  not  have  been  thus  overlooked  or 
suppressed  by  the  otherwise  faithful  historian  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  The  no- 
tion of  a  seven  years'  residence  in  Antioch  during  this  absence  from  Jerusalem,  is 
also  discountenanced  by  the  manner  in  which  the  time  seems  to  be  alluded  to  by 
Luke.  (Acts  ix.,  x.,  xi.)  Others,  maintaining  the  general  notion  that  Peter  visited 
Antioch  before  his  persecution  by  Agrippa,  have  more  reasonably  supposed  that  it 
might  liave  happened  between  the  conclusion  of  the  apostolic  survey  of  northern  and 
western  Palestine,  and  the  imprisonment  above  mentioned.  But  the  account  of  the 
original,  primary  preaching  of  the  gospel  and  founding  of  the  church  in  Antioch, 
(given  in  Acts  xi.  19 — 22,)  and  the  subsequent  statements  of  what  was  evidently 
the  very  first  apostolic  communication  to  the  Syrian  and  other  Gentile  churches, 
(that  by  Barnabas,  Acts  xi.  22,  23,)  are  wholly  at  war  with  both,  and  all  the  supposi- 
tions that  place  Peter's  visit  to  Antioch  anterior  to  the  complete  foundation  and  sub- 
sequent confirmation  of  the  church  there  by  Barnabas  and  Saul. 

The  date  of  this  visit  according  to  the  arrangement  here  made  of  the  facts,  cannot 
be  fixed  from  the  events  of  Peter's  life  with  any  definiteness.  The  closest  approxi- 
mation that  can  be  made  to  the  time  by  such  inferences,  is — that  it  must  have  occur- 
red between  A.  D.  42,  (the  year  of  Peter's  escape,  according  to  Pagi's  corrections 
of  Baronius's  chronology,)  and  A.  D.  65,  which  is  the  next  date  that  can  be  fixed  in 
Peter's  life.  (Vide  infra.)  But  though  the  inferences  to  be  drawn  from  the  known 
dates  of  Peter's  life,  leave  us  with  a  range  of  twenty  years  for  the  period  of  this  oc- 
currence, yet  from  its  connexioa  with  events  in  the  life  of  Paul,  a  much  closer  ap- 
proximation can  be  made.  These  means  will  fix  it  in  the  year  48  or  49.  Cave  (Hist, 
Lit.  p.  4)  says  A.  D.  48;  Pearson  (Annal.  Paulin.)  says  A.  D.  50;  Baillet  ("Vies  des 
Saints)  gives  it  A.  D.  5L  (A  fuller  discussion  of  the  minuter  proofs  of  this  date  will 
be  needed  in  the  corresponding  passage  of  Paul's  life.)  Baronius,  however,  taking 
for  granted  the  notion  of  Peter's  having  visited  Antioch  before  the  apostolic  consulta- 
tion at  Jerusalem,  boldly  dates  it  in  A.  D.  39,  (corrected  by  Pagi  to  A.  D.  37.)  Nata- 
lis  Alexander  gives  A.  D.  38,  following  \n  the  same  error. 

Besides  the  great  names  quoted  above  ii\  support  of  the  arrangement  of  facts  and 
dates  here  adopted,  the  valuable  authority  cS.  Louis  Cappel  and  Witsius  may  be  men- 
tioned. To  these  I  may  safely  add,  in  the  general  way,  the  great  mass  of  modern 
commentators  and  critics  who  have  alluded  to  \his  point.  Indeed  the  argument  above 
drawn  from  the  order  of  narration  in  Acts,  is  enough, — even  without  Paul's  direct 
statement,  (in  Galatians  ii.  11,  12,)  that  this  visit  to  Antioch  actually  did  occur  after 
the  consultation  at  Jerusalem,  (Galat.  ii.  4 — 10,)— lo  set  the  point  beyond  all  contest. 

HIS  RETURN  EASTWARD. 

Peter's  stay  in  Syria  was  undoubtedly  short.  The  object  of  his 
visit  to  Antioch  was  probably  temporary  ;  and  after  satisfying  him- 
self of  the  condition  of  the  church  there,  whose  truly  catholic 
principles  of  communion  had  been  adopted  in  consequence  of  his 
own  earnest  argument  in  their  behalf,  he  would  see  comparatively 
little  occasion  for  prolonging  his  efforts  in  a  field  for  which  other 


Peter's  apostleship.  257 

^borers  especially  fitted,  aiid  naturally  endowed  with  faculties  for 
instructing  and  converting  Greeks,  above  his  highest  gifts,  had 
been  peculiarly  consecrated  by  the  original  apostles,  and  by  the 
Holy  Spirit.  He  must  therefore  have  soon  returned  to  Jerusalem. 
But  in  that  city,  the  occasions  and  the  motives  of  apostolic  labor 
were  each  moment  becoming  fewer.  The  fortunes  of  the  Jewish 
nation  were  now  on  the  decline ;  the  better  days  of  its  last  age 
were  over.  The  moderate  and  gentle  rule  of  Petronius  and  the 
best  of  the  Herodian  princes  had  been  displaced  by  the  harsh  and 
merciless  visitations  of  the  worst  of  imperial  minions,  whose  ava- 
ricious exactions  and  wanton  abuses  were  each  day  goading  the 
sullen  rage  of  the  people  to  the  point  of  desperation.  The  moral 
condition  of  a  nation  subjected  to  the  operation  of  these  malignant 
agencies,  could  not  be  such  as  to  encourage  the  attempt  to  advance 
among  them  the  mild  principles  of  universal  peace  and  charity. 
Under  these  circumstances,  the  apostles,  doubly  forewarned  of 
coming  evils,  by  the  signs  of  the  times,  and  by  the  prophecy  of 
their  Lord,  must  have  been  so  far  influenced  by  the  increasing  and 
threatening  commotions  that  were  gathering  around  them  in  Pa- 
lestine, as  to  turn  their  eyes  to  new  fields  of  labor.  During  the 
administrations  of  Fadus,  Alexander,  Cumanus,  Felix,  Festus, 
Albinus,  and  Floras,  the  just  causes  of  national  indignation  went 
on  steadily  multiplying,  each  new  governor  adding  some  new  oc- 
casion of  excitement,  till  at  last  it  became  manifest  that  the  bounds 
of  human  endurance  must  soon  be  passed,  and  that  the  wrath  of 
a  nation  thus  roused  would  burst  forth  with  a  fury  and  a  madness 
that  would  insure  their  own  ruin  and  the  utter  desolation  of  their 
land,  by  a  conflict  with  a  power  whose  energies,  in  that  region, 
were  then  scarcely  short  of  earthly  omnipotence.  Sedition  fol- 
lowed sedition,  through  a  period  of  many  years,  before  the  actual 
opening  of  the  last  fatal  struggle,  serving  as  a  premonition  so 
marked,  that  the  few  who  remained  free  from  the  national  fanati- 
cism could  not  have  avoided  the  conviction  of  the  certainty  of 
coming  national  ruin. 

Where  then  should  the  peaceful  few  find  rest  from  the  horrors 
and  tumults,  whose  very  beginnings  they  now  felt  ?  Where  should 
the  apostles  of  the  faith  of  Christ  find  hearers,  whose  language, 
sympathies,  and  religion,  would  present  the  most  natural  motives 
and  facilities  for  the  inculcation  of  their  peaceful  doctrines  ?  The 
whole  of  the  farther  east  was  already  thronged  with  a  Jewish 
population, — peaceful  emigrants  and  refiigees  from  the  various 


258  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

local  disturbances  that  had  so  long  agitated  their  father-land ;  and 
thither  the  missionary  enterprise  of  the  original  Galilean  apos- 
tles must  have  been  most  readily  directed, — debarred  as  they  were 
from  Hellenic  and  Roman  fields,  by  natural  and  national  disabili- 
ties, as  well  as  by  the  pre-occupation  of  that  department  by  the 
apostles  who  were  peculiarly  devoted  to  the  gospel  of  the  uncircum- 
cision.  But,  as  Paul  testifies  to  the  Galatians,  "  to  Peter  was  com- 
mitted the  gospel  of  the  circumcision."  The  subjects  of  his 
ministry  were  therefore  to  be  sought  and  found  in  that  part  of  the 
world  to  which  Hellenic  colonization  and  Roman  conquest  had  not 
yet  been  extended,  so  far  as  to  influence  them  to  the  adoption 
of  Grecian  language,  or  of  Latin  civil  institutions  ;  but,  still  in  the 
enjoyment  of  Oriental  customs,  language,  and  independence,  they 
presented  the  fairest  subjects  for  a  revelation  more  especially  ad- 
dressed, in  its  original  form,  to  those  of  HebreXv  race, 

HIS  residence  in  BABYLON. 

The  eastern  bounds  of  the  Roman  empire  were  seldom  well 
defined,  varying  with  the  results  of  doubtful  warfare  waged  with 
the  dwellers  of  the  wilds  and  deserts  which  spread  from  the  west- 
ern provinces  of  Palestine  to  the  verge  of  ancient  Chaldea.  "  The 
great  river  Euphrates,"  which,  in  the  northern  part  of  its  course, 
makes  a  vast  western  circuit  of  many  hundred  miles,  coming 
within  the  long-established  boundaries  of  the  Roman  empire,  far- 
ther south  bends  eastward,  retreating  within  regions  that  had  owned 
only  an  oriental  sway.  The  lands  thus  cut  off  from  the  incur- 
sions of  Roman  conquest  were  remarkable  as  the  early  seat  of 
Oriental  empire,  which  springing  up  around  the  southern  Eu- 
phrates, where  it  approaches  the  Tigris,  long  made  these  the  centre 
of  a  sway  which  ruled  from  the  Mediterranean  to  the  Indus. 
Passing  from  Assyrian  to  Chaldean,  from  Chaldean  to  Mede  and 
Persian,  and  from  Persian  to  Macedonian,  thenceforth  the  regions 
of  the  farther  east,  with  great  Babylon  as  a  centre  of  dominion, 
remained  subject  only  to  a  native  empire.  The  feeble  and  failing 
sway  of  the  Seleucid  was  soon  swept  from  these  regions  by  the 
rise  and  spread  of  the  Parthian  power,  which  originating  in  north- 
ern Persia,  soon  obtained  over  all  the  original  Median  empire  a 
dominion  which  western  conquerors  for  centuries  vainly  endeavored 
to  uproot.  Babylon,  under  the  Parthians,  ceased  indeed  to  be  the 
capital  of  the  east ;  but  though  fallen  from  so  much  of  its  ancient 
splendor  and  power,  still  continued  a  city  of  great  wealth  and 


Peter's  apostleship.  259 

population.  Its  inhabitants  were  of  the  heterogeneous  character, 
that  naturally  resulted  from  the  various  conquests  to  which  it  had 
been  subjected, — Orientals  and  Grecians  making  two  great  divi- 
sions of  the  population,  with  feelings  and  interests  totally  differ- 
ent. Among  these  the  Jews  held  a  place  quite  distinct,  holding 
themselves  equally  separate  from  eastern  and  from  western  Gen- 
tiles, being  there  and  then,  as  every  where  in  all  ages,  a  peculiar 
people,  forming,  wherever  they  went,  a  nation  within  a  nation. 
Their  numbers  in  the  city  of  Babylon  and  the  province  around 
had,  from  various  causes,  been  increased  to  such  a  degree,  that 
they  constituted  a  very  large  portion  of  the  population ;  and  here 
they  dwelt  under  the  Parthian  rule,  respected  and  thriving ;  and 
though  not  enjoying  the  perfect  civil  security  and  advanced  refine- 
ment of  the  best  provinces  of  the  Roman  empire,  still  they  were 
in  a  peaceful  and  prosperous  condition,  far  preferable  to  the  agi- 
tated and  dangerous  state  of  Palestine  at  this  time. 

For  the  best  illustration  of  the  condition,  character,  and  power  ot  the  Jewish  popu- 
lation of  Babylon  in  the  apostolic  age,  I  would  refer  the  curious  reader  to  the  roman- 
tic story  of  Asinaeus  and  Anilaeus,  given  by  Josephus.  (Jewish  Antiquities,  XVIII. 
ix.  1—9.) 

These  circumstances  pointed  it  out  as  a  desirable  residence  for 
the  chief  apostle,  now  seeking  in  the  decline  of  the  Jewish  state,  and 
of  his  own  early  vigor,  for  a  peaceful  home  and  a  quiet  field  of  labor 
among  those  of  his  Hebrew  brethren,  who  were  not  so  carried  away 
with  national  fanaticism  as  to  forbid  the  hope  of  their  conversion  to 
the  faith  of  Jesus.  The  satisfactory  testimony  which  enables  the 
apostolic  historian  to  open  this  new  scene  of  apostolic  enterprise  to 
view,  is  found  in  a  passage  in  the  writings  of  Peter,  of  incontro- 
vertible authenticity.  His  first  epistle  contains  at  its  close,  a  general 
salutation  from  the  church  in  Babylon  to  the  Christians  of  Asia 
Minor,  to  whom  it  was  addressed.  From  this,  the  unquestioned  in- 
ference is  that  Peter  was  in  Babylon  when  he  wrote.  The  only 
point  mooted  is  whether  the  place  meant  by  this  name  was  Babylon 
on  the  Euphrates,  or  some  other  city  commonly  designated  by  that 
name.  The  most  irrational  conjecture  on  the  subject,  and  yet  the  one 
v/hich  has  found  most  supporters,  is  that  this  name  is  there  used 
in  a  spiritual  or  a  metaphorical  sense  for  Rome,  whose  conquests, 
wide  dominion,  idolatries,  and  tyranny  over  the  worshipers  of  the 
true  God,  were  considered  as  assimilating  it  to  the  ancient  capital 
of  the  eastern  world.  But,  in  reference  to  such  an  unparalleled 
instance  of  useless  allegory,  in  a  sober  message  from  one  church 
to  a  number  of  others,  serving  as  a  convenient  date  for  a  letter,  it 


260  LIVES   OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

should  be  remembered,  that  at  that  time  there  were  at  least  two 
distinct,  important  places,  bearing  the  name  of  Babylon, — so  well 
known  throughout  the  east,  that  the  simple  mention  of  the  name 
would  at  once  suggest  to  a  common  reader  one  of  these  as  the 
place  seriously  meant.  The  only  city,  of  course,  to  which  this 
passage  can  refer,  is  that  which  stood  on  the  site  of  the  ancient 
Chaldean  Babylon, — as  has  already  been  mentioned,  a  place  of 
great  resort  to  the  Jews,  and  finally  becoming  to  them,  after  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem,  a  great  city  of  refuge,  and  one  of  the 
three  great  capitals  of  the  Hebrew  faith,  sharing  only  with  Saphet 
and  Tiberias  the  honors  of  the  literary  and  religious  pre-eminence. 
Even  before  that,  however,  as  early  as  the  time  of  Peter,  it  was  a 
city  of  great  importance  and  interest  in  a  religious  point  of  view, 
offering  a  most  ample  and  desirable  field  for  the  labors  of  the  chief 
apostle,  now  advancing  in  years,  and  whose  whole  genius,  feelings, 
religious  education,  and  national  peculiarities,  qualified  him  as 
eminently  for  this  Oriental  scene  of  labor,  as  those  of  Paul  fitted 
him  for  the  triumphant  advancement  of  the  Christian  faith  among 
the  polished  and  energetic  races  of  the  mighty  west.  With  Peter 
went  also  others  of  the  apostolic  band.  He  himself  mentions 
Mark,  in  his  epistle,  as  with  him  at  that  time  ;  for  although  a  Hel- 
lenist by  birth,  education,  and  connexions,  Mark  seems  to  have 
been  on  such  terms  of  personal  intimacy  with  Peter,  as  to  deem  a 
personal  attendence  on  him,  in  his  later  years,  a  service  of  import- 
ance to  the  cause  of  Christ.  The  other  apostles  are  not  noticed  at 
all  in  the  epistle,  and  this  silence  is  a  good  reason  for  believing 
that  they  were  then  beyond  the  immediate  knowledge  of  Peter, 
scattered  through  various  eastern  regions,  in  their  missionary  work. 
Thus  the  most  respectable  remains  of  ancient  tradition  uniformly 
and  consistently  testify  ;  and  though  the  departure  of  some  of  them 
from  Jerusalem  was  probably  later  than  Peter's  journey  eastward, 
still,  it  is  as  well  established  as  any  fact  in  apostolic  history  unre- 
recorded  in  scripture  can  be,  that  the  surviving  Galilean  apostles, 
with  but  two  or  three  exceptions,  left  Judea  before  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem,  and  journeyed  eastward  in  the  route  of  most  Jewish 
refugees,  and  made  the  provinces  of  the  Parthian  empire,  and  the 
regions  east  of  them,  the  scenes  of  new  apostolic  enterprise  ;  and  if 
tradition  can  prove  any  thing,  it  will  justify  the  positive  assertion, 
that  the  great  majority  of  the  twelve  passed  the  later  years  of  their 
life  and  were  finally  entombed  east  of  the  Euphrates.  The  proofs 
will  be  given  in  their  individual  lives ;  but  it  is  enough,  for  the 


Peter's  apostleship.  261 

present,  to  observe,  that  the  testimony  to  this  general  fact  is  remark- 
ably distinct,  consistent,  and  conclusive,  forming  a  very  remarkable 
exception  to  the  character  which  such  evidences  generally  sustain, 
since  here,  without  any  fissignable  motive  for  perverting  truth,  the 
ancient  Christian  writers  very  uniformly  represent  the  original 
apostles  as  traveling  eastward,  beyond  those  regions  in  which 
these  writers  dwelt,  and  for  which  they  must  have  felt  disposed,  if 
possible,  to  claim  the  honors  of  original  apostolic  labor  and  conse- 
cration. 

Here,  then,  it  seems  reasonable  and  pleasant  to  imagine  that  in 
this  glorious  "clime  of  the  east," — away  from  the  bloody  strife 
between  tyranny  and  faction,  that  distracted  and  desolated  the 
once  blessed  land  of  Israel's  heritage,  during  the  brief  delay  of  its 
awfiil  doom, — among  the  scenes  of  that  ancient  captivity,  in  which 
the  mourning  sons  of  Zion  had  drawn  high  consolation  and  last- 
ing support  from  the  same  word  of  prophecy,  which  the  march  of 
time  in  its  soleirm  fulfilments  had  since  made  the  faithful  history 
of  God's  believing  people, — here  the  chief  apostle  calmly  passed 
the  slow  decline  of  liis  lengthened  years.      High   associations  of 
historical  aiid  religious  interest  gave  all  around  him  a  holy  char- 
acter.    He  sat  amid  the  ruins  of  empires,  the  scattered  wrecks  of 
ages, — still  in  their  dreary  desolation  attesting  the  surety  of  the 
word  of  God.     From  the  lonely  waste,  mounded  with  the  dust  of 
twenty-three  centuries,  came  the  solemn  witness  of  the  truth  of 
the  Hebrew  seers,  who  sung,  over  the  highest  glories  of  that  plain 
in  its  brightest  days,  the  long-foredoomed  ruin  that  at  last  over- 
swept  it  with  such  blighting  desolation.     Here,  mighty  visions  of 
the  destiny  of  worlds,  the  rise  and  fall  of  empire,  rose  on  the  view 
of  Daniel  and  Ezekiel,  whose  prophetic  scope,  on  this  vast  stage 
of  dominion,  expanded  far  beyond  the  narrow  limits  that  bounded 
all  the  future  in  the  eyes  of  the  sublimest  of  those  prophets  whose 
whole  ideas  of  what  was  great  were  taken  from  the  little  world  of 
Palestine.     Like  them,  too,  the  apostolic  chief  lifted  his  aged  eyes 
above  the  paltry  commotions  and  troubles  of  his  own  land  and 
times,  and  glanced  far  over  all,  to  the  scenes  of  distant  ages, — to 
the  broad  view  of  the  spiritual  consummation  of  events, — to  the 
final  triumphs  of  a  true  and  pure  faith, — to  the  achievment  of  the 
world's  destiny. 

Babylon. — The  great  Sir  John  David  Michaelis  enters  with  the  most  satisfactory 
fullness  into  the  discussion  of  this  locality ; — with  more  ftillness,  indeed,  than  my 
crowded  limits  will  allow  me  to  do  justice  to ;  so  that  I  must  refer  my  reader  to  his 
Introduction  to  the  N.  T.,  (chap,  xxvii.  §  4,  5,)  where  ample  statements  may  be  fouad 


262  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

by  those  who  wish  lo  satisfy  themselves  of  the  justice  of  my  conclusion  about  the 
place  from  which  this  epistle  was  wrillen.  He  very  ably  exposes  the  extraordinary 
absurdity  of  the  opinion  that  this  date  was  given  in  a  mystical  sense,  at  a  time  when 
the  ancient  Babylon,  on  the  Euphrates,  was  still  in  existence,  as  well  as  a  city  on  the 
Tigris,  Seleucia,  to  which  the  name  of  modern  Babylon  was  given.  And  he  might 
have  added,  that  there  was  still  another  of  this  name  in  Egypt,  not  far  from  the  great 
Memphis,  which  has,  by  Pearson  and  others,  been  earnestly  defended  as  the  Babylon 
from  which  Peter  wrote.  Michaelis  observes,  that  through  some  mistake  it  has  been 
supposed,  that  the  ancient  Babylon,  in  the  time  of  Peter,  was  no  longer  in  being;  and 
it  is  true  that  in  comparison  with  its  original  splendor,  it  might  be  called,  even  in  the 
first  century,  a  desolated  city :  yet  it  was  not  wholly  a  heap  of  ruins,  nor  destitute  of 
inhabitants.  This  appears  from  the  account  which  Strabo,  who  lived  in  the  lime  of 
Tiberius,  has  given  of  it.  This  great  geographer  compares  Babylon  to  Seleucia, 
saying — "  At  present,  Babylon  is  not  so  great  as  Seleucia,"  which  was  then  the  capi- 
tal of  the  Parthian  empire,  and,  according  to  Pliny,  contained  six  hundred  thousand 
inhabitants.  The  acute  Michaelis  humorously  remarks,  that  "  to  conclude  that  Ba- 
bylon, whence  Peter  dates  his  epistle,  could  not  have  been  the  ancient  Babylon, 
because  this  city  was  in  a  state  oi  decay,  and  thence  to  argue  that  Peter  used  the 
word  mystically,  to  denote  Rome,  is  about  the  same  a§  if,  on  the  receipt  of  a  letter 
dated  from  Ghent  or  Antwerp,  in  which  mention  was  made  of  a  Christian  community 
there,  I  concluded  that  because  these  cities  are  no  longer  what  they  were  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  the  writer  of  the  epistle  meant  a  spiritual  Ghent  or  Antwerp,  and  that 
the  epistle  was  really  written  from  Amsterdam."  And  in  the  next  section  ne  gives  a 
similar  illustration  of  this  amusing  absurdity,  equally  apt  and  happy,  drawn  in  the 
same  manner  from  modern  places  about  him,  (for  Gottingen  was  the  residence  of  the 
immortal  professor.)  "  The  plain  language  of  epistolary  writing  does  not  admit  of 
figures  of  poetry ;  and  though  it  would  be  very  allowable  in  a  poem,  written  in  honor 
of  Gottingen,  to  style  it  another  Athens,  yet  if  a  professor  of  this  university  should, 
in  a  letter  written  from  Gottingen,  date  it  Athens,  it  would  be  a  greater  piece  of 
pedantry  than  was  ever  yet  laid  to  the  charge  of  the  learned.  In  like  manner,  though 
a  figurative  use  of  the  word  Babylon  is  not  unsuitable  to  the  animated  and  poetical 
language  of  the  Apocalypse,  yet  in  a  plain  and  unadorned  epistle,  Peter  would  hardly 
have  called  the  place  whence  he  wrote,  by  any  other  appellation  than  that  which  lite- 
rally and  properly  belonged  to  it."  (Michaelis.  Int.  N.  T.,  Marsh's  translation,  chap- 
ter xxvii.  §  4,  5.) 

The  most  zealous  defender  of  this  mere  popish  notion  of  a  mystical  Babylon,  is, 
alas !  a  Protestant.  The  best  argument  ever  made  out  in  its  defense,  is  that  by  Lard- 
ner,  who,  in  his  account  of  Peter's  epistles,  (Hist,  of  Apost.  and  Evang.  chap.  xix. 
§  3,)  does  his  utmost  to  maintain  the  mystical  sense,  ancl  may  be  well  referied  to  a.s 
giving  the  best  possible  defense  of  this  view.  But  the  course  of  Lardner's  great 
work  having  led  him,  on  all  occasions,  to  make  the  most  of  the  testimonies  of  the 
Fathers,  in  connexion  with  the  establishment  of  the  credibility  of  the  gospel  history, 
he  seems  to  have  been  unable  to  shake  off  this  reverence  of  every  thing  which  came 
on  authority  as  old  as  Augustin;  and  his  critical  judgment  on  the  traditionary  his- 
tory of  Christianity  is  therefore  worth  very  little.  Any  one  who  wishes  to  see  all  his 
truly  elaborate  and  learned  arguments  fairly  met,  may  find  this  done  by  a  mind  olfar 
greater  originality,  critical  acuteness,  and  Biblical  knowledge,  (if  not  equal  in  ac- 
quaintance with  the  Fathers,)  and  by  a  far  sounder  judgment,  in  Michaelis,  as  above 
quoted,  who  has  put  an  end  to  all  dispute  on  these  points,  by  his  presentation  of  the 
truth.  So  well  settled  is  this  ground  now,  that  we  find  in  the  theology  of  Romish 
writers  most  satisfactory  refutations  of  an  error,  so  convenient  for  the  support  of 
Romish  supremacy.  The  learned  Hug  (pronounced  very  nearly  like  '^Hookh;"v 
sounded  as  in  bwll,  and  g  strongly  aspirated)  may  here  be  referred  to  for  the  latest 
defense  of  the  common-sense  view.  (Introd.  Vol.  II.  §  165.)  In  answer  to  the  notion 
of  an  Esryplian  Babylon,  he  gives  us  help  not  to  be  found  in  Michaelis,  who  makes 
no  mention  of  this  view.  Lardner  also  quotes  from  Strabo  what  sufficiently  shows, 
that  this  Babylon  was  no  town  of  importance,  but  a  mere  military  station  for  one  of 
the  three  Roman  legions  which  guarded  Egypt. 

The  only  other  place  that  could  in  any  way  be  proposed  as  the  Babylon  of  Peter, 
is  Seleucia  on  the  Tigris;  but  Michaelis  has  abimdantly  shown,  that  though  in  poeti- 
cal usage  in  that  age,  and  in  common  usage  afterwards,  this  city  was  called  Babylon, 
vet  in  Peter's  time,  grave  prose  statements  would  imply  the  ancient  city,  and  not  this. 
He  also  quotes  a  highly  illustrative  passage  from  Josephus,  in  defense  of  his  views; 
and  which  is  of  so  much  the  more  importance,  because  Josephus  was  a  historian  who 


Peter's  apostlesiiip.  263 

lived  in  the  same  age  with  Peter,  and  the  passage  itself  relates  to  an  event  which 
took  place  thirty-six  years  before  the  Christian  era ;  namely,  "  the  delivery  of  Ilyr- 
canus,  the  Jewish  high  priest,  from  imprisonment,  with  permission  to  reside  in  Ba- 
bylon, where  there  was  a  considerable  number  of  Jews."  (Joseph.  Antiq.  XV.  ii.  2.) 
Josephus  adds,  that  "  both  tlie  Jews  in  Babylon  and  all  who  dwelt  in  that  country, 
respected  Hyrcanus  as  high  priest  and  king."  That  this  was  the  ancient  Babylon,  and 
not  Seleucia,  appears  from  the  fact,  that  wherever  else  he  mentions  the  latter  city,  he 
calls  it  Seleucia. 

Wetstein's  supposition  that  Peter  meant  the  province  of  Babylon,  being  suggested 
only  by  the  belief  that  the  ancient  Babylon  did  not  then  exist,  is,  of  course,  rendered 
entirely  imnecessary  by  the  proof  of  its  existence. 

Besides  the  great  names  mentioned  above,  as  authorities  for  the  view  which  I  have 
taken,  I  may  refer  also  to  Drusius,  Erasmus,  Gerhardus,  Gromarus,  Beza,  Vorstius, 
Mede,  Ligh'tfoot,  Basnage,  Beausobre,  and  even  Cave,  in  spite  of  his  love  of  Romish 
fables.     Dr.  Murdock  also  favors  this  view  in  his  MS.  Lectures. 

To  give  a  complete  account  of  all  the  views  of  the  passage  referring  to  Babylon, 
(1  Pet.  V.  13,)  I  should  also  mention  that  of  Pott,  (on  the  cath.  epist.,)  mentioned  by 
Hug.  This  is,  that  by  the  phrase  in  the  Greek,  >'/  h  BalSvXavi  awtK^cKrh,  is  meant  "  the 
woman  chosen  with  him  in  Babylon,"  that  is,  Peter's  wife;  as  if  he  wished  to  say — 
"  my  wife,  who  is  in  Babylon,  salutes  you ;"  and  Pott  concludes  that  the  apostle  him- 
self was  somewhere  else  at  the  time.  For  the  answer  to  this  notion,  I  refer  the  cri- 
tical to  Hug.  This  same  notion  had  been  bel'ore  advanced  by  Mill,  Wall,  and  Heu- 
mann.  and  refuted  by  Lardner.    (Supp.  xix.  5.) 

HIS  FIRST  EPISTLE. 

Inspired  by  such  associations  and  remembrances,  and  by  the  spirit 
of  simple  truth  and  sincerity,  Peter  wrote  his  first  epistle,  which  he 
directed  to  his  Jewish  brethren  in  several  sections  of  Asia  Minor, 
who  had  probably  been  brought  under  his  ministry  only  in  Jerusalem, 
on  their  visits  there  in  attendence  on  the  great  amiual  feasts,  to  enjoy 
which,  in  all  years,  as  in  that  of  the  Pentecost  on  which  the  Spirit 
was  outpoured,  they  came  up  to  the  Holy  city ;  for  there  is  no  j)rooJ 
whatever,  that  Peter  ever  visited  those  countries  to  which  he  sent 
this  letter.  The  character  of  the  evidence  offered,  has  been  already 
mentioned.  These  believers  in  Christ  had,  during  their  annual  visits 
to  Jerusalem  for  many  years,  been  in  the  habit  of  seeing  there  tliis 
venerable  apostolic  chief,  and  of  hearing  from  his  lips  the  gosjpel 
truth.  But  the  changes  of  events  having  made  it  necessary  for  him 
to  depart  from  Jerusalem  to  the  peaceful  lands  of  the  east,  the  annual ' 
visitors  of  the  Holy  city  from  the  west  no  longer  enjoyed  the  pre- 
sence and  the  spoken  words  of  this  their  greatest  teacher.  To  con- 
sole them  for  this  loss,  and  to  supply  that  spiritual  instruction  which 
seemed  most  needftil  to  them  in  their  immediate  circumstances,  he 
now  wrote  to  them  this  epistle ;  the  main  purport  of  which  seems 
to  be,  to  inspire  them  with  courage  and  consolation,  imder  some 
weight  of  general  sufferino-,  then  endured  by  them  or  impending 
over  them.  Indeed,  the  whole  scope  of  the  epistle  bears  most  mani- 
festly on  this  one  particular  point, — the  preparation  of  its  readers,  the 
Christian  communities  of  Asia  Minor,  for  heavy  sufferings.  It  is 
not,  to  be  sure,  without  many  moral  instructions,  valuable  in  a  mere 
general  bearing,  but  all  therein  given  have  a  peculiar  force  in  refer- 
ence to  the  solemn  preparation  for  the  endurance  of  calamities,  soon 
to  fall  on  them.     The  earnest  exhortations  which  it  contains,  urging 


264  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

them  to  maintain  a  pure  conscience,  to  refute  the  calumnies  of  time 
by  innocence, — to  show  respect  for  the  magistracy, — to  unite  in  so 
much  the  greater  love  and  fidelity, — with  many  others, — are  all  evi- 
dently intended  to  provide  them  with  the  virtues  which  would  sus- 
tain them  under  the  fearful  doom  then  threatening  them.  In  the  pur- 
suance of  the  same  great  design,  the  apostle  calls  their  attention  with 
peculiar  earnestness  to  the  bright  example  of  Jesus  Christ,  whose 
behavior  in  suffering  was  now  held  up  to  them  as  a  model  and  guide 
in  their  afflictions.  With  this  noble  pattern  m  view,  the  apostle  calls 
on  them  to  go  on  in  their  blameless  way,  in  spite  of  all  that  affliction 
might  throw  in  the  path  of  duty. 

No  proof  that  he  ever  visited  them. — The  learned  Hug,  truly  catholic  (but  not  pa- 
pistical) in  his  views  of  these  points,  though  connected  with  the  Roman  church,  has 
honestly  taken  his  stand  against  the  foolish  invention,  on  which  so  much  time  has 
been  spent  above.  He  says — "  Peter  had  not  seen  the  Asiatic  provinces ;  they  were 
situated  in  the  circuit  of  Paul's  department,  who  had  traveled  through  them,  in- 
structed them,  and  even  at  a  distance,  and  in  prison,  did  not  lose  sight  of  them.  (As 
witness  his  epistles  to  the  Galatians,  Ephesians,  and  Colossians,  all  which  are  com- 
prehended within  the  circle  to  which  Peter  wrote.)  He  was  acquainted  with  their 
mode  of  life,  foibles,  virtues,  and  imperfections, — their  whole  condition,  and  the 
manner  in  which  they  ought  to  be  treated."  The  learned  writer,  however,  does  not 
seem  to  have  fully  appreciated  Peter's  numerous  and  continual  opportunities  for  per- 
sonal communications  with  these  converts  at  Jerusalem.  In  the  brief  allusion  made 
in  Acts  ii.  9,  10,  to  the  foreign  Jews  visiting  Jervxsalem  at  the  Pentecost,  three  of  the 
very  countries  to  which  Peter  writes,  "  Cappadocia,  Pontus,  and  Asia,"  are  com- 
memorated with  other  neighboring  regions,  "  Phrygia  and  Pamphylia."  Hug  goes 
on,  however,  to  trace  several  striking  and  interesting  coincidences  between  this  epis- 
tle and  those  of  Paul  to  the  Ephesians,  to  the  Colossians,  and  to  Timothy,  all  which 
were  directed  to  this  region.  (Hug's  Introduction  to  N.  T.,  volume  II.  §  160,  Wait's 
translation.)  He  observes  that  "  Peter  is  so  far  from  denying  his  acquaintance  with 
the  epistles  of  Paul,  that  he  even  in  express  terms  refers  his  readers  to  these  compo- 
sitions of  his '  beloved  brother,'  (2  Peter  iii.  15,)  and  recommends  them  to  them."  Hug, 
also,  in  the  succeeding  section,  (§  161,)  points  out  some  still  more  remarkable  coin- 
cidences between  this  and  the  epistle  of  James,  which,  in  several  passages,  are  ex- 
actly uniform.  As  1  Pet.  i.  6,  7,  and  James  i.  2, 3,  4 : — 1  Pet.  i,  24.  and  James  i.  10 : — 
1  Pet.  V.  5,  6,  and  James  iv.  6 — 10. 

Asia. — It  must  be  understood  that  there  are  three  totally  distinct  applications  of  this 
name ;  and  without  a  remembrance  of  the  fact,  the  whole  subject  will  be  in  an  inextri- 
cable confusion.  In  modern  geography,  as  is  well  known,  it  is  applied  to  all  that 
part  of  the  eastern  continent  which  is  bounded  west  by  Europe  and  Africa,  and  south 
by  the  Indian  ocean.  It  is  also  applied  sometimes  under  the  limitation  of  "  Minor," 
or  "  Lesser,"  to  that  part  of  Great  Asia,  which  lies  between  the  Mediterranean  and 
the  Black  sea.  But  in  this  passage  it  is  not  used  in  either  of  the.se  extended  senses. 
It  is  confined  to  that  very  narrow  section  of  the  eastern  coast  of  the  Aegean  sea, 
which  stretches  from  the  Caicus  to  the  Meander,  including  but  a  few  miles  of  terri- 
tory inland,  in  which  were  the  seven  cities  to  which  John  wrote  in  the  Apocalypse. 
The  same  tract  also  bore  the  name  of  Maeonia.  Asia  Minor,  in  the  modem  sense 
of  the  term,  is  also  frequently  alluded  to  in  Acts,  but  no  where  else  in  the  N.  T., 
unless  we  adopt  Griesbach's  reading  of  Rom.  xvi.  5,  (Asia  instead  of  Achaia.) 

In  the  outset  of  his  address,  he  greets  them  as  "  strangers"  in  all 
the  various  lands  throughout  which  they  were  "  scattered," — bearing 
every  where  the  stamp  of  a  peculiar  people,  foreign  in  manners,  prin- 
ciples, and  in  conduct,  to  the  indigenous  races  of  the  regions  in  which 
they  had  made  their  home,  yet  sharing,  at  the  same  time,  the  sorrows 
and  the  glories  of  the  doomed  nation  from  which  they  drew  their 
origin, — a  chosen,  an  "  elect"  order  of  people,  prepared  in  the  coun- 


Peter's  apostleship.  265 

sels  of  God  for  a  high  and  holy  destiny,  by  the  consecrating  influ- 
ence of  a  spirit  of  truth.  Pointing  them  to  that  hope  of  an  un- 
changing, undefiled,  unfading  heritage  in  the  heavens,  above  the 
temporary  sorrows  of  the  earth,  he  teaches  them  to  find  in  that,  the 
consolation  needful  in  their  various  trials.  These  trials,  in  various 
parts  of  his  work,  he  speaks  of  as  inevitable  and  dreadful, — yet  ap- 
pointed by  the  decrees  of  God  himself  as  a  fieiy  test, — begirming  its 
judgments,  indeed,  in  his  own  household,  but  ending  in  a  vastly  more 
awful  doom  on  those  who  had  not  the  support  and  safety  of  obedi- 
ence to  his  warning  word  of  truth.  All  these  things  are  said  by  way 
of  premonition,  to  put  them  on  their  guard  against  the  onset  of  ap- 
proaching evil,  lest  they  should  think  it  strange  that  a  dispensation 
so  cruel  should  visit  them ;  when,  in  reality,  it  was  an  occasion  for 
joy,  that  they  should  thus  be  made,  in  suffering,  partakers  of  the 
glory  of  Christ,  won  in  like  manner.  He  moreover  warns  them  to 
keep  a  constant  watch  over  their  conduct,  to  be  prudent  and  careful, 
because  "  the  accusing  prosecutor"  was  constantly  prowling  around 
them,  seeking  to  attack  some  one  of  them  with  his  devouring  accu- 
sations. Him  they  were  to  meet,  with  a  solid  adherence  to  the  faith, 
knowing  as  they  did,  that  the  responsibilities  of  their  religious  pro- 
fession were  not  confined  within  the  narrow  circle  of  their  own  sec- 
tional limits,  but  were  shared  with  their  brethren  in  the  faith 
throughout  almost  the  whole  world. 

From  all  these  particulars  the  conclusion  is  inevitable,  that  there 
was  in  the  condition  of  the  Christians  to  whom  he  wrote,  a  most  re- 
markable crisis  just  occurring, — one,  too,  of  no  limited  or  local  char- 
acter ;  and  that  throughout  Asia  Minor  and  the  whole  empire,  a  try- 
ing time  of  universal  trouble  was  immediately  beginning  with  all 
who  owned  the  faith  of  Jesus.  The  widely  extended  character  ot 
the  evil  necessarily  implies  its  emanation  from  the  supreme  power  of 
the  empire,  which,  bounded  by  no  provincial  limits,  would  sweep 
through  the  world  in  desolating  fury  on  the  righteous  sufferers ;  nor 
is  there  any  event  recorded  in  the  history  of  those  ages,  which  could 
thus  have  affected  the  Christian  communities,  except  the  first 
Christian  persecution,  in  which  Nero,  with  wanton  malice, 
set  the  example  of  cruel,  unfounded  accusation,  that  soon  spread 
throughout  his  whole  empire,  bringing  suffering  and  death  to  thou- 
sands of  faithful  believers. 

Accusing  prosecutor. — The  view  -which'Hug  takes  of  the  scope  of  the  epistle,  throws 
new  light  on  the  true  meaning  of  this  passage,  and  abundantly  justifies  this  new 
translation,  though  none  of  the  great  N.  T.  lexicographers  support  it.  The  primary, 
simple  senses  of  the  words  also,  help  to  justify  the  usage,  as  well  as  their  similar  force 
in  other  passages.  A  reference  to  any  lexicon  will  show  that  elsewhere,  these  words 
bear  a  meaning  accordant  with  this  version.  The  first  noun  never  occurs  in  the  N. 
T.  except  in  a  legal  sense.  The  Greek  is  'O  avri^iKOi  vijmv  Sti0o\ns,  (1  Pet.  v.  8,)  in 
which  the  last  word  (diobolos)  need  not  be  construed  as  a  substantive  expression,  but 
may  be  made  an  adjective,  belonging  to  the  second  word  (antidikos.)  The  last  word, 
under  these  circumstances,  need  not  necessarily  mean  "  the  devil,"  in  any  sense  ;  but 
referring  directly  to  the  simple  sense  of  its  primitive,  must  be  made  to  mean  "  calum- 
niating," "  slanderous,"  "  accusing," — and  in  connexion  with  the  technical,  legal  term 


266  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

avriStKOi,  (whose  primary,  etymological  sense  is  uniformly  a  legal  one,  "  the  plain- 
liif  or  prosecutor  in  a  suit  at  law,")  can  mean  only  "  the  calumniating  (or  accusing) 
prosecutor."  The  common  writers  on  the  epistle,  being  utterly  ignorant  of  its  gene- 
ral scope,  have  failed  to  apprehend  the  true  force  of  this  expression;  but  the  clear, 
critical  judgment  of  Rosenmiiller  (though  he  also  was  without  the  advantage  of  a 
knowledge  of  its  history)  led  him  at  once  to  see  the  greater  justice  of  the  view  here 
given ;  and  he  accordingly  adopts  it,  yet  not  with  the  definite,  technical  application 
of  terms  justly  belonging  to  the  passage.  He  refers  vaguely  to  others  who  have 
taken  this  view,  but  does  not  give  names. 

Another  series  of  passages  in  this  epistle  refers  to  the  remarkable 
fact,  that  the  Christians  were  at  that  time  suffering  under  an  accusa- 
tion that  they  were  "  evil-doers,"  malefactors,  criminals,  liable  to  the 
vengeance  of  the  law ;  and  that  this  accusation  was  so  general,  that 
the  name,  Christian,  was  already  a  term  denoting  a  criminal  directly 
liable  to  this  legal  vengeance.  This  certainly  was  a  state  of  things 
hitherto  totally  unparalleled  in  the  history  of  the  followers  of  Christ. 
In  all  the  accounts  previously  given  of  the  nature  of  the  attacks  made 
on  them  by  their  enemies,  it  is  made  to  appear  that  no  accusation 
whatever  was  sustained  or  even  brought  against  them,  in  reference  to 
moral  or  legal  offences ;  but  they  were  always  presented  in  the  light 
of  mere  religious  dissenters  and  sectaries.  At  Corinth,  the  inde- 
pendent and  equitable  Gallio  dismissed  them  from  the  judgment- 
seat,  with  the  upright  decision,  that  they  were  chargeable  with  no 
crime  whatever.  Felix  and  Festus,  with  king  Agrippa  II.,  also, 
alike  esteemed  the  whole  procedure  against  Paul  as  a  mere  theologi- 
cal or  religious  affair,  relating  to  doctrines,  and  not  to  moral  actions. 
At  Ephesus,  even  one  of  the  high  officers  of  the  city  did  not  liesi- 
tate  to  declare,  in  the  face  of  a  mob  raging  against  Paul  and  his 
companions,  that  they  were  innocent  of  all  crime.  And  even  as  late 
as  the  seventh  year  of  Nero,  the  name  of  Christian  had  so  little  of  an 
odious  or  criminal  character,  that  Agrippa  II.  did  not  disdain,  before  a 
great  and  solemn  assemblage  of  Romans  and  Jews,  to  declare  himself 
almost  persuaded  to  adopt  both  the  name  and  character.  And  the  whole 
course  of  their  history  abundantly  shows,  that  so  far  from  the  idea 
of  attacking  the  Christian  brotherhood  in  a  mass,  as  guilty  of  legal 
offenses,  and  making  their  very  name  nearly  synonymous  with  crimi- 
nal, no  trace  whatever  of  such  an  attack  appears,  until  three  years 
after  the  last  mentioned  date,  when  Nero  charged  the  Christians,  as 
a  sect,  with  his  own  atrocious  crime,  the  dreadful  devastation  by  fire 
of  his  own  capital ;  and  on  this  ground,  every  where  instituted  a  cruel 
persecution  against  them.  In  connexion  with  this  procedure,  the 
Christians  are  first  mentioned  in  Roman  history,  as  a  new  and  pecu- 
liar class  of  people,  called  Cfwlstiani,  from  their  founder,  Christus  ; 
and  in  reference  to  this  matter,  abusive  charges  are  brought  against 
them. 

Evil  doers. — These  passages  are  in  ii.  12,  iii.  16,  iv.  15,  where  the  word  in  Greek 
is  KnKOTToio't,  (Jcakopoioi,')  which  means  a  malefactor,  as  is  shown  in  Jc>hn  xviii.  30, 
where  the  whole  point  of  the  remark  consists  in  the  fact,  that  the  person  spoken  of 
was  considered  an  actual  violator  of  known  law ;  so  that  the  word  is  evidently  limited 
throughout,  to  those  who  were  criminals  in  the  eye  of  the  law. 


Peter's  apostleship.  267 

TAc  iiame  Christian  denoting  a  criminal. — This  is  manifest  from  iv.  16,  where  they 
are  exhorted  to  sufler  for  this  alone,  and  to  give  no  occasion  whatever  for  any  other 
criminal  accusation. 

A  third  cliaractcristic  of  the  circumstances  of  those  to  whom  this 
epistle  is  addressed,  is  that  they  were  obliged  to  be  constantly  on 
their  guard  against  accusations,  which  would  expose  them  to  capital 
pmiishment.  They  were  objects  of  scorn  and  obloquy,  and  were  to 
expect  to  be  dragged  to  trial  as  thieves,  murderers,  and  as  wretches 
conspiring  secretly  against  the  public  peace  and  safety ;  and  to  all 
this  they  were  liable  in  their  character  as  Christians.  The  apostle, 
therefore,  in  deep  solicitude  for  the  dreadful  condition  and  liabilities 
of  his  friends,  warns  those  who,  in  spite  of  innocence,  are  thus  made 
to  suifer,  to  consider  all  their  afflictions  as  in  accordance  with  the 
wise  will  of  God,  and,  in  an  upright  course  of  conduct,  to  commit 
the  keeping  of  their  souls  to  him,  as  a  faithful  guardian,  who  would 
not  allow  the  permanent  injury  of  the  souls  which  he  had  created. 
Now,  not  even  a  conjecture  can  be  made,  much  less,  any  historical 
proof  be  brought,  that  beyond  Palestine  any  person  had  ever  yet  been 
made  to  suffer  death  on  the  score  of  religion  ;  or  of  any  stigma  attach- 
ing to  that  sect,  before  the  time  when  Nero  involved  them  in  the 
cruel  charge  just  mentioned.  The  date  of  the  first  instances  of  such 
persecutions  was  the  eleventh  year  of  the  reign  of  Nero,  under  the 
consulships  of  Caius  Lecanius  Bassus,  and  Marcus  Licinius  Crassus, 
according  to  the  Roman  annals.  The  commencement  of  the  burning 
of  Rome,  which  was  the  occasion  of  this  first  attack  on  the  Christians, 
was  in  the  last  part  of  the  month  of  July ;  but  the  persecution  did 
not  begin  immediately.  After  various  contrivances  to  avert  the  in- 
dignation of  the  people  from  their  imperial  destroyer,  the  Christians 
were  seized  as  a  proper  expiatory  sacrifice,  the  choice  being  favored 
by  the  general  dislike  with  which  they  were  regarded.  This  attack 
being  deferred  for  some  time  after  the  burning,  could  not  have  oc- 
curred till  late  in  that  year.  The  epistle  cannot  have  been  written 
before  its  occurrence,  nor  indeed  until  some  time  afterwards  ;  because 
a  few  months  must  be  allowed  for  the  account  of  it  to  spread  to  the 
provinces  of  Asia,  and  it  must  have  been  still  later  when  the  news 
of  the  difficulty  could  reach  the  apostle,  so  as  to  enable  him  to  ap- 
preciate the  danger  of  those  Christians  who  were  under  the  dominion 
of  the  Romans.  It  is  evident,  then,  that  the  epistle  was  not  written 
in  the  same  year  in  which  the  burning  occurred  ;  but  in  the  subse- 
quent one,  the  twelfth  of  Nero's  reign,  and  the  sixty-fifth  of  the 
Christian  era.  By  that  time  the  condition  and  prospects  of  the 
Christians  throughout  the  empire,  were  such  as  to  excite  the  deepest 
solicitude  in  the  great  apostle,  who,  though  himself  residing  in  the 
great  Parthian  empire,  removed  from  all  danger  of  injury  from  the 
Roman  emperor,  was  by  no  means  disposed  to  forget  the  high  claims 
the  sufferers  had  on  him  for  counsel  and  consolation.  This  dreadfiil 
event  was  the  most  important  which  had  ever  yet  befallen  the  Chris- 


268  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

tians,  and  there  would  certainly  be  just  occasion  for  surprise,  if  it  had 
called  forth  no  consolatory  testimony  from  the  founders  of  the  faith, 
and  if  no  trace  of  it  could  be  found  in  the  apostolic  records. 

Committing  the  keeping  of  their  souls  to  God. — This  view  of  the  design  of  the  epistle 
gives  new  force  to  this  passage,  (iv.  19.) 

Mrst  mentioned  in  Roman  history- — This  is  by  Tacitus,  (Annal.  xv.  44.)  After 
speaking  in  previous  passages  of  the  various  means  used  by  JNero  to  repair  the  mis- 
cnief  done  by  that  awful  conflagration  of  the  city,  and  to  turn  off  from  himself  the 
suspicion  of  having  caused  it,  he  says — "  Sed  rion  ope  humanA,  non  largitionibus 
Principis,  aut  Deiim  placamentis,  decedebat  infamia,  quin  jussum  incendium  crede- 
retur.  Ergo  abolendo  rumori  subdidit  reos,  et  quaesitissimis  poenis  affecit,  quos 
per  flagitia  invisos,  vulgos  Christianos  appellabat,"  &c. — "  But  not  by  human  effort, 
not  by  the  lavish  bounty  of  a  monarch,  or  by  the  propitiations  of  the  gods,  could  the 
impression  be  removed,  that  he  had  caused  the  contlagralion.  To  get  rid  of  this 
general  impression,  therefore,  he  brought  under  this  accusation,  and  visited  with  the 
most  exquisite  punishments,  a  set  of  persons,  hateful  for  their  crimes,  commonly 
called  Christians.  The  name  was  derived  from  Christus,  who,  in  the  reign  of  Ti- 
berius, was  seized  and  punished  by  Pontius  Pilate,  the  procurator.  The  ruinous 
superstition,  though  checked  for  a  while,  broke  out  again,  not  only  in  Judea,  the 
source  of  the  evil,  but  also  in  the  city,  (Rome.)  Therefore  those  who  professed  it 
were  first  seized,  and  then,  on  their  confession,  a  great  number  of  others  were  con- 
victed, not  so  much  on  the  charge  of  the  arson,  as  on  account  of  the  universal  hatred 
which  existed  against  them.  And  their  deaths  were  made  amusing  exhibitions,  as, 
being  covered  with  the  skins  of  wild  beasts,  they  were  torn  to  pieces  by  dogs,  or  were 
nailed  to  crosses,  or,  being  daubed  with  combustible  stuff,  were  burned  by  way  of 
light,  in  the  darkness,  after  the  close  of  day.  Nero  opened  his  own  gardens  for  the 
show,  and  mingled  with  the  lowest  part  of  the  throng,  on  the  occasion."  (The  de- 
scription of  the  cruel  manner  in  which  they  were  burned,  may  serve  as  a  forcible 
illustration  of  the  meaning  of  "  the  fiery  trial,"  to  which  Peter  alludes,  iv.  12.)  By 
Suetonius,  also,  they  are  briefly  mentioned.  (Nero.  cap.  15.')  "  Afflicti  suppliciis 
Christiani,  genus  hominum  superstitionis  novae  et  maleficae.  — "  The  Christians,  a 
sort  of  men  of  a  new  and  pernicious  {evil  doing)  superstition,  were  visited  with 
punishments." 

That  this  Neronian  persecution  was  as  extensive  as  is  here  made  to  appear,  is 
proved  byLardner  and  Hug.  The  former,  in  particular,  gives  several  very  interest- 
ing evidences,  in  his  "  Heathen  Testimonies,"  especially  the  remarkable  inscription 
referring  to  this  persecution,  found  in  Portugal.  (Test,  of  Anc.  Heath,  chap,  iii.) 
This  last,  however,  being  evidence  of  disputed  authenticity  and  antiquity,  certainly 
cannot  be  considered  as  very  satisfactory  on  a  doubtful  point. 

From  the  uniform  tone  in  which  the  apostle  alludes  to  the  danger 
as  threatening-  only  his  readers,  without  the  slightest  allusion  to  the 
circumstance  of  his  being  involved  in  the  difficulty,  is  drawn  another 
important  confirmation  of  the  locality  of  the  epistle.  He  uniformly 
uses  the  second  person,  when  referring  to  trials,  but  if  he  himself 
had  then  been  so  situated  as  to  share  in  the  calamity  for  wliich  he 
strove  to  prepare  them,  he  would  have  been  very  apt  to  have  ex- 
pressed his  own  feelings  in  view  of  the  common  evil.  Paul,  in  those 
epistles  which  were  written  under  circumstances  of  personal  distress, 
is  very  full  of  warm  expressions  of  the  state  of  mind  in  which  he 
met  his  trials  ;  nor  was  there  in  Peter  any  lack  of  the  fervid  energy 
that  would  burst  forth  in  similarly  eloquent  sympathy,  on  the  like 
occasions.  But  from  Babylon,  beyond  the  bounds  of  Roman  sway, 
he  looked  on  their  sufferings  only  with  that  pure  sympathy  which 
his  regard  for  his  brethren  would  excite  ;  and  it  is  not  to  be  wonder- 
ed, then,  that  he  uses  the  second  person  merely,  in  speaking  of  their 


Peter's  apostleship.  269 

distresses.  The  bearer  of  this  epistle  to  the  distressed  Christians  of 
Asia  Minor,  is  named  Silvanus,  generally  supposed  to  be  the  same 
with  Silvanus  or  Silas,  mentioned  in  Paul's  epistle,  and  in  the  Acts, 
as  the  companion  of  Paul  in  liis  journeys  through  some  of  those 
provinces  to  which  Peter  now  wrote.  There  is  great  probability  in 
this  conjecture,  nor  is  there  any  tiling  that  contradicts  it  in  the  slightest 
degree  ;  and  it  may  therefore  be  considered  as  true.  Some  other 
great  object  may  at  this  time  have  required  his  presence  among  them, 
or  he  may  have  been  then  passing  on  his  journey  to  rejoin  Paul,  thus 
executing  this  commission  incidentally. 

This  view  of  the  scope  and  contents  of  this  epistle  is  taken  from'Hng,  who  seems 
to  have  originated  it.  At  least  I  can  find  nothing  of  it  m  any  other  author  whom  I 
have  consulted.  Michaelis,  for  instance,  though  evidently  apprehending  the  general 
tendency  of  the  epistle,  and  its  design  to  prepare  its  readers  for  the  coining  of  some 
dreadful  calamity,  was  not  led  thereby  to  the  just  apprehension  of  the  historical  cir- 
cumstances theremth  connected.  (Hug,  II.  §§  162 — 165.  Wait's  translation. — Mi- 
chaelis, Vol.  IV.  chap,  xxvii.  §§  1 — 7.) 

The  time  when  this  epistle  was  written  is  very  variously  fixed  by  the  different 
writers  to  whom  I  have  above  referred.  Lardner,  dating  it  at  Rome,  concludes  that 
the  time  was  between  A.  D.  63  and  65,  because  he  thinks  that  Peter  could  not  have 
arrived  at  Rome  earlier.  This  inference  depends  entirely  on  what  he  does  not 
prove, — the  assertion  that  by  Babylon,  in  the  date,  is  meant  Rome.  The  proofs  of  its 
being  another  place,  which  I  have  given  above,  will  therefore  require  that  it  should 
have  been  written  before  that  time,  if  Peter  did  then  go  to  Rome.  And  Michaelis 
seems  to  ground  upon  this  notion  his  belief,  that  it  "  was  written  either  not  long  be- 
fore, or  not  long  after,  the  year  60."  But  the  nobly  impartial  Hug  comes  to  our  aid 
again,  with  the  sentence,  which,  though  bearing  against  a  fiction  most  desirable  for 
his  church,  he  unhesitatingly  passes  on  its  date.  From  his  admirable  detail  of  the 
contents  and  design  of  the  epistle,  he  makes  it  evident  that  it  was  written  (from  Baby- 
lon) some  years  after  the  time  when  Peter  is  commonly  said  to  have  gone  to  Rome, 
never  to  return.  This  is  the  opinion  which  I  have  necessarily  adopted,  after  taking 
his  view  of  the  design  of  the  epistle ;  and  I  have  therefore  dated  it  in  A.  D.  65,  the 
twelfth  of  Nero's  reign. 

THE  SECOND  EPISTLE. 

After  \vriting  the  former  epistle  to  the  Christians  of  Asia  Minor, 
Peter  probably  continued  to  reside  in  Babylon,  since  no  occurrence 
is  mentioned  M^hich  could  draw  him  away,  in  his  old  age,  from  the 
retired  but  important  field  of  labor  to  which  he  had  previously  con- 
fined himself  Still  exercising  a  paternal  watchfulness,  however, 
over  his  distant  disciples,  his  solicitude  before  long  again  excited  him 
to  address  them  in  reference  to  their  spiritual  difficulties  and  neces- 
sities. The  apprehensions  expressed  in  the  former  epistle,  respecting 
their  maintenance  of  a  pure  faith  in  their  complicated  trials,  had  in 
the  mean  time  proved  well-grounded.  During  the  distracting  ca- 
lamities of  Nero's  persecution,  false  teachers  had  arisen,  who  had,  by 
degrees,  brought  in  pernicious  heresies  among  them,  affecting  the 
very  foundations  of  the  faith,  and  ending  in  the  most  ruinous  conse- 
quences to  the  belief  and  practice  of  some.  This  second  epistle  he 
wrote,  therefore,  to  stir  up  those  who  were  still  pure  in  heart,  to  the 
remembrance  of  the  true  doctrines  of  Christianity,  as  taught  by  the 
apostles ;  and  to  warn  them  against  the  heretical  notions  that  had 
so  fatally  spread  among  them.    Of  the  errors  complained  of,  the  most 


270  LIVES  OF  THE   APOSTLES. 

important  seems  to  have  been  the  denial  of  the  judgment,  which  had 
been  prophesied  so  long.  Solemnly  re-assuring  them  of  the  certainty 
of  that  awful  series  of  events,  he  exhorted  them  to  the  steady  main- 
tenance of  such  a  holy  conduct  and  godly  life,  as  would  fit  them  to 
meet  the  great  change  which  he  so  sublimely  pictured,  whenever 
and  however  it  should  occur  ;  and  closed  with  a  most  solemn  charge 
to  beware  lest  they  also  should  be  led  away  by  the  error  of  the 
wiciced,  so  as  to  fall  from  their  former  steadfast  adherence  to  the 
truth.  In  the  former  part  of  the  epistle  he  alluded  affectingly  to  the 
nearness  of  his  own  end,  as  an  especial  reason  for  his  urgency  with 
those  from  whom  he  was  so  soon  to  be  parted.  "  I  think  it  meet  as 
long  as  I  am  in  this  tabernacle,  to  stir  you  up  to  the  remembrance 
of  these  things,  knowing  as  I  do  that  the  putting  off  of  my  tabernacle 
is  very  near,  according  to  what  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  made  known 
to  mc."  This  is  an  allusion  to  the  prophecy  of  his  Master  at  the 
meeting  on  the  lake,  after  the  resurrection,  described  in  the  last 
chapter  of  John's  gospel.  "  Therefore,"  writes  the  aged  apostle,  "  I 
will  be  urgent  that  you,  after  my  departure,  may  always  hold  these 
things  in  your  memory."  All  which  seems  to  imply  an  anticipated 
death,  of  which  he  was  reminded  by  the  course  of  natural  decay,  and 
by  the  remembrance  of  the  parting  prophecy  of  his  Master,  and  not 
by  any  thing  very  imminently  dangerous  or  threatening  in  his  exter- 
nal circumstances,  at  the  time  of  writing.  This  was  the  last  im- 
portant work  of  his  adventurous  and  devoted  life  ;  and  his  allusions 
to  the  solemn  scenes  of  fliture  judgment  were  therefore  most  solemnly 
appropriate.  Those  to  whom  he  wrote  could  expect  to  see  his  face 
no  more,  and  his  whole  epistle  is  in  a  strain  accordant  with  these 
circumstances,  dwelling  particularly  on  the  awflil  realities  of  a  coming 
day  of  doom. 

The  first  epistle  of  Peter  has  always  been  received  as  authentic, 
ever  since  the  apostolic  writings  were  first  collected,  nor  has  there 
ever  been  a  single  doubt  expressed  by  any  theologian,  that  it  was 
what  it  pretended  to  be  ;  but  in  regard  to  the  epistle  just  mentioned 
as  his  second,  emd  now  commonly  so  received,  there  has  been  as 
much  earnest  discussion,  as  concerning  any  other  book  in  the  sacred 
canon,  excepting,  perhaps,  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  John's 
Revelation.  The  weight  of  historical  testimony  is  certainly  rather 
against  its  authenticity,  since  all  the  early  Fathers  who  explicitly 
mention  it,  speak  of  it  as  a  work  of  very  doubtful  character.  In  the 
first  list  of  the  sacred  writmgs  that  is  recorded,  this  is  not  put  among 
those  generally  acknowledged  as  of  divine  authority,  but  among 
those  whose  truth  was  disputed.  Still,  quotations  from  it  are  found 
in  the  writings  of  the  Fathers,  in  the  first,  second,  and  third  centu- 
ries, by  whom  it  is  mentioned  approvingly,  although  not  specified  as 
inspired  or  of  divine  authority.  But  even  as  late  as  the  end  ot 
the  fourth  century,  there  were  still  many  who  denied  it  to  be  Peter's, 
on  account  of  supposed  differences  of  style  observable  between  this 


Peter's  apostleship.  271 

and  the  former  epistle,  which  was  acknowledged  to  be  his.  The 
Syrian  Christians  continued  to  reject  it  from  their  canon  for  some 
time  after  ;  for  in  the  old  Syriac  version,  which  is  believed  to  have 
been  executed  in  the  first  century,  this  alone,  of  all  books  then  writ- 
ten and  promulgated,  (at  any  rate,  those  generally  known  and  circu- 
lated,) that  are  now  considered  a  part  of  the  New  Testament,  is  not 
contained,  though  it  was  regarded  by  many  among  them  as  a  good 
book,  and  is  quoted  in  the  writings  of  one  of  the  Syrian  Fathers, 
with  respect.  After  this  period,  however,  these  objections  were  soon 
forgotten,  and  from  the  fifth  century  downwards,  it  has  been  univer- 
salty  adopted  into  the  authentic  canon,  and  regarded  with  that 
reverence  which  its  internal  evidences  of  truth  and  genuineness  so 
amply  justify.  Indeed,  it  is  on  its  internal  evidence,  almost  entirely, 
that  its  great  defense  must  be  founded, — since  the  historical  testi- 
monies (by  common  confession  of  theologians)  will  not  afford  that 
satisfaction  to  the  investigator,  which  is  desirable  on  subjects  of  this 
nature ;  and  though  ancient  usage  and  its  long-established  possession 
of  a  place  in  the  inspired  code  may  be  called  up  in  its  support,  still 
there  will  be  occasion  for  the  aid  of  internal  reasons,  to  maintain  a 
positive  decision  as  to  its  authenticity.  And  this  sort  of  evidence,  an 
examination  by  the  rigid  standards  of  modern  critical  theology  proves 
abundantly  suflicient  for  the  effort  to  which  it  is  summoned ;  for 
though  it  has  been  said,  that  since  the  ancients  themselves  were  in 
doubt,  the  moderns  cannot  expect  to  arri^^e  at  certainty,  because  it  is 
impossible  to  get  more  historical  information  on  the  subject,  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  than  ecclesiastical  writers  had  within  reach  in 
the  third  and  fourth  centuries  ;  still,  when  the  question  of  the  authen- 
ticity of  the  work  is  to  be  decided  by  an  examination  of  its  contents, 
the  means  of  ascertaining  the  truth  are  by  no  means  proportioned  to 
the  antiquity  of  the  criticism,  hi  the  early  ages  of  Christianity,  the 
science  of  faithfully  investigating  truth  hardly  had  an  existence ;  and 
such  has  been  the  progress  oi  improvement  in  this  department  of 
knowledge,  under  the  labors  of  modern  theologians,  that  the  writers 
of  the  nineteenth  century  may  justly  be  considered  as  possessed  of 
far  more  extensive  and  certain  means  of  settling  the  character  of  this 
epistle  by  internal  evidence,  than  were  within  the  knowledge  of 
those  Christian  Fathers  who  lived  fifteen  hundred  years  ago.  The 
great  objection  against  the  epistle  in  the  fourth  century,  was  an  al- 
leged dissimilarity  of  style  between  this  and  the  former  epistle.  Now, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  whatever  that  modern  Biblical  scholars  have 
vastly  greater  means  for  judging  of  a  rhetorical  question  of  this  kind, 
than  the  Christian  Fathers  of  the  fourth  century,  of  whom  those  who 
were  Grecians  were  really  less  scientifically  acquainted  with  their 
own  languag^e,  and  no  more  qualified  for  a  comparison  of  this  kind, 
than  those  who  live  in  an  age  when  the  principles  of  criticism  are 
so  much  better  understood.  With  all  these  superior  lights,  the  re- 
sults of  the  most  accurate  modern  investigations  have  been  decidedly 


272  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

favorable  to  the  authenticity  of  the  second  epistle  ascribed  to  Peter, 
and  the  most  rigid  comparisons  of  its  style  with  that  of  the  former, 
have  brought  out  proofs  triumphantly  satisfactory  of  its  identity  of 
origin  with  that, — proofs  so  much  the  more  unquestionable,  as  they 
are  borrowed  from  coincidences  which  must  have  been  entirely  natu- 
ral and  incidental,  and  not  the  result  of  any  deliberate  collusion. 

This  account  of  the  second  epistle  is  also  taken  from  Hug  and  Michaelis,  to  whom, 
with  Lardner,  reference  may  be  made  for  the  details  of  all  the  arguments  for  and 
against  its  authenticity. 

The  Syriac  version  {PeshiUi)  excludes,  besides  this  epistle,  the  second  and  third 
epistles  of  John,  the  epistle  of  Jude,  and  the  Revelation  of  John.  The  best  modern 
critical  authority  (John  David  Michaelis,  Bp.  Laurence,  &c.)  conspires  with  ancient 
tradition  in  fixing  the  date  of  this  most  ancient  translation  oi  the  New  Testament  at 
the  close  of  the  first  century,  which  was  probably  before  the  excluded  writings  were 
generally  circulated  or  known  in  the  east  as  a  part  of  the  sacred  canon. 

As  to  the  place  and  time  of  writing  this  epistle,  it  seems  quite 
probable  that  it  was  written  where  the  former  one  was,  since  there 
is  no  account  or  hint  whatever  of  any  change  in  Peter's  external 
circumstances ;  and  that  it  was  written  some  years  after  it,  is  un- 
questionable, since  its  whole  tenor  requires  such  a  period  to  have 
intervened,  as  would  allow  the  first  to  reach  them  and  be  read  by 
them,  and  also  for  the  apostle  to  learn  in  the  course  of  time  the 
effects  ultimately  produced  by  it,  and  to  hear  of  the  rise  of  new  diffi- 
culties requiring  new  apostolical  interference  and  counsel.  The  first 
seems  to  have  been  directed  mainly  to  those  who  were  complete  Jews, 
by  birth,  or  by  proselytism,  as  appears  from  the  terms  in  which  he 
repeatedly  addresses  them  in  it;  but  the  sort  of  errors  complained  of 
in  this  epistle  seem  to  have  been  so  exclusively  characteristic  of  Gen- 
tile converts,  that  it  must  have  been  written  more  particularly  with 
reference  to  difficulties  in  that  part  of  the  religious  communities  of 
those  regions.  He  condemns  and  refutes  certain  heretics  who  re- 
jected some  of  the  fundamental  truths  of  tiie  Mosaic  law, — errors 
which  no  well-trained  Jew  could  ever  be  supposed  to  make,  but 
which,  in  motley  assemblages  of  different  races,  like  the  Christian 
churches,  might  naturally  enough  arise  among  those  Gentiles,  who 
felt  impatient  at  the  inferiority  in  which  they  seemed  implicated  by 
their  ignorance  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Jewish  theology,  in  which 
their  circumcised  brethren  were  so  fiilly  versed.  It  seems  to  have 
been  more  especially  aimed  at  the  rising  sect  of  the  Gnostics,  who 
are  known  to  have  been  heretical  on  some  of  the  very  points  here 
alluded  to.  Its  great  similarity,  in  some  passages,  to  the  epistle  of 
Jude,  will  make  it  the  subject  of  allusion  again  in  the  life  of  that 
apostle. 

Doddridge  conjectures  the  second  epistle  to  have  been  written  six  years  after  the 
first,  and  the  supposition  is  reasonable.  Following  the  vulgar  notion,  however,  he 
fixes  its  absolute  date  in  the  year  67,— a  notion  refuted  by  the  facts  above  referred  to. 

Besides  these  authentic  writings  of  Peter,  a  great  number  of  absurd  forgeries,  in- 
vented in  the  third  and  fourth  centuries,  were  long  circulated  as  his  works,  though 
they  never  obtained  general  credit.    These  are  the  Preaching  of  Peter,  the  Bevela- 


Peter's  apostleship.  273 

tifn  of  Peter,  the  Judgvient  of  Peter,  the  Acts  of  Peter,  the  Doctrine  of  Peter,  and 
other  still  later  trash, — all  long  since  condemned  and  exploded  as  they  deserve. 

HIS  DEATH. 

The  solemn  words  in  which  the  apostle  refers  in  the  beginning 
of  his  last  epistle,  to  the  nearness  of  his  own  death, — specifying 
clearly  that  he  "  knew  that  he  must  shortly  put  off  this  earthly 
tabernacle,  even  as  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  had  showed  him," 
and  that  "  he  was  urgent,  in  order  that  they  might  hold  these 
things  in  remembrance  after  his  decease,^'' — all  seem  to  imply  a 
prophetic  force,  and  may  therefore  with  reason  be  considered  as 
fixing  the  actual  time  of  his  death  within  a  few  months  or  years 
of  the  date  of  this  epistle.  From  the  opinions  already  pronounced 
£is  to  the  probable  date  of  his  last  writing,  it  would  appear  that  he 
was  now  quite  advanced  in  years ;  for  if  his  age  was  as  near  that 
of  Christ  as  is  commonly  supposed,  he  must  have  been  not  far 
from  seventy  years  old.  Already  he  must  have  felt  the  slow  and 
solemn  accomplishment  of  his  Lord's  warning  at  the  meeting  on 
the  lake  of  Gennesar ; — no  longer,  as  "  when  young,  girding  him- 
self and  walking  whither  he  would,"  with  the  animated  movement 
which  his  constitutional  vivacity  and  energy  must  have  made  char- 
acteristic of  him,  but  in  the  decrepitude  and  helplessness  of  age, 
"  stretching  forth  his  hands  that  another  might  gird  him,"  and  in 
the  melancholy  decline  of  judgment  and  reason,  no  longer  able  to 
choose  his  own  good,  "  but  carried  by  another  whither  he  would 
not."  Perceiving  by  the  beginning  of  these  sad  tokens,  that  even 
as  his  Lord  showed  him,  he  must  soon  put  off  his  earthly  taber- 
nacle, he  seems  to  have  made  the  last  effort  of  which  his  mind 
was  capable  in  writing  his  second  epistle,  prepared  then  to  resign 
himself  to  that  wasting  decay  and  chilling  decline  into  the  grave, 
from  which  the  divine  gifts  of  inspiration  shielded  not  the  greatest 
of  the  apostles.  He  may  have  just  survived  the  period  of  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem,  but  probably  the  decay  of  mind  and  body 
foretold  in  those  words  of  Jesus,  which  signified  what  manner  of 
death  he  should  die,  soon  after  brought  him  to  an  oblivion  of  this 
life  and  all  its  events.  The  ruin  of  the  temple  and  the  nation, 
however,  if  he  lived  to  hear  of  it,  must  have  been  an  inspiring 
though  mournful  assurance  of  the  certain  fulfilment  of  that  word 
which  was  not  to  pass  away  void,  though  heaven  and  earth  should 
pass  away ;  and  that  day  of  Israel's  fall  must  have  risen  on  his  aged 
eyes  as  with  the  dawning  light  of  the  last  awful  day,  whose  certain 
approach  he  had  proclaimed  with  the  latest  effort  of  his  pen. 


274  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

With  the  exception  of  these  vague  allusions,  the  writings  of  the 
New  Testament  are  entirely  silent  as  to  the  last  days  of  the  chief 
apostle.  Not  a  hint  is  given  of  the  few  remaining  actions  of  his 
life,  nor  of  the  mode,  place,  or  time  of  his  death ;  and  all  these 
concluding  points  have  been  left  to  be  settled  by  conjecture,  or  by 
tradition  as  baseless.  The  only  passage  which  has  been  supposed 
to  give  any  hint  of  the  manner  of  his  death,  is  that  in  the  last 
chapter  of  John's  gospel.  "  Jesus  says  to  him — '  I  most  solemnly 
tell  thee,  when  thou  wast  young,  thou  didst  gird  thyself  and  walk 
whither  thou  wouldst ;  but  when  thou  shalt  be  old,  another  shall 
gird  thee,  and  carry  thee  whither  thou  wouldst  not.'  This  he  said, 
to  make  known  by  what  sort  of  death  he  should  glorify  God."  It 
has  been  commonly  said  that  this  is  a  distinct  and  unquestionable 
prophecy  that  he  should  in  his  old  age  be  crucified, — the  expres- 
sion, ''  another  shall  gird  thee  and  carry  thee  whither  thou  wouldst 
not,"  referring  to  his  being  bound  to  the  cross  and  borne  away 
to  execution,  since  this  was  the  only  sort  of  death  by  which 
an  apostle  could  be  said,  with  much  propriety  or  force,  to  "glo- 
rify God."  And  the  long-established  authority  of  tradition  coin- 
ciding with  this  view,  or  rather,  suggesting  it,  no  very  minute 
examination  into  the  sense  of  the  passage  has  often  been  made. 
But  the  words  themselves  are  by  no  means  decisive.  Take  a  com- 
mon reader,  who  has  never  heard  that  Peter  was  crucified,  and  it 
would  be  hard  for  him  to  make  out  such  a  circumstance  from  the 
bare  prophecy  as  given  by  John.  Indeed  such  unbiased  impres- 
sions of  the  sense  of  the  passage  will  go  far  to  justify  the  conclu- 
sion that  the  words  imply  nothing  but  that  Peter  was  destined  to 
pass  a  long  life  in  the  service  of  his  Master, — that  he  should,  after 
having  worn  out  his  bodily  and  mental  energies  in  his  devoted 
exertions,  attain  such  an  extreme  decrepid  old  age  as  to  lose  the 
power  of  voluntary  motion,  and  die  thus, — without  necessarily 
implying  any  bloody  martyrdom.  Will  it  be  said  that  by  such  a 
quiet  death  he  could  not  be  considered  as  glorifying  God  ?  The 
objection  surely  is  founded  in  a  misapprehension  of  the  nature  of 
those  demonstrations  of  devotion,  by  which  the  glory  of  God 
is  most  effectually  secured.  There  are  other  modes  of  mar- 
tyrdom than  the  dungeon,  the  sword,  the  axe,  the  flame,  and  the 
stone ;  and  in  all  ages  since  Peter,  there  have  been  thousands  of 
martyrs  who  have,  by  lives  steadily  and  quietly  devoted  to  the 
cause  of  truth,  no  less  glorified  God,  than  those  who  were  rapt  to 
heaven  in  flame,  in  blood,  and  in  tortures  inflicted  by  a  malignant 


Peter's  apostleship.  276 

persecution.  Was  not  God  truly  glorified  in  the  deaths  of  the  aged 
Loyola,  and  Xavier,  and  Eliot,  and  Swartz,  or  the  bright,  early 
exits  of  Brainerd,  Mills,  Martyn,  Parsons,  Fisk,  Milne,  Gridley, 
and  hundreds  whom  the  apostolic  spirit  of  modern  missions  has 
sent  forth  to  labors  as  devoted,  and  to  deaths  as  glorious  to  God, 
as  those  of  any  who  swell  the  deified  lists  of  the  ancient  martyr- 
ologies  ?  The  whole  notion  of  a  bloody  martyrdom  as  an  essential 
termination  to  the  life  of  a  saint,  grew  out  of  a  papistical  super- 
stition ;  nor  need  the  enlig-htened  minds  of  those  who  can  better 
appreciate  the  manner  in  which  God's  highest  glory  is  secured  by 
the  lives  and  deaths  of  his  servants,  seek  any  such  superfluous  aids 
to  crown  the  mighty  course  of  the  great  apostolic  chief,  whose  solid 
claims  to  the  name  and  honors  of  Martyr  rest  on  higher  grounds 
than  so  insignificant  an  accident  as  the  manner  of  his  death.  All 
those  writers  who  pretend  to  particularize  the  mode  of  his  depart- 
ure, connect  it  also  with  the  utterly  impossible  fiction  of  his  resi- 
dence at  Rome,  on  Avhich  enough  has  been  already  said.  Who 
will  undertake  to  say,  out  of  such  a  mass  of  matters,  what  is  truth 
and  what  is  falsehood  1  And  if  the  views  above  given,  on  the  high 
authority  of  the  latest  writers  of  even  the  Romish  church,  are  of 
any  value  for  any  purpose  whatever,  they  are  perfectly  decisive 
against  the  notion  of  Peter's  martyrdom  at  Rome,  in  the  persecu- 
tion under  Nero,  since  Peter  was  then  in  Babylon,  far  beyond  the 
vensreance  of  the  Caesar :  nor  was  he  so  foolish  as  ever  after  to 
have  trusted  himself  in  the  reach  of  a  perfectly  unnecessary 
danger.  The  command  of  Christ  was — "  When  you  are  perse- 
cuted in  one  city,  flee  into  another," — the  necessary  and  unques- 
tionable inference  from  which,  was,  that  when  out  of  the  reach  of 
persecution  they  should  not  wilfully  go  into  it.  This  is  a  simple 
principle  of  Christian  action,  with  which  the  fable-mongers  were 
totally  unacquainted,  and  they  thereby  afford  the  most  satisfactory 
proof  of  the  utter  falsity  of  the  actions  and  motives  which  they 
ascribe  to  the  apostles. 

Referring  to  his  being  bound  to  the  cross. — TertulliaQ  seems  to  have  first  suggested 
this  rather  whimsical  interpretation : — "  Tunc  Petrus  ab  altero  cingitur,  quum  cruel 
adstringitur."  (TertuU.  Scorpiac.  15.)  There  seems  to  be  more  rhyme  than  reason 
in  the  sentence,  however. 

The  rejection  of  this  forced  interpretation  is  by  no  means  a  new  notion.  The 
critical  Tremeliius  long  ago  maintained  that  the  verse  had  no  reference  whatever  to 
a  prophecy  of  Peter's  crucifixion,  though  he  probably  had  no  idea  of  denying  that 
Peter  did  actually  die  by  crucifixion.  Among  more  modem  commentators,  too,  the 
prince  of  critics,  Kainoel,  with  whom  are  quoted  Semler,  Gurlitt,  and  Scholt,  utterly 
denies  that  a  fair  construction  of  the  original  will  allow  any  prophetical  idea  to  be 
based  on  it.  The  critical  testimony  of  these  great  commentators  on  the  true  and  just 
force  of  the  words,  is  of  the  very  highest  value  j  becau.se  all  received  the  tale  of 
37 


276  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

Peter's  crucifixion  as  true,  having  never  examined  the  authority  of  the  tradition,  and 
not  one  of  them  pretended  to  deny  that  he  really  was  crucified.  But  in  spile  of  this 
pre-conceived  erroneous  historical  notion,  their  nice  sense  of  what  was  grammati- 
cally and  critically  just,  would  not  allow  them  to  pervert  the  passage  to  the  support  of 
this  long-established  view;  and  they  therefore  pronounce  it  as  merely  expressive  of 
the  helplessness  and  imbecility  of  extreme  old  age,  with  which  they  make  every  word 
coincicfe.  But  Eloomfield,  entirely  carried  away  with  the  tide  of  antique  authorities, 
is  "  surprised  that  so  many  recent  commentators  should  deny  that  crucifixion  is  here 
alluded  to,  though  they  acknowledge  that  Peter  suffered  crucifixion."  He  might 
well  be  surprised,  as  I  certainly  was,  on  finding  what  mighty  names  had  so  disinterest- 
edly supported  the  interpretation  which  I  had  with  fear  and  trembling  adopted,  in 
obedience  to  my  own  long-established,  unaided  convictions;  but  my  surprise  was  of 
a  decidedly  agreeable  sort. 

Peter's  martyrdom. — The  only  authority  which  can  be  esteemed  worthy  of  con- 
sideration on  this  point,  is  that  of  Clemens  Romanus,  who,  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
first  century,  (about  the  year  70,  or  as  others  say,  9G,)  in  his  epistle  to  the  Corinthians, 
uses  these  words  respecting  Peter: — "  Peter,  on  account  of  unrighteous  hatred,  un- 
derwent not  one,  or  two,  but  many  labors,  and  having  thus  home  his  testimony,  de- 
parted  to   the   place   of  glory,   which   was   his  due," — (ovrw;   lAaprvpfjaas   imptvQn  di  t6v 

6(pci\<>ficvov  ToiTov  ^o'^'/s.)  Now  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  the  prominent  word  (mar- 
turesas)  necessarily  means  "  bearing  testimony  by  death,"  or  martyrdom  in  the  modern 
sense.  The  primary  sense  of  this  verb  is  merely  "  to  witness,"  in  which  simple  meaning 
alone,  it  is  used  in  the  New  Testament ;  nor  can  any  passage  in  the  sacred  writings  be 
shown,  in  which  this  verb  means  "  to  bear  witness  to  any  cause,  by  death."  This  was 
a  technical  sense,  (if  I  may  so  name  it,)  which  the  word  ai  last  acquired  among  the 
Fathers,  when  they  were  speaking  of  those  who  bore  witness  to  the  truth  of  the  gos- 
pel of  Christ  by  their  blood ;  and  it  was  a  meaning  which  at  last  nearly  excluded  all 
the  true  original  senses  of  the  verb,  limiting  it  mainly  to  the  notion  of  a  death  by 
persecution  for  the  sake  of  Christ.  Thence  our  English  words,  martyr  and  martyr- 
dom. But  that  Clement  by  this  use  of  the  word,  in  this  connexion,  meant  to  convey 
the  idea  of  Peter's  having  been  killed  for  the  sake  of  Christ,  is  an  opinion  utterly 
incapable  of  proof,  and  moreover  rendered  improbable  by  the  words  joined  to  it  in 
the  passage.  The  sentence  is — "  Peter  underwent  many  labors,  and  having  thus 
borne  witness"  to  the  gospel  truth,  "  went  to  the  place  of  glory  which  he  deserved." 
Now  the  adverb  "  thus,"  (oiira)?,)  seems  to  me  mo.st  distinctly  to  show  what  was  the 
nature  of  this  testimony,  and  the  manner  also  in  which  he  bore  it.  It  points  out  more 
plainly  than  any  other  words  could,  the  fact  that  his  testimony  to  the  truth  of  the 
gospel  was  borne  in  the  zealous  labors  of  a  devoted  life,  and  not  by  the  agonies  of  a 
bloody  death.  There  is  not  in  the  whole  context,  nor  in  all  the  writings  of  Clement, 
any  hint  whatever  that  Peter  was  killed  for  the  sake  of  the  gospel ;  and  we  are  therefore 
required  by  every  sound  rule  of  interpretation,  to  stick  to  the  primary  sense  of  the 
verb,  in  this  passage.  Lardner  most  decidedly  mis-translates  it  in  the  text  of  his 
work,  so  that  any  common  reader  would  be  grossly  deceived  as  to  the  expression  in 
the  original  of  Clement, — "Peter  underwent  many  labors,  till  at  last  being  martyred, 
he  went,"  &c.  The  Greek  word,  ovtm^,  {houtos,)  means  always — "  in  this  manner," 
"  thus,"  "  so,"  and  is  not  a  mere  expletive,  like  the  English  phrase,  "  and  so,"  which 
is  a  mere  form  of  transition  from  one  part  of  the  narrative  to  the  other. 

In  the  similar  passage  of  Clement  which  refers  to  Paul,  there  is  something  in  the 
connexion  which  may  seem  to  favor  the  conclusion  that  he  understood  Paul  to  have 
been  put  to  death  by  the  Roman  officers.  His  words  are — "  and  after  having  borne 
his  testimony  before  governors,  he  was  thus  sent  out  of  the  world,"  &c.  Here  the 
word  "  thus,"  coming  after  the  participle,  may  perhaps  be  considered,  in  view  ai.so  of 
its  other  connexions,  as  implying  his  removal  from  the  world  by  a  violent  deaih,  in 
conseqvence  of  the  testimony  borne  by  him  before  the  governors.  This,  however,  will 
bear  some  dispute,  and  will  need  a  fuller  discussion  elsewhere. 

But  in  respect  to  the  passage  which  refers  to  Peter,  the  burden  of  proof  may  fairly 
be  said  to  lie  on  those  who  maintain  the  old  opinion.  Here  the  word  is  shown  to 
have,  in  the  New  Testament,  no  such  application  to  death  as  it  has  since  acquired; 
and  the  question  is,  whether  Clemens  Romanus,  a  man  himself  of  the  apo.slolic  age, 
who  lived  and  perhaps  wrote,  before  the  canon  was  completed,  had  already  learned 
to  give  a  new  meaning  to  a  verb,  before  so  simple  and  unlimited  in  its  applications. 
No  person  can  pretend  to  trace  this  meaning  to  within  a  century  of  the  Clementine 
age,  nor  docs  Suicer  refer  to  any  one  who  knew  of  such  use  before  Clemens  Alex- 
andrinus.    (See  his  Thes.;  Muorup.)    Clement  himself  uses  it  in  the  same  epistie 


PETERS  APOSTLESHIP.  277 

•(§  xvii.)  in  its  unquestionable  primary  sense,  speaking  of  Abraham  as  having  re- 
ceived an  honorable  testimony, — (f/iaprwpi'iO'/ ;)  for  who  will  say  that  Abraham  was 
martyred,  in  the  modern  sense  1  The  fact,  too,  that  Clement  no  where  else  gives  the 
least  glimmer  of  a  hint  that  Peter  died  any  where  but  in  his  bed,  fixes  the  position 
here  taken,  beyond  all  possibility  of  attack,  except  by  its  being  shown  that  he  uses 
this  verb  somewhere  else,  with  the  sense  of  death  unquestionably  attached  to  it. 

There  is  no  other  early  writer  who  can  be  said  to  speak  of  the  manner  of  Peter's 
death,  before  Dionysius  of  Corinth,  who  says  that  "  Peter  and  Paul  having  taught  in 
Italy  together,  bore  their  testimony"  (by  death,  if  you  please,)  "about  the  same  time." 
An  argument  might  here  also  be  sustained  on  the  word  ijiapTvoriuav,  {emarturesan,) 
but  the  evidence  of  Dionysius,  mixed  as  it  is  with  a  demonstrated  fable,  is  not  worth 
a  verbal  criticism.  The  same  may  be  .said  of  TertuUian,  Lactantius,  Eusebius,  and 
the  rest  of  the  later  Fathers,  as  given  in  the  note  on  pages  245 — 250. 

An  examination  of  the  word  Maprvp,  in  Suicer's  Thesaurus  Ecclesiasticus,  will 
show  the  critical,  that  even  in  later  times,  this  word  did  not  necessarily  imply  "  one 
who  bore  his  testimony  to  the  truth  at  tJw  sacrifice  of  life."  Even  Chrysostom, 
in  who.se  time  the  peculiar  limitation  of  the  term  might  be  supposed  to  be  very  well 
established,  uses  the  word  in  such  applications  as  to  show  that  its  original  force  was 
not  wholly  lost.  By  Athanasius,  too,  Shadrach,  Meshach,  and  Abed-nego,  are  styled 
mia.rtyrs.  Gregory  Nazianzen  also  speaks  of  "  living  martyrs."  (^cjites  ^ujampw.) 
Theophyiact  calls  the  apostle  John  a  viartyr,  though  he  declares  him  to  have  passed 
through  the  hands  of  his  persecutors  unhurt,  and  to  have  died  by  the  course  of  nature. 
Clemens  Alexandrinus  has  similar  u.ses  of  the  term ;  and  the  Apostolical  Constitu- 
tions, of  doubtful  date,  but  much  later  than  the  first  century,  also  give  it  in  such  ap- 
plications. Suicer  distinctly  specifies  several  classes  of  persons,  not  martyrs  in  the 
modern  sense,  to  whom  the  Greek  word  is  nevertheless  applied  in  the  writings  of 
even  the  later  Fathers ;  as  "  those  who  testified  the  truth  of  the  gospel  of  Christ,  at 
X\i&  peril  of  life  merely,  without  the  loss  of  it," — "those  who  obeyed  the  requirements 
of  the  gospel,  by  restraining  passion,"  &c.  In  some  of  these  instances,  however,  it 
is  palpable  that  the  application  of  the  word  to  .such  persons  is  secondary,  and  made  in 
rather  a  poetical  way,  with  a  reference  to  the  more  common  meaning  of  loss  of  life 
for  the  sake  of  Christ,  since  there  is  always  implied  a  testimo7iy  at  the  risk  or  loss  of 
something;  still  the  power  of  these  instances  to  render  doubtful  the  meaning  of  the 
term  is  unquestionable.    (See  Suicer's  Thes.  Ecc.  Maprtio,  III.  2,  5,  6.) 

In  justification  of  the  certainty  with  which  sentence  is  pronounced  against  the 
whole  story  of  Peter's  ever  having  gone  to  Rome,  it  is  only  necessary  to  refer  to  the 
full  statements  on  pages  245 — 250,  in  which  the  complete  array  of  ancient  evi- 
dence on  the  point,  is  given  by  Dr.  Murdock.  If  the  support  of  great  names  is 
needed,  those  of  Scaliger,  Salmasius,  Spanheim,  and  Bower,  all  mighty  minds  in 
criticism,  are  enough  to  justify  the  seeming  boldness  of  the  opinion,  that  Peter  never 
went  west  of  the  Hellespont,  and  probably  never  embarked  on  the  Mediterranean. 
In  conclusion  of  the  whole  refutation  of  this  long-established  error,  the  matter  cannot 
be  more  fairly  presented,  than  in  the  words  with  which  the  critical  and  learned  Bower 
opens  his  Lives  of  the  Popes: 

"  To  avoid  being  imposed  upon,  we  ought  to  treat  tradition  as  we  do  a  notorious 
and  known  liar,  to  whom  we  give  no  credit,  unless  what  he  says  is  confirmed  to  us 
by  .some  person  of  undoubted  veracity.  If  it  is  affirmed  by  him  alone,  we  can  at  most 
but  suspend  our  belief,  not  rejecting  it  as  false,  because  a  liar  may  sometimes  speak 
truth;  but  we  cannot,  upon  hisrbare  authority,  admit  it  as  true.  IN'ow  that  St.  Peter 
was  at  Rome,  that  he  was  bishop  of  Rome,  we  are  told  by  tradition  alone,  which,  at 
the  same  time,  tells  us  of  so  many  strange  circumstances  attending  his  coming  to  that 
metropolis,  his  staying  in  it,  his  withdrawing  from  it,  &c.,  that  in  the  opinion  of  every 
unprejudiced  man,  the  whole  must  savor  .strongly  of  romance.  Thus  we  are  told 
that  St.  Peter  went  to  Rome'chiefly  to  oppose  Simon,  the  celebrated  magician;  that 
at  their  first  interview,  at  which  Nero  himself  was  present,  he  flew  up  into  the  air, 
in  the  sight  of  the  emperor  and  the  whole  city ;  but  that  the  devil,  who  had  thus 
raised  him,  struck  with  dread  and  terror  at  the  name  of  Jesus,  whom  the  apostle 
invoked,  let  him  fall  to  the  ground,  by  vvhich  fall  he  broke  his  legs.  Should  you 
question  the  truth  of  this  tradition  at  Rome,  they  would  show  you  the  prints  of  St. 
Peter's  knees  in  the  stone,  on  which  he  kneeled  on  this  occasion,  and  another  .stone 
still  dyed  with  the  blood  of  the  magician.  This  account  .seems  to  have  been  bor- 
rowed from  Suetonius,  who  speaks  of  a  person  that,  in  the  public  sports,  undertook 
to  fly,  in  the  presence  of  the  emperor  Nero;  but  on  his  first  attempt,  fell  to  the  ground; 


278  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

by  which  fall  his  blood  sprung  out  with  such  violence  that  it  reached  the  emperor*s 

canopy." 

Dr.'Murdock,  in  immediate  continuation  of  his  remarks  on  the  testimony  of  the 
Fathers  respecting  Peter's  visit  to  Rome,  given  above  on  pp.  245 — 250,  thus  cau- 
tiously but  powerfully  meets  the  final  question: 

"  But  (he  testimony  of  the  earlier  Fathers  does  not  necessarily  carry  Peter  to 
Rome,  till  after  the  year  64,  nor  does  it  make  him  at  all  bishop  of  Rome.  It  muy 
therefore  be  trne,  notwithstanding  all  the  objections  which  have  been  stated  against 
Peter's  earlier  arrival  and  his  episcopacy  there.  And  the  number  and  agreement  of 
the  witnesses,  and  their  proximity  to  the  apostolic  age,  should  induce  us  not  to  slight 
their  testimony,  or  treat  it  as  if  of  no  weight.  And  yet  it  is  possible  they  were  misled 
by  some  popular  tales.  If  we  reject,  as  many  do,  the  report  of  Paul's  release  from 
captivity,  in  the  year  64,  we  must  also  reject  the  testimony  of  the  early  Fathers  re- 
ipecliiig  his  going  with  Peter  to  Rome,  and  there  sulfering  martyrdom  with  him,  in 
the  year  68.  But  admitting  Paul's  release  from  his  first  captivity,  then,  I  can  see  no  ob- 
jections to  admitting  this  testimony  of  the  early  Fathers,  except  the  following  : — Paul 
wrote  bis  second  epistle  to  Timothy  at  Rome,  and  during  his  last  confinement  there ; 
that  is — a  little  before  he  and  Peter  (according  to  the  tradition)  were  put  to  death.  Yet 
on  reading  this  epistle,  we  find  that  Peter  is  not  once  named,  or  even  alluded  to,  from 
the  beginning  to  the  end  of  it.  Paul  speaks  of  his  own  bonds,  but  not  a  word  of 
Peter's.  He  tells  us  he  was  "  ready  to  be  ofiered  up,"  and  that  the  time  of /a.s  depart- 
ure was  at  hand,  but  says  not  a  word  of  Peter's  being  to  suffer  with  him,  at  the  same 
lime.  He  sends  the  salutations  of  five  or  six  different  persons,  and  of  the  whole 
church,  but  none  from  Peter.  He  speaks  of  many  of  his  fellow-laborers  in  the  gos- 
pel, who  were  dispersed  here  and  there,  and  mentions  who  were  at  Rome,  but  makes 
no  mention  of  Peter.  Nay,  he  says  expressly — "  only  Luke  is  with  me.  'Take  Mark, 
and  bring  him  with  thee."  (2  Tim.  iv.  11.)  Now  all  this  certainly  is  very  strange, 
if  Peter  was  then  with  Paul  at  Rome,  a  fellow-prisoner,  and  both  soon  to  be  put  to 
death  on  the  same  day."   (Murdock's  MS.  Lectures.  Abr.  series.  No.  V.  pp.  27,  28.) 


THE  SECOND  SUPPOSED  VISIT  TO    ROME. 

The  notion  of  his  having  ended  his  life  in  Rome,  and  of  his  being  crnci- 
fied  there  during  the  first  Roman  persecution  of  the  Christians,  is  connect- 
ed with  another  adventure  with  that  useful  character,  Simon  Magus,  who, 
as  the  tale  runs,  after  being  first  vanquished  so  thoroughly  by  Peter,  in  the 
reign  of  Claudius,  returned  to  Rome,  in  the  reign  of  Nero,  and  made  such 
progress  again  in  his  magical  tricks,  as  to  rise  into  the  highest  favor  with 
this  emperor,  as  he  had  with  the  former.  This  of  course  required  a 
new  effort  from  Peter,  which  ended  in  the  disgrace  and  death  of  the 
magician,  who,  attempting  to  fly  through  the  air  in  the  presence  of  the 
emperor  and  people  in  the  theatre,  was,  by  the  prayer  of  Peter,  caused  to 
fall  from  his  aspiring  course  to  the  ground,  by  which  he  was  so  much  in- 
jured as  to  die  soon  after.  The  emperor  being  provoked  at  the  loss  of  his 
favorite,  turned  all  his  wrath  against  the  apostle  who  had  been  directly 
instrumental  in  his  ruin,  and  imprisoned  him  with  the  design  of  executing 
him  as  soon  as  might  be  convenient.  While  in  these  circumstances,  or, 
as  others  say,  before  he  was  imprisoned,  he  was  earnestly  exhorted  by  the 
disciples  in  Rome,  to  make  his  escape.  He  therefore,  reluctantly  begari 
to  move  off,  one  dark  night ;  but  had  hardly  got  beyond  the  walls  of  the 
city, — indeed,  he  was  just  passing  out  of  the  gate  Avay, — when,  whom 
should  he  meet  but  Jesus  Christ  himself,  coming  towards  Rome.  Peter 
asked,  with  some  reasonable  surprise,  "-Lord!  where  are  you  going?" 
Christ  answered,  "  I  am  coming  to  Rome,  to  be  crucified  again."  Peter  at 
once  took  this  as  a  hint  that  he  ought  to  have  stayed,  and  that  Christ 
meant  to  be  crucified  again  in  the  crucifixion  of  his  apostle.     He  accord- 


Peter's  apostleship.  279 

ingly  turned  right  about,  and  went  back  into  the  city,  where,  having  given 
to  the  wondering  brethren  an  account  of  the  reasons  of  his  return,  he  was 
immediately  seized,  and  was  crucified,  to  the  glory  of  God.  Now  it  is  a 
sufficient  answer  to  this  or  any  similar  fable,  to  judge  the  blasphemous  in- 
ventor out  of  his  own  mouth,  and  out  of  the  instructions  given  by  Christ 
himse'f  to  his  servants,  for  their  conduct,  in  all  cases  where  they  were 
threatened  with  persecution,  as  above  quoted.  And  Peter  would  no  doubt 
have  answered  any  inquiry  as  to  the  propriety  of  flight  in  such  a  case,  by 
the  words  of  Christ  himself — "  When  you  are  persecuted  in  one  city,  flee 
into  another." 

The  inventors  of  fables  goon  to  give  us  the  minute  particulars  of  Peter's 
death,  and  especially  note  the  circumstance  that  he  was  crucified  with  his 
head  downwards  and  his  feet  uppermost,  he  himself  having  desired  that  it 
might  be  done  in  that  manner,  because  he  thought  himself  unworthy  to  be 
crucified  as  his  Master  was.  This  was  a  mode  sometimes  adopted  by  the 
Romans,  as  an  additional  pain  and  ignominy.  But  Peter  must  have  been 
singularly  accommodating  to  his  persecutors,  to  have  suggested  this  im- 
provement upon  his  tortures  to  such  malignant  murderers ;  and  must  have 
manifested  a  spirit  more  accordant  with  that  of  a  savage  defying  his  ene- 
mies to  increase  his  agonies,  than  with  that  of  the  mild,  submissive  Jesus. 
And  such  has  been  the  evident  absurdity  of  the  story,  that  many  of  the 
most  ardent  receivers  of  fables  have  rejected  this  circumstance  as  improba- 
ble, more  especially  as  it  is  not  found  among  the  earliest  stories  of  his 
crucifixion,  but  evidently  seems  to  have  been  appended  among  later  im- 
provements. 

Perhaps  it  is  hardly  worth  while  to  dismiss  these  fables  altogether  without  first 
alluding  to  the  rather  ancient  one,  first  given  by  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  (Stromal.  7, 
p.  736,)  and  copied  verbatim  by  Eusebius,  (H.  E.  III.  30.)  Both  the  reverend  Fathers, 
however,  introduce  the  story  as  a  tradition,  a  mere  on  dit,  prefacing  it  with  the  ex- 
pressive phrase — "  They  say,"  &c.  (^ao!.)  "  The  blessed  Peter  seeing  his  wife  led  to 
death,  was  pleased  with  the  honor  of  her  being  thus  called  by  God  to  return  home, 
and  thus  addressed  her  in  words  of  exhortation  and  consolation,  calling  her  byname, 
— '  O  woman!  remember  the  Lord.'"  The  story  comes  up  from  the  hands  of  tradi- 
tion rather  too  late,  however,  to  be  entitled  to  any  credit  whatever,  being  recorded  by 
Clemens  Alexandrinus  full  200  years  after  Christ.  It  was  probably  invented  in  the 
times  when  it  was  thought  worth  while  to  cherish  the  spirit  of  voluntary  martyrdom, 
among  even  the  female  sex  ;  for  which  purpose  instances  were  sought  out  or  invented 
respecting  those  of  the  apostolic  days.  That  Peter  had  a  wife  is  perfectly  true ;  and 
it  is  also  probable  that  she  accompanied  him  about  on  his  travels,  as  would  appear 
from  a  passage  in  Paul's  writings;  (1  Cor.  ix.  5;)  but  beyond  this,  nothing  is  known 
of  her  life  or  death.  Similar  fables  might  be  endlessly  multiplied  from  papistical 
sources ;  more  especially  from  the  Clementine  novels,  and  the  apostolical  romances 
of  Abdias  Babylonius;  but  the  object  of  the  present  work  is  true  history,  and  it  would 
require  a  whole  volume  much  larger  than  this  to  give  all  the  details  of  Christian  my- 
thology. 

Among  the  traditions  of  the  third  and  fourth  centuries,  there  is  also  a  story  thai 
Peter  left  a  daughter  named  Petronia,  of  whose  supposed  life  no  incident  is  recorded, 
except  that,  like  almost  every  other  fabled  saint,  she  died  by  martyrdom. 

HIS  TOMB. 

Trying  of  old  age  in  the  great  though  decayed  ancient  city, 
which  had  been  to  him,  as  well  as  to  numerous  refugees  from  Pa- 
lestine, a  safe  home  and  a  useful  station  in  his  declining  years, 
the  chief  apostle  must  have  laid  his  bones  in  Babylon.     He  sleeps 


# 

280  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

in  that  ancient  seat  of  empire,  once  the  mournful  scene  of  the  cap- 
tivity of  Judah,  at  the  ruin  of  the  first  temple  and  city,  but  after- 
wards, by  a  strange  revolution  of  circumstances,  a  place  of  refuge 
and  peace  to  the  remnant  that  escaped  that  second  and  last  fall  of 
Jerusalem.  Babylon,  the  primeval  seat  of  empire,  of  old  "the 
glory  of  kingdoms,  the  beauty  of  the  Chaldees'  pride,"  doomed 
like  Sodom  and  Gomorrah, — in  the  last  days  of  its  being,  thus 
became  consecrated  by  the  grave  of  one  blest  above  all  men,  as 
the  chief  minister  of  that  faith  whose  dominion  was  to  stretch 
over  lands  and  nations  vaster  and  mightier  than  a  hundred  Chal- 
dean empires.  The  city  doomed  to  become  the  dwelling-place  of 
serpents  and  wild  beasts,  to  be  a  spot  so  desolate  and  loathsome  as 
to  fright  the  savage  wanderer  from  pitching  his  tent  in  the  shade 
of  its  ruins,  did  not,  indeed,  with  the  less  certainty,  fall  from  its 
latter  glories  to  the  most  literal  completion  of  its  fate ;  but  the 
dreary  waste  and  marshy  void  that  show  the  place  of  its  glories, 
are  hallowed  to  the  Christian  reader,  by  the  bare  probability  of 
their  covering  Peter's  grave,  with  an  influence  that  transcends  the 
darkest  power  of  all  the  maledictions  and  imprecations  of  ancient 
prophecy. 

Of  course,  the  fables  invented  about  Peter,  by  the  inveterate  papists,  do 
not  cease  with  his  death.  In  regard  to  the  place  of  his  tomb,  a  new  story 
was  needed,  and  it  is  accordingly  given  with  the  usual  particularity.  It  is 
said  that  he  was  buried  at  Rome  in  the  Vatican  plain,  in  the  district  beyond 
the  Tiber,  in  which  he  was  supposed  to  have  first  preached  among  the  Jews, 
and  where  stood  the  great  circus  of  Nero,  in  which  the  apostle  is  said  to 
have  been  crucified.  Over  this  bloody  spot,  a  church  was  afterwards  raised 
by  Constantine  the  Great,  who  chose  for  its  site  part  of  the  ground  that 
had  been  occupied  by  the  circus,  and  the  spaces  where  the  temples  of  Mars 
and  Apollo  had  stood.  The  church,  though  of  no  great  architectural 
beauty,  was  a  building  of  great  magnitude,  being  three  hundred  feet  long, 
and  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  wide.  This  building  stood 
nearly  twelve  hundred  years,  when  becoming  ruinous  in  spite  of  all  repairs, 
it  was  removed  to  give  place  to  the  present  cathedral  church  of  St.  Peter, 
now  the  most  immense  and  magnificent  building  in  the  world, — not  too 
much  praised  in  the  graphic  verse  in  which  the  pilgrim-poet  sets  it  beyond 
all  comparison  with  the  greatest  piles  of  ancient  or  modern  art : 

"  But  lo!  the  dome— the  vast  and  wondrous  dome, 
To  which  Diana's  marvel  was  a  cell — 
Christ's  mighty  shrine  above  his  martyr's  tomb  ! 
I  have  beheld  the  Ephesians'  miracle — 
Its  columns  strew  the  wilderness,  and  dwell 
The  hyena  and  the  jackall  in  their  shade  ; 
I  have  beheld  Sophia's  bright  roofs  swell 
Their  glittering  mass  i'  the  sun,  and  have  surveyed 
lis  sanctuary,  the  while  the  usurping  Moslem  prayed. 


Peter's  apostleship.  281 

"  But  thou,  of  temples  old,  or  altars  new, 
Siandest  alone — with  nothing  like  to  thee — 
Worthiest  of  God,  the  holy  and  the  true! 
Since  Zion's  desolation,  when  that  He 
Forsook  his  former  city,  what  could  be 
Of  earthly  structures  in  his  honor  piled, 
Of  a  sublimer  aspect  1" — 

THE  VISION  OF  HIS  RISING. 

Within  the  most  holy  place  of  this  vast  sanctuary, — beneath  the 
very  centre  of  that  wonderful  dome,  which  rises  in  such  unequaled 
vastness  above  it,  redounding  far  more  to  the  glory  of  the  man 
who  reared  it,  than  of  the  God  whose  altar  it  covers, — in  the 
vaulted  crypt  which  lies  below  the  pavement,  is  a  shrine,  before 
which  a  hundred  lamps  are  constantly  burning,  and  over  which 
the  prayers  of  thousands  are  daily  rising.  This  is  called  the  tomb 
of  the  saint  to  whom  the  whole  pile  is  dedicated,  and  from  whom 
the  great  high  priest  of  that  temple  draws  his  claim  to  the  keys  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  with  the  power  to  bind  and  loose,  and  the 
assurance  of  heaven's  sanction  on  his  decrees.  But  what  a  con- 
trast is  all  this  "  pride,  pomp,  and  circumstance,"  to  the  bare  purity 
of  the  faith  and  character  of  the  simple  man  whose  life  and  con- 
duct are  recorded  on  these  pages !  If  any  thing  whatever  may  be 
drawn  as  a  well-authorized  conclusion  from  the  details  that  have 
been  given  of  his  actions  and  motives,  it  is  that  Simon  Peter  was 
a  "  plain,  blunt"  man,  laboring  devotedly  for  the  object  to  which 
he  had  been  called  by  Jesus,  and  with  no  other  view  whatever, 
than  the  advancement  of  the  kingdom  of  his  Master, — the  incul- 
cation of  a  pure  spiritual  faith,  which  should  seek  no  support,  nor 
the  slightest  aid,  from  the  circumstances  which  charm  the  eye  and 
ear,  and  win  the  soul  through  the  mere  delight  impressed  upon 
the  senses,  as  the  idolatrous  priests  who  now  claim  his  name 
and  ashes,  maintain  their  dominion  in  the  hearts  of  millions  of 
worse  than  pagan  worshipers.  His  whole  life  and  labors  were 
pointed  at  the  very  extirpation  of  forms  and  ceremonies, — the  erec- 
tion of  a  pure,  rational,  spiritual  dominion  in  the  hearts  of  man- 
kind, so  that  the  blessings  of  a  glorious  faith,  which  for  two  thou- 
sand years  before  had  been  confined  to  the  limits  of  a  ceremonial 
system,  might  now,  disenthralled  from  all  the  bonds  of  sense,  and 
exalted  above  the  details  of  tedious  forms,  of  natural  distinctions, 
and  of  antique  rituals, — spread  over  a  field  as  wide  as  humanity. 
For  this  he  lived  and  toiled,  and  in  the  clear  hope  of  a  triumphant 
fulfilment  of  that  plan,  he  died.     And  if,  from  his  forgotten,  un- 


LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

known  grave,  among  the  ashes  of  the  Chaldean  Babylon,  and  from 
the  holy  rest  which  is  for  the  blessed,  the  now  glorified  apostle 
could  be  called  to  the  renewal  of  breathing,  earthly  life,  and  see 
the  results  of  his  energetic,  simple-minded  devotion, — what  wonder, 
what  joy,  what  grief,  what  glory,  what  shame,  would  not  the  reve- 
lation of  these  mighty  changes  move  within  him !  The  simple, 
pure  gospel  which  he  had  preached  in  humble,  faithful  obedience 
to  the  divine  command,  without  a  thought  of  glory  or  reward,  now 
exalted  in  the  unintelligent  reverence  of  hundreds  of  millions  ! — but 
where  appreciated  in  its  simplicity  and  truth  ?  The  cross  on  which 
his  Master  was  doomed  to  ignominy,  now  exalted  as  the  sign  of 
salvation,  and  the  seal  of  God's  love  to  the  world ! — (a  spectacle 
as  strange  to  a  Roman  or  Jewish  eye,  as  to  a  modern  would  be  the 
gallows,  similarly  consecrated !) — but  who  burning  with  that  devo- 
tion which  led  him  of  old  to  bear  that  shameful  burden  ?  His  own 
humble  name  raised  to  a  place  above  the  brightest  of  Roman,  of 
Hellenic,  of  Hebrew,  or  Chaldean  story !  but  made,  alas  !  the  sup- 
porter of  a  tyranny  over  souls,  far  more  grinding  and  remorseless 
than  any  which  he  labored  to  overthrow.  The  fabled  spot  of  his 
grave  housed  in  a  temple  to  which  the  noblest  shrine  of  ancient 
heathenism  "  was  but  a  cell !"  but  in  which  are  celebrated,  under 
the  sanction  of  his  sainted  name,  the  rites  of  an  idolatry,  than 
which  that  of  Italy,  or  Greece,  or  Syria,  or  Egypt,  would  seem 
more  spiritual, — and  of  tedious,  unmeaning  ceremonies,  compared 
with  which  the  whole  formalities  of  the  Levitical  ritual  might  be 
pronounced  simple  and  practical ! 

These  would  be  the  first  sights  that  would  meet  the  eye  of  the 
disentombed  apostle,  if  he  should  rise  over  the  spot  which  claims 
the  honors  of  his  martyr-tomb,  and  the  consecration  of  his  com- 
mission. How  mournfully  would  he  turn  from  all  the  mighty 
honors  of  that  idolatrous  worship, — from  the  deifying  glories  of 
that  sublimest  of  all  shrines  that  ever  rose  over  the  earth  !  How 
earnestly  would  he  long  for  the  high  temple  of  one  humble,  pure 
heart,  that  knew  and  felt  the  simplicity  of  the  truth  as  it  was  in 
Jesus  !  How  joyfully  would  he  hail  the  manifestations  of  that 
active  evangelizing  spirit  that  consecrated  and  fitted  him  for  his 
great  missionary  enterprise  !  His  amazed  and  grieved  soul  would 
doubtless  here  and  there  feel  its  new  view  rewarded,  in  the  sight 
of  much  that  was  accordant  with  the  holy  feeling  that  inspired  the 
apostolic  band.  All  over  Christendom,  might  he  find  scattered  the 
ocrasional  lights  of  a  purer  devotion,  and  on  many  lands  he  would 


Peter's  apostleship.  283 

see  the  tratn  pouring,  in  something  of  the  clear  splendor  for  which 
he  hoped  and  labored.  But  of  the  countless  souls  that  owned 
Jesus  as  Lord  and  Savior,  millions  on  millions, — and  vast  numbers, 
too,  even  in  the  lands  of  a  reformed  faith, — would  be  found  still 
clinging  to  the  vain  support  of  forms,  and  names,  and  observances  ; 
and  but  a  few,  a  precious  few,  who  had  learned  what  that  mean- 
eth — "  I  will  have  mercy  and  not  sacrifice" — works  and  not  words, 
— deeds  and  not  creeds, — high,  simple,  active,  energetic,  enter- 
prising devotion,  and  not  cloistered  reverence — chanceled  worship, 
— or  soul-wearying  rituals.  Would  not  the  apostle,  sickened  with 
the  revelations  of  such  a  resurrection,  and  more  appalled  than  de- 
lighted, call  on  the  power  that  brought  him  up  from  the  peaceful 
rest  of  the  blessed,  to  give  him  again  the  calm  repose  of  those  who 
die  in  the  Lord,  rather  than  the  idolatrous  honors  of  such  an  apo- 
theosis, or  the  strange  sight  of  the  results  of  such  an  evangeliza- 
tion ? — "  Let  me  enter  again  the  gates  of  Hades,  but  not  the  por- 
tals of  these  temples  of  superstition.  Let  me  lie  down  with  the 
souls  of  the  humble,  but  not  in  the  shrine  of  this  heathenish  pile. 
Leave  me  once  more  to  rest  from  my  labors,  with  my  works  still 
following ;  and  call  me  not  from  this  repose  till  the  labors  I  left  on 
earth  unachieved,  have  been  better  done.  '  We  did  not  follow 
these  cunningly-devised  fables,  when  we  made  known  to  men  the 
power  and  the  coming  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  but  the  simple 
eye-witness  story  of  his  majesty.'  '  We  had  a  surer  word  of  pro- 
phecy ;  and  well  would  it  have  been,  if  these  had  turned  their 
wandering  eyes  to  it,  as  to  a  light  shining  in  a  dark  place,  and 
kept  that  steady  beacon  in  view,  through  the  stormy  gloom  of 
ages,  until  the  day  dawn  and  the  day-star  arise  in  their  hearts*' 
These  are  not  '  the  new  heavens  and  the  new  earth,  wherein 
dwelleth  righteousness,  for  which  we  looked,  according  to  God's 
promise.'  Those  must  the  faithful  still  look  for,  believing  that 
'  Jehovah,  with  whom  a  thousand  years  are  as  one  day,  is  not  slack 
concerning  his  promise,  but  desires  all  to  come  to  repentance,'  and 
will  come  himself  at  last  in  the  achievment  of  our  labors.  Then 
call  me." 

As  sure  as  there  is  any  truth  in  the  revelation  which  Peter  pro- 
claimed, and  to  which  he  devoted  his  life,  and  whose  distant  but 
certain  consummation  he  saw  with  his  latest  vision,  and  attested 
with  the  last  remaining  effort  of  his  pen, — the  day  will  come  when 
he  will  indeed  arise  from  his  forgotten  grave,  and  in  the  light  of 

the  latter  days,  glance  over  the  mighty  extensions  and  results  of 
38 


284  LIVKS  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

his  work.  When  his  eye  shall  survey  the  numberless  millions 
that  claim  salvation  and  eternal  happiness  through  the  faith  which 
he  preached,  what  will  be  the  one  kindred  principle  by  which, 
among  the  inconceivable  varieties  of  creed  and  doctrine  professed 
by  those  who  own  him  as  the  first  human  minister  of  God's  last 
revelation,  he  will  recognize  the  essence  and  the  unity  of  the 
Christian  faith  ?  What  will  be  the  characteristic  by  which  he  will 
know  that  the  same  mind  is  in  us  which  was  also  in  him?  Will 
it  not  be  that  pure,  devoted  affection  for  his  Lord,  which  was  the 
substance  of  his  faith  and  the  animating  principle  of  his  devotion  ? 
The  love  for  man  and  for  man's  Redeemer,  which  flows  forth  spon- 
taneously from  the  knowledge  and  the  feeling  of  the  moral  weak- 
ness of  the  one  and  the  divine  perfection  of  the  other,  will  be  the 
test  that  will  reveal  at  the  first  glance  the  spirit  of  Christianity. 
This,  of  itself  and  alone,  will  be  the  key  of  heaven ;  and  just  in 
proportion  to  the  active  development  and  manifestation  of  this 
principle,  in  such  works  as  constituted  the  function  and  the  proof 
of  his  apostleship,  will  be  the  highth  to  which  the  spirit  shall 
mount  in  the  scale  of  eternal  being.  How  vain  and  idle  then,  in 
the  light  of  such  a  day,  must  appear  the  cumbrous  and  artificial 
array  of  doctrines  and  creeds  and  observances,  with  which  the  hosts 
of  modern  sectarians  so  hedge  up  the  path  and  perplex  the  search 
of  the  inquirer  for  truth  and  salvation  !  The  spirit  of  love  which 
was  the  consolation  of  Peter's  life,  shall  deepen  the  enjoyments  of 
his  eternal  rest,  and  highten  the  rapture  with  which  he  will  hail 
that  Lord's  appearing.  Even  as  one  of  our  own  poets  has  pictured, 
in  his  noble  vision  of  the  last  judgment,  the  holy  joy  of  the  apos- 
tolic band  at  the  dazzling  revelation  of  their  beloved  Lord  in  the 

majesty  of  his  glories  : 

"  What  a  tide 
Of  overwhelming  thoughts  pressed  to  their  souls, 
When  now,  as  he  so  frequent  promised,  throned, 
And  circled  by  the  hosts  uf  heaven,  they  traced 
The  well-known  lineaments  of  him  who  shared 
Their  wants  and  sufferings  here !  Full  many  a  day 
Of  fasting  spent  with  him,  and  night  of  prayer. 
Rushed  to  their  swelling  hearts.     Before  the  rest, 
Close  to  the  angelic  spears,  had  Peter  urged,  ; 

Tears  in  his  eye,  love  throbbing  at  his  breast, 
As  if  to  touch  his  vesture,  or  to  catch 
The  murmur  of  his  voice.    On  him  and  them 
Jesus  beamed  down  benignant  looks  of  love." 

THE  PROGRESS  OP  HIS  SPIRITUAL  DEVELOPMENT. 

What  a  life  was  this !   Its  opening  scenes  present  a  poor  fisher- 
man, in  a  rude,  despised  province,  toiling  day  by  day  in  a  low, 


Peter's  apostleship.  285 

laborious  business, — living  with  hardly  a  hope  above  the  beasts 
that  perish.  By  the  side  of  that  lake,  one  morning,  walked  a 
mysterious  man,  who,  with  mild  words  but  wondrous  deeds,  called 
the  poor  fisherman  to  leave  all,  and  follow  him.  Won  by  the 
commanding  promise  of  the  call,  he  obeyed,  and  followed  that  new 
Master,  with  high  hopes  of  earthly  glory  for  a  while,  which  at 
last  were  darkened  and  crushed  in  the  gradual  developments  of  a 
far  deeper  plan  than  his  rude  mind  could  at  first  have  appreciated. 
But  still  he  followed  him,  through  toils  and  sorrows,  through  reve- 
lations and  trials,  at  last  to  the  sight  of  his  bloody  cross ;  and  fol- 
lowed him,  still  unchanged  in  heart,  basely  and  almost  hopelessly 
wicked.  The  fairest  trial  of  his  virtue  proved  him,  after  all,  lazy, 
bloody-minded,  but  cowardly, — lying,  and  utterly  faithless  in  the 
promise  of  new  life  from  the  grave.  But  a  change  came  over  him. 
He,  so  lately  a  cowardly  disowner  of  his  Master's  name,  now,  with 
a  courageous  martyr-spirit  dared  the  wrath  of  the  awful  magnates 
of  his  nation,  in  attesting  his  faith  in  Christ.  Once  a  rough,  impet- 
uous, fighting  Galilean, — henceforth  he  lived  an  unresisting  sub- 
ject of  abuse,  stripes,  bonds,  imprisonment,  and  threatened  death. 
When  was  there  ever  such  a  triumph  of  grace  in  the  heart  of 
man?  The  conversion  of  Paul  himself  could  not  be  compared 
with  it,  as  a  moral  miracle.  The  apostle  of  Tarsus  was  a  refined, 
well-educated  man,  brought  up  in  the  great  college  of  the  Jewish 
law,  theology,  and  literature,  and  not  wholly  unacquainted  with 
the  Grecian  writers.  The  power  of  a  high  spiritual  faith  over 
such  a  mind,  however  steeled  by  prejudice,  was  not  so  wonderful 
as  its  renovating,  refining,  and  elevating  influence  on  the  rude 
fisherman  of  Bethsaida.  Paul  was  a  man  of  considerable  natural 
genius,  and  he  shows  it  on  every  page  of  his  writings ;  but  in 
Peter  there  are  seen  few  evidences  of  a  mind  naturally  exalted, 
and  the  whole  tenor  of  his  words  and  actions  seems  to  imply  a 
character  of  sound  common  sense,  and  great  energy,  but  of  per- 
ceptions and  powers  of  expression,  great,  not  so  much  by  inborn 
genius,  as  by  the  impulse  of  a  higher  spirit  within  him,  gradually 
bringing  him  to  the  possession  of  new  faculties, — intellectual  as 
well  as  moral.  This  was  the  spirit  which  raised  him  from  the 
humble  task  of  a  fisherman,  to  that  of  drawing  men  and  nations 
within  the  compass  of  the  gospel,  and  to  a  glory  and  a  dominion 
of  adoration  and  fame,  which  not  all  the  founders  of  ancient  em- 
pire, nor  all  the  gods  of  ancient  superstition,  ever  attained.  The 
temples  of  Jove  now  bear  the  name  and  ring  with  the  praises  of 


286  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  Galilean  leader, — ^the  throne  of  the  Caesars  is  displaced  by  the 
chair  of  Peter:  the  proud  column  which  commemorated  tlie  wide 
northern  and  eastern  triumphs  of  the  truly  imperial  Trajan,  is 
known  to  the  modern  Roman  only  as  the  pillar  of  St.  Peter  ; 

"  and  apostolic  statues  climb 
To  crush  the  imperial  urn,  whose  ashes  slept  sublime," 

HIS  FAME. 

Most  empty  honors !  Why  hew  down  the  marble  mountains, 
and  pile  them  into  walls  as  massive  and  as  lasting?  Why  rear  the 
stately  column,  the  colossal  image,  the  solemn  arches,  and  the  lofty 
towers,  to  overtop  the  everlasting  hills  with  their  heavenward 
heads  ?  Or  lift  the  skiey  dome  into  the  middle  heaven,  almost  out- 
swelling  the  blue  vault  itself?  Why  task  the  soul  of  art  for  new 
creations  to  line  the  long-drawn  aisles,  and  gem  the  fretted  roof 
with  the  thousand  combinations  of  form,  shade,  and  color,  that  the 
hand  of  genius  can  embody  ?  There  is  a  glory  that  shall  out- 
last all 

"  The  cloud-capped  towers, — the  gorgeous  palaces, — 

The  solemn  temples, — the  great  globe  itself, — 

Yea,  all  which  it  inherit;" 

— a  glory  far  beyond  the  brightest  things  of  earth  in  its  brightest 
day  ;  for  "  they  that  be  wise  shall  shine  as  the  firmament,  and  they 
that  turn  many  to  righteousness  as  the  stars,  for  ever  and  ever." 
Yet  in  this  the  apostle  rejoices  not ; — not  that  adoring  millions 
lift  his  name  in  prayers,  and  thanksgivings,  and  songs,  and  incense, 
from  the  noblest  piles  of  man's  creation,  to  the  glory  of  a  god, — 
not  even  that  over  all  the  earth,  in  all  ages,  till  the  perpetual  hills 
shall  bow  with  time, — till  "  eternity  grows  gray,"  the  pure  in  heart 
will  yield  him  the  highest  human  honors  of  the  faith,  on  which 
nations,  continents,  and  worlds,  hang  their  hopes  of  salvation ; — 
he  "  rejoices,  not  that  the  spirits"  of  angels  or  men  "  are  subject  to 
him, — but  that  his  name  is  written  in  heaven." 


ANDREW. 


HIS  SCRIPTURAL  HISTORY. 

The  name  3f  this  apostle  is  here  brought  in  directly  after  his 
eminent  brother,  in  accordance  with  the  lists  of  the  apostles  given 
by  Matthew  and  Luke,  in  their  gospels,  where  they  seem  to  dis- 
pose them  allin pairs;  and  they  very  naturally,  in  this  case,  prefer 
family  affinity  as  a  principle  of  arrangement,  putting  together  in 
this  and  the  following  instances,  those  who  were  sons  of  the  same 
father.  The  most  eminent  son  of  Jonah,  deservedly  taking  the 
highest  place  on  all  the  lists,  his  brother  might  very  properly  so 
far  share  in  the  honors  of  this  distinction,  as  to  be  mentioned  along 
with  him,  without  any  necessary''  implication  of  the  possession  of 
any  of  that  moral  and  intellectual  superiority,  on  which  Peter's 
claim  to  the  first  place  was  grounded.  These  seem,  at  least,  to 
have  been  sufficient  reasons  for  Matthew,  in  arranging  the  apos- 
tles, and  for  Luke  in  his  gospel ;  while  in  his  history  of  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles,  the  latter  followed  a  different  plan,  putting  Andrew 
fourth  on  the  list,  and  giving  the  sons  of  Zebedee  a  place  before 
him,  as  Mark  did  also.  The  uniform  manner  in  which  James  and 
John  are  mentioned  along  with  Peter  on  great  occasions,  to  the 
total  neglect  of  Andrew,  seems  to  imply  that  this  apostle  was  quite 
behind  his  brother  in  those  excellences  which  fitted  him  for  the 
leading  place  in  the  great  Christian  enterprise ;  since  it  is  most 
reasonable  to  believe  that,  if  he  had  possessed  iaculties  of  such  a 
high  order,  he  would  have  been  readily  selected  to  enjoy  with  him 
the  peculiar  privileges  of  a  most  intimate  personal  intercourse  with 
Jesus,  and  to  share  the  high  honors  of  his  peculiar  revelations  of 
glory  and  power. 

The  question  of  the  relative  age  of  the  two  sons  of  Jonah  has 
been  already  settlexi  in  the  beginning  of  the  life  of  Peter ;  and  in 
the  same  part  of  the  work  have  also  been  given  all  the  particulars 
about  their  family,  rank,  residence,  and  occupation,  which  are  de- 
sirable for  the  illustration  of  the  lives  and  characters  of  both.  So, 
too,  throughout  the  whole  of  the  sacred  narrative,  every  thing  that 


28S  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

could  concern  Andrew  has  been  abundantly  expressed  and  com- 
mented on,  in  the  life  of  Peter.  The  occasions  on  which  the 
name  of  this  apostle  is  mentioned  in  the  New  Testament,  indeed, 
except  in  the  bare  enumeration  of  the  twelve,  are  only  four, — his 
first  introduction  to  Jesus, — his  actual  call, — the  feeding  of  the  five 
thousand,  (where  he  said  to  Jesus — "  there  is  a  lad  here  with  five 
barley-loaves  and  two  small  fishes  ;  but  what  are  these  among  so 
many?") — and  the  circumstance  of  his  being  present  with  his 
brother  and  the  sons  of  Zebedee  at  the  scene  on  the  mount  of 
Olives,  when  Christ  foretold  the  utter  ruin  of  the  temple.  Of  these 
three  scenes,  in  the  first  only  did  he  perform  such  a  part  as  to  re- 
ceive any  other  than  a  bare  mention  in  the  gospel  history ;  nor 
even  in  that  solitary  circumstance  does  his  conduct  seem  to  have 
been  of  much  importance,  except  as  leading  his  brother  to  the 
knowledge  of  Jesus.  From  the  circumstance,  however,  of  his 
being  specified  as  the  first  of  all  the  twelve  who  had  a  peisonal 
acquaintance  with  Jesus,  he  has  been  honored  by  many  writers 
with  the  distinguishing  title  of  "  the  first  called,"  although 
others  have  claimed  the  dignity  of  this  appellation  for  another 
apostle,  in  whose  life  the  particular  reasons  for  such  a  claim  will 
be  mentioned. 

The  first  called. — In  Greek  npayrSKMrog,  (protokletos,)  by  which  name  he  is  called 
by  Nicephorus  Callistus,  (H.  E.  II.  39,)  and  by  several  of  the  Greek  Fathers,  as 
quoted  by  Cangius,  (Gloss,  in  voc.)  and  referred  to  by  Lampe,  (Prolegom.  in  Joan- 
nem.)    Suicer,  however,  makes  no  reference  whatever  to  this  term. 

From  the  minute  narrative  of  the  circumstances  of  the  call, 
given  by  John  in  the  first  chapter  of  his  gospel,  it  appears,  that 
Andrew,  excited  by  the  fame  of  the  great  Baptizer,  had  left  his 
home  at  Bethsaida,  and  gone  to  Bethabara,  (on  the  same  side  of  the 
Jordan,  but  farther  south,)  where  the  solemn  and  ardent  appeals  of 
the  bold  herald  of  inspiration  so  far  equaled  the  expectation 
awakened  by  rumor,  that,  along  with  vast  multitudes  who  seem  to 
have  made  but  an  indifierent  progress  in  religious  knowledge, 
though  brought  to  the  repentance  and  confession  of  their  sins,  he 
was  baptized  in  the  Jordan,  and  was  also  attached  to  the  person  of 
the  great  preacher  in  a  peculiar  manner,  as  it  would  seem,  aiming 
at  a  still  more  advanced  state  of  indoctrination,  than  ordinary  con- 
verts could  be  expected  to  attain.  While  in  this  diligent  personal 
atlendence  on  his  new  Master,  he  was  one  day  standing  with  him 
upon  the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  the  great  scene  of  the  mystic  sacra- 
ment, listening  to  the  incidental  instructions  which  fell  from  the 
lips  of  the  holy  man,  in  company  with  another  disciple,  his  conn- 


ANDREW.  289 

try  man  and  friend.     In  the  midst  of  the  conversation,  perhaps, 
while  discoursing  upon  the  deep  question  then  in  agitation,  about 
the  advent  of  the  Messiah,  suddenly  the  great  preacher  exclaimed 
— "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God  !"    The  two  disciples  at  once  turned 
their  eyes  towards  the  person  thus  solemnly  designated  as  the  Mes- 
siah, and  saw  walking  by  them,  a  stranger,  whose  demeanor  was 
such  as  to  mark  him  for  the  object  of  the  Baptizer's  apostrophe. 
With  one  accord,  the  two  hearers  at  once  left  the  teacher,  who 
now  referred  them  to  a  higher  source  of  truth  and  purity,  and 
both  followed  together  the  footsteps  of  the  wonderful  stranger,  of 
whose  real  character  they  knew  nothing,  though  their  curiosity 
must  have  been  most  highly  excited,  by  the  solemn  mystery  of  the 
words  in  which  his  greatness  was  announced.     As  they  hurried 
after  him,  the  sound  of  their  hasty  feet  fell  on  the  ear  of  the  re- 
tiring stranger,  who  turning  towards  his  inquiring  pursuers,  mildly 
met  their  curious  glances  with  the  question — "  Whom  seek  ye  ?" 
— thus  giving  them  an  opportunity  to  state  their  wishes  for  his  ac- 
quaintance.   They  eagerly  answered  by  the  question,  implying  their 
desire  for  a  permanent  knowledge  of  him, — "Rabbi!  (Teacher,) 
where  dwellest  thou  ?"    He  kindly  answered  them  with  a  polite 
invitation  to  accompany  him  to  his  lodgings  ;  for  there  is  no  reason 
to  believe  that  they  went  with  him  to  his  permanent  home  in  Ca- 
pernaum or  Nazareth ;  since  Jesus  was  probably  then  staying  at 
some  place  near  the  scene  of  the  baptism.     Being  hospitably  and 
familiarly  entertained  by  Jesus,  as  his  intimate  friends,  it  being  then 
four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  they  remained  with  him  till  the  next 
day,  enjoying  a  direct  personal  intercourse,  which  gave  them  the 
best  opportunities  for  learning  his  character  and  his  power  to  im- 
part to  them  the  high  instructions  which  they  were  prepared  to 
expect,  by  the  solemn  annunciation  of  the  great  Baptizer ;  and,  at 
the  same  time,  it  shows  their  own  earnestness  and  zeal  for  acquiring 
a  knowledge  of  the  Messiah,  as  well  as  his  benignant  familiarity 
in  thus  receiving  them  immediately  into  such  a  domestication  with 
him.     After  this  protracted  interview  with  Jesus,  Andrew  seems 
to  have  attained  the  most  perfect  conviction  that  his  newly  adopted 
teacher  was  all  that  he  had  been  declared  to  be ;  and  in  the  eager- 
ness of  a  warm  fraternal  affection,  he  immediately  sought  his  dear 
brother  Simon,  and  exultingly  announced  to  him  the  great  results 
of  his  yesterday's  introduction  to  the  wonderful  man  ; — "  We  have 
found  the  Messiah  !"  Such  a  declaration,  made  with  the  confidence 
of  one  who  knew  by  personal  experience,  at  once  secured  the  at- 


290  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

tention  of  the  no  less  ardent  Simon ;  and  he  accordingly  gave  him- 
self up  to  the  guidance  of  the  confident  Andrew,  who  led  him 
directly  to  Jesus,  anxious  that  his  beloved  brother  should  also 
share  in  the  high  favor  of  the  Messiah's  friendship  and  instruction. 
This  is  the  most  remarkable  recorded  circumstance  of  Andrew's 
life ;  and  on  his  ready  adherence  to  Jesus,  and  the  circumstance 
that  he,  first  of  all  the  disciples,  declared  him  to  be  the  Messiah, 
may  be  founded  a  just  claim  for  a  most  honorable  distinction  of 
Andrew. 

Bethabara. — Some  of  the  later  critics  seem  disposed  to  reject  this  now  common 
reading,  and  to  adopt  in  its  place  that  of  Bethany,  which  is  supported  by  such  a  num- 
ber of  old  manuscripts  and  versions,  as  to  offer  a  strong  defense  against  the  word  at 
present  established.  Both  the  Syriac  versions,  the  Arabic,  Aethiopic,  the  Vulgate, 
and  the  Saxon,  give  "  Bethany ;"  and  Origen,  from  whom  the  other  reading  seems  to 
have  arisen,  confesses  that  the  previously  established  word  was  Bethany,  which  he 
(with  about  as  much  regard  for  evidence  as  could  be  expected  before  the  rules  by 
which  such  questions  are  settled  had  been  fixed)  rejected  for  the  unauthorized  Beth- 
abara, on  the  ground  that  there  is  such  a  place  on  the  Jordan,  mentioned  in  Judg. 
vii.  24, — while  Bethany  is  elsewhere  in  the  gospels  described  as  close  to  Jerusalem,  on 
the  mount  of  Olives  j  the  venerable  Father  never  apprehending  the  probability  of  two 
different  places  bearing  the  same  name,  nor  referring  to  the  etymology  of  Bethany, 
which  is  r\KH  rr^;,  {heth  anyah,)  "  the  house  (or  place)  of  a  boat,"  equivalent  to  a 
"  ferry."  (Origen  on  John,  quoted  by  Wolf.)  Chrysostom  and  Epiphanius  are  also 
quoted  by  Lampe,  as  defending  this  perversion  on  similar  grounds.  Heracleon,  Non- 
nus,  and  Beza  are  referred  to  in  defense  of  Bethany ;  and  among  the  more  modem, 
Mill,  Simon,  and  others,  are  quoted  by  Wolf  on  the  same  side.  Campbell  and  Bloom- 
field  also  defend  this  view.  Scultetus,  Grotius,  and  Casaubon  argue  in  favor  of  Betha- 
bara. Lightfoot  makes  a  long  argument  to  prove  that  Bethany,  the  true  reading, 
means  not  any  village  or  particular  spot  of  that  name,  but  the  province  or  tract,  called 
Batanea,  lying  beyond  the  Jordan,  in  the  northern  part  of  its  course, — a  conjecture 
hardly  supported  by  the  structure  of  the  word,  nor  by  the  opinion  of  any  other  -writer. 
This  Bethany  beyond  the  Jordan,  seems  to  have  been  thus  particularized  as  to  posi- 
tion, in  order  a  distinguish  it  from  the  place  of  the  same  name  near  Jerusalem.  Its 
exact  situation  cannot  now  be  ascertained;  but  it  was  commonly  placed  about  fifteen 
or  twenty  miles  south  of  Gennesaret. 

Lamb  of  God. — This  expression  has  been  the  subject  of  much  discussion,  and  has 
been  amply  illustrated  by  the  labors  of  learned  commentators.  Whether  John  the 
Baptizer  expected  Jesus  to  atone  for  the  sins  of  the  world,  by  death,  has  been  a  ques- 
tion ably  argued  by  Kuinoel  and  Gabler  against,  and  by  Lampe,  Wolf,  and  Bloom- 
field,  for  the  idea  of  an  implied  sacrifice  and  expiation.  The  latter  writer  in  par- 
ticular, is  very  full  and  cjmdid :  Wolf  also  gives  a  great  number  of  references,  and 
to  these  authors  the  critical  must  resort  for  the  minutiae  of  a  discussion,  too  heavy 
and  protracted  for  this  work.    (See  the  above  authors  on  John  i.  29.) 

After  narrating  the  particulars  of  his  call,  in  which  he  was 
merely  a  companion  of  his  brother,  and  after  specifying  his  inci- 
dental remark  to  Jesus  at  the  feeding  of  the  five  thousand,  and  the 
circumstance  of  his  being  present  at  the  prophecy  of  the  temple's 
destruction,  the  New  Testament  history  takes  not  the  shghtest 
notice  of  any  action  of  Andrew's  life ;  nor  is  he  even  mentioned 
in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  except  in  the  mere  list  of  their  names 
in  the  first  chapter.  For  any  thing  further,  reference  must  be 
made  to  such  dark  and  dubious  historical  materials  as  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  Fathers  afford. 


ANDREW.  '  291 

HIS  TRADITIONARY  HISTORY. 

The  most  rational  conjecture  about  the  subsequent  movements 
of  Andrew,  would  be  that  he  removed  along  with  Peter  to  the 
east,  before  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem.  With  this  allowable 
supposition,  and  also  with  the  general  voice  of  ancient  accounts 
respecting  the  great  majority  of  the  Galilean  apostles,  the  earliest 
and  best  authorized  tradition  respecting  Andrew  agrees  perfectly. 
The  earliest  account  of  him  is  qiioted  from  one  of  the  most  trust- 
worthy and  judicious  of  the  Fathers  ;  still,  dating  as  late  as  the  third 
century,  and  mixed  as  it  is  with  known  fabulous  matter,  it  would 
be  entitled  to  little  respect  except  from  its  striking  correspondence 
with  the  general  facts  alluded  to.  This  early  statement  is,  that 
"  at  the  time  when  Palestine  was  disturbed  by  the  seditions  of  the 
Jews  against  the  Romans,  the  apostles  and  disciples  of  Jesus  Christ, 
scattering  throughout  the  world,  preached  the  gospel."  All  these 
facts  are  referred  to  ancient  tradition ;  and  among  the  rest,  on  this 
authority,  Andrew  is  mentioned  as  having  received  Scythia  as 
his  field  of  duty.  The  country  thus  named,  lay  on  the  farthest 
eastern  border  of  the  ancient  Parthian  and  Persian  empire,  in  the 
northern  part  of  the  great  valley  of  the  Indus,  now  occupied  by 
the  eastern  part  of  Affghanistan  or  Cabul,  and  by  the  provinces  of 
Cashmere  and  Lahore.  This  was  the  true  Scythia  of  the  ancients ; 
it  was  this  region  where  the  great  Persian  Cyrus  lost  his  life,  and 
where  the  conquering  Alexander  met  his  most  determined  and 
dangerous  foes ;  and  all  the  most  ancient  accounts  in  the  same 
decisive  manner  refer  to  this  as  the  country  properly  and  origi- 
nally called  Scythia,  though  many  who  have  assumed  the  task 
of  settling  ancient  geography  have  absurdly  applied  the  name  to 
the  ancient  Sarmatia,  corresponding  to  the  modern  Russia,  west  of 
the  Caspian  and  Volga.  The  name  Scythia  was,  by  the  later 
Greek  and  Roman  geographers,  extended  to  the  vast  regions  north 
of  Persia  and  India,  and  east  of  the  Ural  mountains  and  the  Cas- 
pian sea,  stretching  over  the  range  of  Imaus  to  an  unknown  dis- 
tance north  and  east,  occupying  all  Little  Tartary,  southwestern 
Siberia,  and  western  Chinese  Tartary.  A  later  account  of  Andrew 
further  particularizes  the  regions  to  which  he  went,  as  Sogdiana, 
now  Bokhara,  and  the  country  of  the  Sacae,  in  little  Tibet ; — a 
statement  which,  coinciding  nearly  as  it  does  with  the  earlier  ac- 
counts, deserves  some  credit. 

The  earliest  mention  made  of  the  apostle  Andrew,  by  any  writer  whatever,  after 
the  evangelists,  is  by  Origen,  (about  A.  D.  230  or  240,)  who  speaks  of  him  as  having 


292  ,         LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

been  sent  to  the  Scythians.  (Cora,  in  Genes.  1.  3.)  The  passage  is  preserved  only 
in  Eusebius,  (H.  E.  III.  1,)  who  barely  quotes  the  circumstance  from  Origen,  (A.  D. 
315.)  Jerome  (Script.  Ecc.')  quotes  Sophroniiis,  as  saying  that  Andrew  went  also  to 
the  Sogdians  snd  Sacans.    (A.  D.  397.) 

Of  all  these  traditions  it  may  be  said,  that  they  are  probable ; 
for  if  Andrew  accompanied  Peter  to  Babylon,  the  vast  fields  in- 
viting apostolic  labor  eastward  would  naturally  attract  his  atten- 
tion, and  claim  the  exertions  of  his  remaining  life.  Of  his  suc- 
cess among  them,  nothing  is  known  but  the  negative  fact,  that  ages 
afterwards,  when  they  were  more  fully  brought  under  the  know- 
ledge of  the  civilized  world,  they  were  heathens,  without  a  dis- 
tinguishable trace  of  any  better  faith. 

HIS  FABULOUS  HISTORY. 

But  such  a  simple  conclusion  to  this  apostle's  life  would  by  no 
means  answer  the  purposes  of  the  ancient  writers  on  these  mat- 
ters ;  and  accordingly  the  inquirer  into  apostolic  history  is  presented 
with  a  long,  long  talk  of  Andrew's  journey  into  Europe,  through 
Greece   and  Thrace,  where   he  is   said  to   have  founded  many 
churches,  undergone  many  labors,  and  performed  many  miracles, 
— £md  at  last  to  have  been  crucified  in  a  city  of  Greece.     The 
brief,  but  decided  condemnation  of  all  this  imposition,  however,  is 
found  in  its  absolute  destitution  of  proof,  or  of  truly  ancient  au- 
thority.    Not  the  most  antique  particular  of  this  tedious  falsehood 
can  be  traced  back  to  a  date  within  three  hundred  and  fifty  years 
of  the  time  of  the  pretended  journey ;  and  the  whole  story,  from 
beginning  to  end,  was  undoubtedly  made  up  to  answer  the  de- 
mands of  a  credulous  age,  when,  after  the  triumphant  diffusion  of 
Christianity  throughout  the  Roman  empire,  curiosity  began  to  be 
greatly  awakened  about  the  founders  of  the  faith, — a  curiosity  too 
deep  to  be  satisfied  with  the  meagre  statements  of  the  records  of 
truth.     Moreover,  every  province  of  Christendom,  following  the 
example  of  the  metropolis,  soon  began  to  claim  some  one  of  the 
apostolic  band,  as  having  first  preached  the  gospel  in  its  territories ; 
and  to  substantiate  these  claims,  it  was  necessary  to  produce  a 
record,  corresponding  to  the  legend  which  at  first  floated  about 
only  in  the  mouths  of  the  inventors  and  propagators.     Accord- 
ingly, apocryphal  gospels  and  histories  were  manufactured  in  vast 
numbers,  to  meet  this  new  demand,  detailing  long  series  of  apos- 
tolic labors  and  journeys,  and  commemorating  martyrdoms  in  every 
civilized  country  under  heaven,  from  Britain  to  India.     Among 
these,  the  Grecian  provinces  must  needs  come  in  for  their  share  of 


ANDREW.  293 

apostolic  honor ;  and  Andrew  was  therefore  given  up  to  them,  as 
a  founder  and  martyr.  The  numerous  particulars  of  fictitious 
miracles  and  persecutions  might  be  amusing,  but  cannot  deserve 
a  place  in  this  work,  to  the  exclusion  of  serious  matters  of  fact. 
A  cursory  view  of  the  fables,  however,  may  be  allowed,  even  by 
these  contracted  limits. 

A  blunder  of  the  fable-mongers,  which  creates  great  perplexity  in  the 
inquiry  for  true  apostolic  history,  is  the  supposition  that  the  Scythia  to 
which  Andrew  went  was  in  Europe,  north  of  Macedonia  and  Thrace. 
There  was  indeed  a  narrow  tract  on  the  western  shore  of  the  Euxine,  set- 
tled by  a  Scythian  colony,  and  thence  bearing  this  name ;  but  all  the  an- 
cient accounts  show  that  this  could  not  have  been  meant  as  the  actual  scene 
of  Andrew's  labors.  However,  this  blunder  seems  to  have  given  the  hint 
for  claiming  that  Andrew  visited  Greece  and  the  countries  north,  Thrace 
and  Epirus ;  and  the  monkish  writers  have  made  out  their  story  accord- 
ingly. His  route  is  said  to  have  been  through  Greece,  Epirus,  and  then 
directly  northwest  into  Scythia.  Another  later  writer,  however,  makes  a 
different  track  for  him,  leading  from  Palestine  into  Asia  Minor,  through 
Cappadocia,  Galatia,  and  Bithynia ; — thence  north  through  the  country  of 
the  cannibals  and  to  the  wild  wastes  of  Scythia; — thence  south  along  the 
northern,  western,  and  southern  shores  of  the  Black  sea,  to  Byzantium, 
(now  Constantinople,)  and  after  some  time,  through  Thrace,  southwestvi^ards 
into  Macedonia,  Thessaly,  and  Achaia,  in  which  last,  his  life  and  labors  are 
said  to  have  ended.  By  the  same  author,  he  is  also  in  another  passage 
said  to  have  been  driven  from  Byzantium  by  threats  of  persecution  from 
Zeuzippus,  king  of  Thrace,  and  therefore  to  have  crossed  over  the  Black 
sea  to  the  city  of  Argyropolis,  on  its  southern  coast,  where  he  preached 
two  years,  and  constituted  Stachys  bishop  of  a  church  which  he  there 
founded ;  and  thence  to  Sinope,  in  Paphlagonia. 

Gregory  Nazianzen  (<J>rat.  25)  is  the  first  who  says  that  Andrew  went  to  Greece. 
He  flourished  in  A.  D.  370,  which  is  140  years  later  than  Origen,  against  whom  his 
testimony  is  therefore  worth  nothing.  Chrysostom  (Homil.  in  xii.  apost.)  mentions 
the  same  story.  Sophronius  is  also  quoted  by  Jerome  as  adding  something  of  this 
sort  to  the  statements  above  given.  Augustin  (de  fid.  contra  Manich.)  is  the  first  who 
brings  in  very  much  from  tradition  respecting  Andrew ;  and  his  stories  are  so  nume- 
rous and  entertaining  in  their  particulars,  as  to  show  that,  before  his  time,  fiction  had 
been  most,  busily  at  work  with  the  apostles;— but  the  details  are  all  of  such  a  char- 
acter as  not  to  deserve  the  slightest  credit.  The  era  of  his  writings,  moreover,  is  so 
late,  (A.  D.  395,)  that  he,  along  with  his  contemporaries,  Sophronius  and  Chrysostom, 
may  be  condemned  as  receivers  of  late  traditions,  and  corrupters  of  the  purity  of  his- 
torical as  well  as  sacred  truth. 

This  story  is  from  Nicephorus  Callistus,  a  monk  of  the  early  part  of  the  fourteenth 
century.  (For  an  account  of  him  and  his  writings,  .see  Lardner,  Cred.  Gos.  Hist, 
chap.  i65.)  He  wrote  an  ecclesiastical  history  of  ihe  period  from  the  birth  of  Christ 
to  the  year  610,  in  which  he  has  given  a  vast  number  of  utterly  fabulous  stories, 
adopting  all  the  fictions  of  earlier  historians,  and  adding,  as  it  would  seem,  some  new 
ones.  His  ignorance  and  folly  are  so  great,  however,  that  he  is  not  considered  as 
any  authority,  even  by  the  Papist  writers;  for  on  this  very  story  of  Andrew,  even 
the  credulous  Baronius  says — "  Sed  fide  nutant  haec,  ob  apertum  mendacium  de  Zeu- 
zippo  tyranno,"  &c.  "  These  things  are  unworthy  of  credit,  on  account  of  the  mani- 
fest lie  about  king  Zeuzippus,  because  there  was  no  king  in  Thrace  at  that  time,  the 
province  being  quietly  ruled  by  a  Roman  president."  (Baron.  Ann.  44.  §  31.)  The 
story  itself  is  in  Niceph.  Hist.  Ecc.  II.  39. 

So  ronfn.sed  are  these  various  accounts,  that  in  consequence  of  the  numerous  geo- 


294 


LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


graphical  errors  of  the  modern  narrators,  I  did  not  in  the  first  edition  snfficiently 
discriminate  between  the  simple,  unobjectionable  statement  of  Origen,  and  the  nume- 
rous fables  appended  to  it  by  the  later  Fathers.  The  simple  ascertaining  of  the  true 
Scythia  of  the  most  ancient  writers  threw  much  light  upon  the  difficulty,  and  show- 
ing the  means  of  distinguishing  ancient  truth  from  modern  falsehood,  made  it  mani- 
fest at  once  that  the  story  of  Andrew's  mission  to  Scythia,  so  far  from  being  impro- 
bable, or  inconsistent  with  what  is  known  of  the  other  apostles,  was  rendered  in  the 
highest  degree  reasonable  and  plausible,  by  the  proximity  of  the  true  Scythia  of  the 
east  to  that  empire  in  which  Peter  and  the  other  Galileans  are  known  to  have  lived 
after  the  removal  from  Palestine.  (See  Butler's  Atlas  of  Ancient  Geography, 
Map  xiv.) 

But  the  later  writers  go  beyond  these  unsatisfactory  generalities,  and 
enter  into  the  most  entertaining  particulars,  making  out  very  interesting 
and  romantic  stories.  The  monkish  apostolical  novelists  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury and  later,  have  given  a  great  number  of  stories  about  Andrew,  incon- 
sistent with  the  earlier  accounts,  with  each  other,  and  with  common  sense. 
Indeed  there  is  no  great  reason  to  think  that  they  were  meant  to  be  be- 
lieved, but  written  very  honestly  as  fictitious  compositions,  to  gratify  the 
taste  of  the  antique  novel  readers.  There  is,  therefore,  really,  no  more  ob- 
ligation resting  on  the  biographer  of  the  apostles  to  copy  these  fables,  than 
on  the  historian  of  Scotland  to  transcribe  the  details  of  the  romances  of 
Scott,  Porter,  and  others,  though  a  mere  allusion  to  them  might  occa- 
sionally be  proper.  The  most  serious  and  the  least  absurd  of  these  fictions, 
is  one  which  narrates  that,  after  having  received  the  grace  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  by  the  gift  of  fiery  tongues,  he  was  sent  to  the  Gentiles  with  an  al- 
lotted field  of  duty.  This  was  to  go  through  Asia  Minor,  more  especially 
the  northern  parts,  Cappadocia,  Galatia,  and  Bithynia.  Having  traversed 
these  and  other  countries  as  above  stated,  he  settled  in  Achaia,  where,  as  in 
the  other  provinces,  during  a  stay  of  many  years,  he  preached  divine  dis- 
courses, and  glorified  the  name  of  Christ  by  wonderful  signs  and  prodigies. 
At  length  he  was  seized  at  Patras,  in  the  northwestern  part  of  Achaia,  on  the 
gulf  of  Lepanto,  by  Aegeas,  the  Roman  proconsul  of  that  province,  and 
by  him  crucified,  on  the  charge  of  having  converted  to  Christianity,  Maxi- 
milla,  the  wife,  and  Stratocles,  the  brother  of  the  proconsul,  so  that  they 
had  learned  to  abhor  that  ruler's  wickedness. 

The  fabulous  life  of  Andrew,  full  of  most  amusingly  absurd  tales,  is  found  among 
the  "  apostolical  stories"  of  a  monk  of  the  middle  ages,  who  passed  them  off  as  true 
histories,  written  by  Abdias,  said  to  have  been  one  of  the  seventy  disciples  sent  out 
by  Jesus,  (Luke  x.  1,)  and  to  have  been  afterM'ards  ordained  bishop  of  Babylon,  (by 
Simon  Zelotes  and  Jude.)  It  is  an  imposition  so  palpable,  however,  in  its  absurdities, 
that  it  has  always  been  condemned  by  the  best  authorities,  both  Protestant  and  Papist: 
as,  Melancthoii,  Bellarmin,  Scultetus,  Rivetus,  the  Magdeburg  centnriators,  Baro- 
nius,  Chemnitius,  Tillemont,  Vossius,  and  Bayle,  whose  opinions  and  censures  are 
most  of  them  given  in  the  preface  to  the  work  itself,  by  Job.  Al.  Fabricius,  (Cod. 
apocr.  N.  T.,  part  2.) 

The  story  of  Andrew  is  altogether  the  longest  and  best  constructed,  as  well  as  the 
most  interesting  in  the  character  of  its  incidents,  of  all  contained  in  the  book  of  the 
Pseudo- Abdias ;  and  I  have  therefore,  in  the  first  edition,  made  large  extracts  from 
them,  by  way  of  specimen  of  this  class  of  fables ;  but  in  the  progress  of  the  work  it 
appeared  that  much  valuable  historical  matter  must  be  excluded  in  consequence  oi 
the  space  which  had  been  filled  by  this  trash  ;  and  this  fabulous  matter  has  therefore 
been  much  curtailed  in  the  stereotype  edition. 

Besides  these  fictions  on  Andrew's  life,  there  are  others,  quoted  as  having  been 
written  in  the  same  department.  "  The  Passion  of  St.  Andrew,"  a  quite  late  apocry- 
phal story,  professing  to  have  been  written  by  the  elders  and  deacons  of  the  churches 
of  Achaia,  was  long  extensively  received  by  the  Papists,  as  an  authentic  and  valuable 


ANDREW.  295 

book,  and  is  quoted  by  the  eloquent  and  venerable  Bernardus,  with  the  most  profound 
respect.  It  abounds  in  long,  tedious  speeches,  as  well  as  painfully  absurd  incidents. 
The  "  Menaei,"  or  Greek  calendar  of  the  saints,  is  also  copious  on  this  apostle,  but  is 
too  modern  to  deserve  any  credit  whatever.  All  the  ancient  fables  and  traditions 
were  at  last  collected  into  a  huge  volume,  by  a  Frenchman  named  Andrew  de  Saus- 
say,  who,  in  1656,  published  at  Paris,  (in  Latin,)  a  book,  entitled  "  Andrew,  brother 
of  Simon  Peter,  or,  Twelve  Books  on  the  Glory  of  Saint  Andrew,  the  Apostle." 
This  book  was  afterwards  abridged,  or  largely  borrowed  from,  by  John  Florian 
Hammerschmid,  in  a  treatise,  (in  Latin,)  published  at  Prague,  in  1699,  entitled, — 
"  Cnicisier  Apostolicus,"  &c. — "  The  Apostolic  Cross-bearer,  or,  St.  Andrew,  the 
Apostle,  described  and  set  forth,  in  his  life,  death,  martyrdom,  miracles,  and  dis- 
courses."— Baillet's  Lives  of  the  Saints,  (in  French,)also  contains  a  full  account  of  the 
most  remarkable  details  of  these  fables.    (Baillet.  Vies  de  Saints,  Vol.  III.  Nov.  30.) 

All  these  stories  may,  very  possibly,  have  grown  up  from  a  beginning  which  was 
true ;  that  is,  there  may  have  been  another  Andrew,  who,  in  a  later  age  of  the  early 
times  of  Christianity,  may  have  gone  over  those  regions  as  a  missionary,  and  met 
with  somewhat  similar  adventures;  and  who  was  afterwards  confounded  with  the 
apostle  Andrew.  The  Scotch,  for  some  reason  or  other,  formerly  adopted  Andrew 
as  their  national  saint,  and  represent  him  on  a  cross  of  a  peculiar  shape,  resembling 
the  letter  X,  known  in  heraldry  by  the  name  of  a  saltier,  and  borne  on  the  collar  and 
jewel  of  the  Scottish  order  of  the  Thistle,  to  this  day.  This  idea  of  his  cross,  how- 
ever, has  originated  since  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  century,  as  I  shall  show  by  a 
passage  from  Bernard. 

The  truly  holy  Bernard,  (Abbot  of  Clairvaux,  in  France,  A.  D.  1112,)  better  wor- 
thy of  the  title  of  Saint  than  ninety-nine  himdredths  of  all  the  canonized  who  lived 
before  him,  even  from  apostolic  days, — has,  among  his  splendid  sermons,  three  most 
eloquent  discourses,  preached  in  his  abbey  church,  on  St.  Andrew's  day,  in  which 
he  alludes  to  the  actions  of  this  apostle,  as  recorded  in  the  "  Passion  of  St.  Andrew," — 
a  book  which  he  seems  to  quote  as  worthy  of  credit.  In  Latin  of  Ciceronian  purity, 
he  has  given  some  noble  specimens  of  a  pulpit  eloquence,  rarely  equaled  in  any 
modern  language,  and  such  as  seldom  blesses  the  ears  of  the  hearers  of  these  days. 
All  the  passages  here  quoted  may  be  foimd  by  those  who  can  enjoy  the  original,  in 
his  works.  (Divi  Bernardi  Opera  Omnia.  Ed.  Joh.  Picard.  Antwerp,  1609,  folio ; 
columns  322—333.)  He  begins  his  first  discourse  on  this  subject  with  saying,  that  in 
"  celebrating  the  glorious  triumphs  of  the  blessed  Andrew,  they  had  that  day  been 
delighted  with  the  words  of  grace,  that  proceeded  out  of  his  mouth  ;"— (doubtless  in 
hearing  the  story  of  the  crucifixion  read  from  the  fictitious  book  of  the  Passion  of  St. 
Andrew,  which  all  supposed  to  be  authentic.)  "  For  there  was  no  room  for  sorrow, 
where  he  himself  was  so  intensely  rejoiced.  No  one  of  us  mourned  for  him  in  his 
suflferings;  for  no  one  dared  to  weep  over  him,  while  he  was  thus  exulting.  So  that 
he  might  most  appropriately  say  to  us,  what  the  cross-bearing  Redeemer  said  to  those 
who  followed  him  with  mourning, — '  Weep  not  for  me;  but  weep  for  yourselves.' 
And  when  the  blessed  Andrew  himself  was  led  to  the  cross,  and  the  people,  grieving 
for  the  unjust  condemnation  of  the  holy  and  just  man,  would  have  prevented  his  exe- 
cution,— he,  with  the  most  urgent  prayer,  forbade  them  from  depriving  him  of  his 
crown  of  suffering.  For  '  he  desired  indeed  to  be  released,  and  to  be  with  Christ,'— but 
on  the  cross  ;  he  desired  to  enter  the  kingdom, — but  by  the  door.  Even  as  he  said  to 
that  loved  form, '  that  by  thee  He  may  receive  me,  who  by  thee  has  redeemed  me.' 
Therefore  if  we  love  him,  we  shall  rejoice  with  him ;  not  only  because  he  was 
crowned,  but  because  he  was  crucified."  (A  bad  and  unscriptural  aoctrine  !  for  no 
apostle  ever  taught,  or  was  taught,  that  it  was  worth  while  for  any  man  to  be  crucifi- 
ed, when  he  could  well  help  it.) 

In  his  second  sermon  on  the  same  subject,  the  animated  Bernard  remarks  further- 
more, in  comment  on  the  behavior  of  Andrew,  when  coming  in  sight  of  his  cross, — 
"  You  have  certainly  heard  how  the  blessed  Andrew  was  stayed  on  the  Lord,  when 
he  came  to  the  place  where  the  cross  was  made  ready  for  him, — and  how,  by  the  spirit 
which  he  had  received  along  with  the  other  apostles,  in  the  fiery  tongues,  he  spoke 
truly  fiery  words.  And  so,  seeing  from  afar  the  cross  prepared,  he  did  not  turn  pale, 
though  mortal  weakness  might  seem  to  demand  it;  his  blood  did  not  freeze, — his  hair 
did  not  rise,— his  voice  did  not  cleave  to  his  throat,  (non  stetere  comae,  aut  vox  fauci- 
bus  haesit.)  Out  of  the  abundance  of  his  heart,  his  mouth  did  speak;  and  the  deep 
love  which  gloVed  in  his  heart,  sent  forth  the  words  like  burning  sparks.  For  what 
did  the  blessed  Andrew  say,  when  he  saw  from  a  distance  the  cross  prepared  for 
him  7—'  O  cross !  long  desired !  and  prepared  for  a  willing  soul.    Confident  and 


296  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

rejoicing  I  come  to  thee ;  and  so  do  thou  also  with  exultation  bear  me  the  disciple  oi 
him  who  hung  on  thee;  because  I  have  always  been  thy  lover,  and  have  desired  to 
embrace  thee.'  I  beseech  you,  brethren,  say,  is  this  a  man  who  speaks  thus  1  Is  it 
not  an  angel,  or  some  new  creature  1  No  :  it  is  merely  '  a  man  of  like  passions  with 
ourselves.'  For  the  very  agony  itself,  in  whose  approach  he  thus  rejoiced,  proves 
him  to  have  been  '  a  man  of  passion.'  Whence,  then,  in  man,  this  new  exultation,  and 
joy  before  unheard  of?  Whence,  in  man,  a  mind  so  spiritual, — a  love  so  fervent, — 
a  courage  so  strong"?  Far  would  it  be  from  the  apostle  himself,  to  wish  that  we 
should  give  the  glory  of  such  grace  to  him.  It  is  the  '  perfect  gift,  coming  down  from 
the  Father  of  Lights,' — from  him,  '  who  alone  does  wondrous  things.'  It  was,  dearly 
beloved,  plainly,  '  the  spirit  which  helpeth  our  infirmities,'  by  which  was  shed  abroad 
in  his  heart,  a  love,  strong  as  death, — yea,  and  stronger  than  death.  Of  which,  O, 
may  we  too  be  found  partakers !" 

The  preacher  then  goes  on  with  the  practical  application  of  the  view  of  these  suf- 
ferings, and  the  spirit  that  sustained  them,  to  the  circumstances  of  his  hearers.  After 
some  discourse  to  this  effect,  he  exhorts  them  to  seek  this  spirit.  "  Seek  it,  then, 
dearest !  seek  it  without  ceasing, — seek  it  without  doubting ; — in  all  your  works  in- 
voke the  aid  of  this  spirit.  For  we  also,  my  brethren,  with  the  blessed  Andrew,  must 
needs  take  up  our  cross, — yea,  with  that  Savior-Lord  whom  he  followed.  For,  in 
this  he  rejoiced, — in  this  he  exulted; — because  not  only  for  him,  but  with  him,  he 
would  seem  to  die,  and  be  planted,  so  '  that  suffering  with  him,  he  might  also  reign 
with  him.'  With  whom,  that  we  may  also  be  crucified,  let  us  hear  more  attentively 
with  the  ears  of  our  hearts,  the  voice  of  him  who  says,  '  He  who  will  come  after 
me,  let  him  deny  himself,  and  take  up  his  cross,  and  follow  me.'  As  if  he  said,  '  Let 
him  who  desires  me,  despise  himself;  let  him  who  would  do  my  will,  learn  to  break 
his  own.' " 

Bernard  then  draws  a  minute  parallel,  more  curious  than  admirable,  between  the 
cross  and  the  trials  of  life, — likening  the  four  difficulties  in  the  way  of  holiness,  to 
the  four  ends  of  the  cross ;  bodily  fear  being  the  foot-piece  ;  open  assaults  and  temp- 
tations, the  right  arm-piece ;  secret  sins  and  trials,  the  left  hand-piece ;  and  spiritual 
pride,  the  head-piece.  Or,  as  he  briefly  recapitulates,  the  four  virtues  attached  to  the 
lour  horns  of  the  cross,  are  these  : — continence,  patience,  prudence,  and  humility.  A 
truly  forcible  figure,  and  one  not  without  its  effect,  doubtless,  on  the  hearers.  This 
arrangement  of  the  cross,  moreover,  seems  to  prove,  that  in  the  lime  of  Bernard,  the 
idle  story  about  Andrew's  cross  being  shaped  like  the  letter  X,  was  entirely  un  known , 
for  it  is  evident  that  the  whole  point  of  the  allusion  here  consists  in  the  hearers  sup- 
posing that  Andrew  was  crucified  on  a  cross  of  the  common  shape, — upright,  with  a 
transverse  bar  and  bead-piece.  Natalis  Alexander  also  (Historia  Ecclesiastica. 
Saecul.  I.  cap.  i.  §  3,  p.  29)  affords  additional  evidence  of  the  modern  character  of 
this  idle  invention.  He  says — "  Crux  quae  martyrii  ejus  instrumentum  fuit,  in  Coe- 
nobio  Massiliensi  S.  Victoris  dicitur  asservari,  ejusdem  figurae  cum  Dominica 
cruce." — "The  cross  which  was  the  instrument  of  Andrew's  martyrdom,  is  said  to 
be  preserved  in  the  convent  of  St.  Victor,  at  Marseilles,  and  to  be  of  the  same  shape 
with  the  cross  of  the  Lord."  This  is  also  indeed  an  idle  tale;  but  it  serves  to  show 
that  the  notion  of  Andrew's  cross  being  a  saltier,  is  quite  modern. 

In  conclusion  of  all  this  fabulous  detail,  may  be  appropriately  quoted  the  closing 
passage  of  the  second  discourse  of  Bernard,  the  spirit  of  which,  though  coming  from 
a  Papist,  is  not  discordant  with  the  noblest  essential  principles  of  truly  catholic  Chris- 
tianity, seldom,  indeed,  found  so  pure  in  the  Romish  church,  as  in  this  "  Last  of  the 
Fathers,"  as  he  has  been  justly  styled.  And  so  accordant  are  these  words  with  the 
spirit  which  it  becomes  this  work  to  inculcate,  that  I  may  well  adopt  them  into  the  text, 
glad  to  hang  a  moral  to  the  end  of  so  much  falsehood,  though  drawn  from  such  a 
theme,  that  it  seems  like  "  gathering  grapes  of  thorns,  or  figs  of  thistles." 

Bernard  has  in  this  part  of  his  discourse  been  completing  all  the  details  of  his 
parallel  between  the  cross  and  the  Christian's  life,  and  in  this  conclusion,  thus  crowns 
the  simile,  by  exhorting  his  saintly  hearers  to  cling,  each  to  his  own  cross,  in  spite  of 
all  temptation  to  renounce  it;  that  is,  to  persevere  in  daily  crucifying  their  sins,  by 
a  pure  deportment  through  life. 

"  Happy  the  soul  that  glories  and  triumphs  on  this  cross,  if  it  only  persevere,  and 
do  not  let  itself  be  cast  down  in  its  trials.  Let  every  one  then,  who  is  on  this  cross, 
like  the  blessed  Andrew,  pray  his  Lord  and  Master  not  to  let  him  be  taken  down 
from  it.  For  what  is  there  which  the  malign  adversary  will  not  dare*  what  will  he 
not  impiously  presume  to  try  1  For  what  he  thought  to  do  to  the  disciple  by  the  hands 
of  Aegeas,  the  same  he  once  thought  to  do  to  the  Master  by  the  scornful  tongues  of 


ANDREW. 


297 


• 


Siw  7  '^  .""^^^  instance  alike,  however,  driven  by  too  late  experience  of  his 
folly,  he  departed  vanquished  and  confounded.  O  may  he  in  like  manner  dln^rt 
from  us  conquered  by  Him  who  triumphed  over  him  bv  Himself  and  b/nSlS 
w^  '.h  ^Y  «\^^"«^.  '^l'  ^^«  also  niay  attain  the  same  hapTy  end  on  the  crossS 
which  we  have  borne,  each  one  in  his  own  peculiar  trials,  for  lie  gloTv  Jf  ffis  nar^« 
who  IS  God  over  all,  blessed  for  ever.' "  ,    »  uic  giory  oi  tus  name 


JAMES    BOANERGES; 

THE  SON  OF  ZEBEDEE. 


HIS  RANK  AND  CHARACTER. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  peculiar  excellences  of  this 
apostle's  character,  as  recognized  by  the  searching  eye  of  Him  who 
knew  the  hearts  of  all  men,  the  early  close  of  his  high  career  has 
prevented  the  full  development  of  energies,  that  might,  in  the 
course  of  a  longer  life,  have  been  made  as  fruitful  in  works  of 
wonder  and  praise,  as  those  of  the  other  members  of  the  elect 
TRIO,  his  friend  and  his  younger  brother  ;  and  his  later  years,  thus 
prolonged,  might  have  left  similar  recorded  testimonies  of  his  apos- 
tolic zeal.  Much,  too,  that  truly  concerns  his  brief  life,  is  swal- 
lowed up  in  the  long  narrative  of  the  eminent  chief  of  the  twelve, 
whose  superiority  was  on  all  occasions  so  distinctly  marked  by 
Jesus,  that  he  never  imparted  to  this  apostle  any  exalted  favor  in 
which  Peter  did  not  also  share,  and  in  the  record  of  which  his 
name  is  not  mentioned  first.  In  the  first  call, — in  the  raising  of 
the  daughter  of  Jairus  to  life, — at  the  transfiguration, — and  on  the 
apostolic  roll, — James  is  uniformly  placed  after  Peter ;  and  such, 
too,  was  the  superior  activity  and  talkative  disposition  of  Peter, 
that  whenever  and  wherever  there  was  any  thing  to  be  said,  he 
was  always  the  first  to  say  it, — cutting  off  the  sons  of  Zebedee 
from  the  opportunity,  if  they  had  the  disposition,  to  make  them- 
selves more  prominent.  Yet  the  sons  of  Zebedee  are  not  entirely 
unnoticed  in  the  apostolic  history,  and  even  the  early-martyred 
James  may  be  said  to  have  a  character  quite  decidedly  marked,  in 
those  few  passages  in  the  sacred  record,  where  facts  concerning 
him  are  commemorated.  In  the  apostolic  list  given  by  Mark,  it  is 
moreover  mentioned,  that  he  with  his  brother  had  received  a  name 
from  Jesus  Christ,  which  being  given  to  them  by  him,  doubtless 
with  a  decided  reference  to  their  characters,  serves  as  a  valuable 
means  of  ascertaining  their  leading  traits.  The  name  of  "  Boan- 
erges,"— "  sons  of  thunder,"  seems  to  imply  a  degree  of  decided 
boldness  and  a  fiery  energy,  not  exactly  accordant  with  the  usual 


JAMES  BOANERGES.  299 

opinions  of  the  characters  of  the  sons  of  Zebedee ;  but  it  is  an 
expression  in  the  most  perfect  harmony  with  the  few  details  of  the 
conduct  of  both,  which  are  given  in  the  New  Testament. 

Boanerges. — This  word  is  one  whose  composition  and  derivation  (as  is  the  case 
with  many  other  New  Testament  proper  names)  have  caused  great  discussion  and 
difference  of  opinion  among  the  learned.  It  occurs  only  in  Mark  iii.  17,  where  it 
is  incidentally  mentioned  in  the  list  of  the  apostles,  as  a  new  name  given  to  the  sons 
of  Zebedee  by  Jesus.  Those  who  are  curious,  can  find  all  the  discussion  in  any  cri- 
tical commentator  on  the  passage.  Poole's  Synopsis,  in  one  heavy  folio  columi\  and 
half  of  another,  gjves  a  complete  view  of  all  the  facts  and  speculations  concerning 
this  matter,  up  to  his  time;  the  amount  of  all  which,  seems  to  be,  that,  as  the  word 
now  stands,  it  very  nearly  sets  all  etymologies  at  defiance, — whether  Hebrew,  Sy- 
riac,  Chaldee,  or  Arabic, — since  it  is  impossible  to  say  how  the  word  should  be  re- 
solved into  two  parts,  one  of  which  should  mean  "  sons,"  and  the  other  "  thunder ;" 
so  that  it  is  well  for  us  we  have  Mark's  explanation  of  the  name,  since  without  it, 
the  critics  would  probably  have  never  found  either  "  son"  or  "  thunder"  in  the  word. 
As  to  the  reason  of  the  names  being  appropriated  to  James  and  John,  conjectures 
equally  numerous  and  various  may  be  found  in  the  same  learned  work ;  but  all 
equally  unsatisfactory.  Lampe  also  is  very  full  on  this  point.  (Prol.  in  Joh.  cap.  I. 
lib.  ii.  §§  9—15.) 

HIS  FAMILY  AND  CALL. 

Of  the  first  introduction  of  this  apostle  to  Jesus,  it  may  be  rea- 
sonably conjectured,  that  he  formed  an  acquaintance  with  him  at 
the  same  time  with  his  brother  John  and  the  sons  of  Jonah,  as 
already  commemorated  in  their  former  lives,  from  the  brief  record 
in  the  first  chapter  of  John's  gospel.  After  this,  he  and  his  brother, 
as  well  as  Peter  and  Andrew,  returned  quietly  to  their  honest  bu- 
siness of  fishing  on  the  lake  of  Gennesaret,  on  whose  shore,  no 
doubt,  was  their  home, — perhaps,  too,  in  Bethsaida  or  Capernaum, 
as  their  intimacy  and  fellowship  with  the  sons  of  Jonah  would 
seem  to  imply  a  vicinity  of  residence  ;  though  their  common  occu- 
pation might  bring  them  frequently  together  in  circumstances 
where  friendly  assistance  was  mutually  needed ;  and  the  idea  of 
their  residence  in  some  other  of  the  numerous  villages  along  the 
northern  end  of  the  lake,  on  either  side,  is  not  inconsistent  with 
any  circumstance  specified  in  their  history.  In  their  occupation 
of  fishing,  they  were  accompanied  by  rtieir  father  Zebedee,  who, 
it  seems,  was  not  so  far  advanced  in  years  as  to  be  unable  to  aid 
his  sons  in  this  very  laborious  and  dangerous  business ;  which 
makes  it  quite  apparent  that  James  and  John  being  the  sons  of  so 
active  a  man,  must  themselves  have  but  just  attained  manhood,  at 
the  time  when  they  are  first  mentioned.  Respecting  the  charac- 
ter of  this  active  old  fisherman,  unfortunately  very  few  data  in- 
deed are  preserved  ;  and  the  vagueness  of  the  impression  made  by 
his  name,  though  so  often  repeated  in  connexion  with  his  sons, 
may  be  best  conceived  by  reference  to  that  deeply  enigmatical 


300  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

question,  with  which  grave  persons  of  mature  age  are  sometimes 
wont  to  puzzle  the  inquisitive  minds  of  young  aspirants  after  Bibli- 
cal knowledge, — "  Who  was  the  father  of  Zebedee's  children  ?" — a 
query  which  certainly  implies  a  great  deficiency  of  important  facts, 
on  which  the  curious  learner  could  found  a  definite  idea  of  this 
somewhat  distinguished  character.  Indeed  "  the  mother  of  Zebe- 
dee's children"  seems  to  possess  in  the  minds  of  most  readers  of 
the  gospels  a  much  more  prominent  place  than  "  the  father  of 
them ;"  for  the  simple  occasion  on  which  she  presents  herself  to 
notice,  is  of  such  a  nature  as  to  show  that  she  was  the  parent 
from  whom  the  sons  inherited  at  least  one  prominent  trait, — that 
of  high,  aspiring  ambition,  with  which,  in  them  as  well  as  in  her, 
was  joined  a  most  decidedly  comfortable  degree  of  self-esteem,  that 
would  not  allow  them  to  suspect  that  other  people  could  be  at  all 
behind  them  in  appreciating  those  talents,  which,  in  their  own 
opinion,  and  their  fond  mother's,  showed  that  they  "were  born  to 
command."  Indeed  it  appears  manifest,  that  there  was  much 
moi^  "  thunder"  in  her  composition,  than  in  her  husband's ;  and  it 
is  but  fair  to  suppose,  from  the  decided  way  in  which  she  put  her- 
self forward  in  the  family  affairs,  on  at  least  one  important  occa- 
sion, without  any  pretension  whatever  on  his  part,  to  any  right  of 
interference  or  decision,  that  she  must  have  been  in  the  habit  of 
having  her  own  way  in  most  matters ; — a  peculiar  prominence  in 
the  domestic  administration,  very  naturally  resulting  from  the  cir- 
cumstance, that  her  husband's  frequent,  long  absences  from  home, 
on  his  business,  must  have  left  the  responsibilities  of  the  family 
often  upon  her  alone ;  and  the  boldness  which  characterized  her 
conduct  was  a  trait  naturally  developed  by  the  responsibilities  and 
independence  of  such  a  situation.  If  the  supposition  may  be 
adopted,  however,  that  Zebedee  died  soon  after  the  call  of  his 
sons,  the  silence  of  the  sqpred  record  respecting  him  is  easily 
accounted  for ;  and  the  journeys  of  Salome  with  her  sons  in  the 
pilgrimages  of  Jesus  add  probability  to  this  suggestion. 

Sprung  from  such  parents,  and  brought  up  by  them  on  the 
shores  and  waters  of  Gennesaret,  James  had  learned  the  humbfe 
business  of  his  father,  and  was  quietly  devoting  himself  to  the 
labors  of  a  fisherman,  probably  never  dreaming  of  an  occasion  that 
should  ever  call  forth  the  slumbering  energies  in  "  thunder,"  or 
hold  up  before  his  awakened  ambition,  the  honors  of  a  name  that 
should  outlast  the  wreck  of  kingdoms,  and  of  the  brightest  glories 
of  that  age.     But  on  the  morning,  when  the  sons  of  Jonah  re- 


JAMES  BOANERGES.  301 

ceived  the  high  call  and  commission  to  become  "  fishers  of  men," 
James  and  his  brother,  too, — at  the  solemn  command,  "  Follow 
me," — laid  down  their  nets,  and  left  the  low  labors  and  amuse- 
ments of  the  fishing,  to  their  father,  who  toiled  on  with  his  ser- 
vants, while  his  sons  went  forth  through  Galilee,  following  him 
who  had  called  them  to  a  far  higher  vocation.  No  acts  wliatever 
are  commemorated,  as  performed  by  them  in  this  first  pilgrimage  ; 
and  it  was  not  until  after  their  return  from  the  north  of  Galilee, 
and  the  beginning  of  their  journey  to  Jerusalem,  that  the  occasion 
arose,  when  their  striking  family  trait  of  ambition  was  most  re- 
markably brought  out. 

HIS  AMBITIOUS  CLAIMS. 

Their  intellectual  and  moral  qualities  being  of  a  comparatively 
high  order,  had  already  attracted  the  very  favorable  attention  of 
Jesus,  during  the  first  journey  through  Galilee ;  and  they  had  al- 
ready, on  at  least  two  occasions,  received  most  distinguishing 
marks  of  his  regard, — they  alone  of  all  the  twelve,  sharing  in  the 
honor  of  being  present  with  Peter  at  the  raising  of  the  daughter 
of  Jairus,  and  being  still  more  highly  favored  by  the  view  of  the 
solemn  events  of  the  night  of  the  transfiguration,  amid  the  thunders 
of  Hermon.  On  that  occasion,  the  terrors  of  the  scene  overcame 
even  their  aspiring  souls  ;  and  when  the  cloud  burst  over  them, 
they  both  sunk  to  the  earth,  in  speechless  dread,  along  with  Peter, 
too,  who  had  previously  manifested  so  much  greater  self-command 
than  they,  in  daring  to  address,  in  complacent  words,  the  awful 
forms  before  them ;  while  they  remained  silent  with  terror  at  a 
phenomenon  for  which  their  views  of  their  Master's  character  had 
but  poorly  prepared  them.  From  all  these  prostrating  terrors  they 
had  since,  however,  fully  recovered,  and  were  now  completely  re- 
stored to  their  former  confidence  in  themselves,  and  were  still 
rooted  in  their  old  views  of  the  Messiah's  earthly  glories, — in  this 
particular,  however,  only  sharing  the  common  error  of  the  whole 
twelve.  In  this  state  of  mind,  looking  upon  Jesus  Christ  only  as 
an  ambitious  man,  of  powerful  mind,  vast  knowledge,  divine  con- 
secration, and  miraculous  gifts,  which  fitted  him  for  the  subversion 
of  the  Roman  dominion,  and  the  erection  of  a  kingdom  of  his 
own, — their  thoughts  were  all  the  while  running  on  the  division 
of  the  spoils  and  honors,  which  would  be  the  reward  of  the  chief 
followers  of  the  conqueror ;  and  in  this  state  of  mind,  they  were 
prepared  to  pervert  all  the  declarations  of  Jesus,  so  as  to  make 


302  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

them  harmonize  with  their  own  hopes  and  notions.  While  on  this 
journey  southward,  to  Jerusalem,  after  they  had  passed  into  the 
eastern  sections  of  Judea,  beyond  the  Jordan,  Jesus  was  one  day, 
in  answer  to  an  inquiry  from  Peter,  promising  his  disciples  a  liigh 
reward  for  the  sacrifices  they  had  made  in  his  service ;  and  as- 
suring them,  that  in  return  for  houses  or  lands,  or  relatives  or 
friends,  left  for  his  name's  sake,  they  should  all  receive  a  return,  a 
hundred-fold  greater  than  the  loss.  Especially  were  their  fancies 
struck  by  a  vivid  picture,  which  he  represented  to  their  minds,  of 
the  high  rewards  accruing  to  all  the  twelve,  declaring  that  after 
the  completion  of  the  change  which  he  was  working,  and  when  he 
had  taken  his  own  imperial  throne,  they  should  sit  around  him  on 
twelve  thrones,  judging  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel.  Here  was  a 
prospect,  enough  to  satisfy  the  most  aspiring  ambition  ;  but  along 
with  the  hopes  now  awakened,  arose  also  some  queries  about  the 
preference  of  places  in  this  throned  triumph,  which  were  not  easily 
settled  so  as  to  satisfy  all  at  once.  In  the  proposed  arrangement, 
it  was  perfectly  evident,  that  of  the  whole  circle  of  thrones,  by  far 
the  most  honorable  locations  would  be  those  immediately  on  the 
right  and  left  of  the  Messiah-king  ;  and  their  low  ambition  set  them 
at  once  contriving  how  to  get  these  pre-eminent  places  for  them- 
selves. Of  all  the  apostolic  band,  none  could  so  fairly  claim  the 
right  hand  throne  as  Peter ;  already  pronounced  the  Rock  on 
which  the  church  should  be  founded,  and  commissioned  as  the 
keeper  of  the  keys  of  the  kingdom.  But  Peter's  devotion  to  his 
Master  seems  to  have  been  of  too  pure  a  character,  to  let  him  give 
any  thought  to  the  mere  rewards  of  the  victory,  so  long  as  he  could 
feel  sure  of  the  full  return  of  that  burning  affection  to  his  Lord, 
with  which  his  own  ardent  soul  glowed  ;  and  he  left  it  to  others 
to  settle  points  of  precedence  and  the  division  of  rewards.  On  no 
occasion  throughout  his  whole  life,  is  there  recorded  any  evidence 
of  the  slightest  disposition  to  claim  the  mere  honors  of  a  pre- 
eminence, though  his  superior  force  of  character  made  the  whole 
band  instinctively  look  to  him  for  guidance,  in  all  times  of  trouble 
and  danger,  after  the  ascension.  His  modest,  confiding,  disinter- 
ested affection  for  his  Master,  indeed,  was  the  main  ground  of  all 
the  high  distinctions  conferred  on  him  so  unsparingly  by  Jesus, 
who  would  have  been  very  slow  to  honor  thus,  one  who  was  dis- 
posed to  grow  proud  or  overbearing  under  the  possession  of  tliese 
favors.  But  this  very  character  of  modesty  and  uncalculating  af- 
fection, gave  occasion  also  to  the  other  disciples,  to  push  themselves 


JAMES  BOANERGES.  303 

forward  for  a  claim  to  those  peculiar  exaltations,  which  his  indif- 
ference to  personal  advancement  seemed  to  leave  unoccupied,  for 
the  more  ambitious  to  assume.  In  this  instance,  particularly, 
James  and  John  were  so  far  moved  with  the  desire  of  the  enviable 
distinction  of  this  primacy,  that  they  made  it  a  matter  of  family 
consultation,  and  accordingly  brought  the  case  before  their  fondly 
ambitious  mother,  who  instantly  determined  that  the  great  object 
should  be  achieved  before  any  one  else  could  secure  the  chance 
for  the  place ;  and  resolved  to  use  her  influence  in  favor  of  her 
darling  sons.  On  the  first  favorable  opportunity  she  therefore 
went  with  them  to  Jesus ;  and,  as  it  would  appear  by  the  combina- 
tion of  the  accounts  of  Matthew  and  Mark,  both  she  and  they  pre- 
sented the  request  at  once  and  together, — James  and  John,  however, 
prefacing  the  declaration  of  their  exact  purpose  by  a  general  peti- 
tion for  unlimited  favor, — "  Master,  we  would  that  thou  shouldst 
do  for  us  whatever  we  desire  ?"  To  this  modest  petition,  Jesus 
replied  by  asking, — "  What  would  ye  that  I  should  grant  ?"  They, 
with  their  mother,  falling  down  at  his  feet  in  fawning,  selfish  wor- 
ship, then  urged  their  grand  request : — "  Grant,"  said  the  ambitious 
Salome,  "that  these  my  two  sons  may  sit,  the  one  on  thy  right 
hand,  and  the  other  on  thy  left,  when  thou  reignest  in  thy  glory." 
Jesus,  fully  appreciating  the  miserable  state  of  selfish  ignorance 
which  inspired  the  hope  and  the  question,  in  order  to  show  them 
their  ignorance,  and  to  make  them  express  their  minds  more  fully, 
assured  them  that  they  knew  not  the  meaning  of  their  own  request, 
and  asked  them  whether  they  were  able  to  drink  of  the  cup  that 
he  should  drink  of,  and  be  baptized  with  the  baptism  that  he  should 
be  baptized  with  ?  With  unhesitating  self-conceit,  they  answered, — 
"  We  are  able."  But  Jesus  replied  in  such  a  tone  as  to  check  all 
further  solicitation  of  this  kind  from  them,  or  from  any  other  ot 
his  hearers.  "  Ye  shall  drink  indeed  of  my  cup,  and  be  baptized 
with  the  baptism  that  I  am  baptized  with  ;  but  to  sit  on  my  right 
hand  and  on  my  left,  is  not  mine  to  give  ;  but  it  shall  be  given  to 
them  for  whom  it  is  prepared  by  my  father." — "  The  cup  of  sor- 
row, and  suffering,  and  agony, — the  baptism  of  spirit,  fire,  and 
blood, — of  these  you  shall  all  drink  in  a  solemn  and  mournful  re- 
ality, which  you  are  now  far  from  conceiving ;  but  the  high  places 
of  the  kingdom  which  I  come  to  found,  are  not  to  be  disposed  of 
to  those  who  think  to  forestall  my  personal  favor ;  they  are  for  the 
blessed  of  my  Father,  who,  in  the  time  appointed  in  his  own  good 
pleasure,  will  give  it  to  them,  in  the  end  of  days."     The  disap- 


304  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

pointed  family  of  Zebedee  retired,  quite  confounded  with  the  rejec- 
tion of  their  petition,  and  with  th§  darkly  told  prophecy  that  accom- 
panied it,  dooming  them  to  some  mysterious  fate,  of  which  they 
could  form  no  idea  whatever.  The  rest  of  the  twelve,  hearing  of 
the  ambitious  attempt  of  the  sons  of  Zebedee  to  secure  the  suprema- 
cy by  a  secret  movement  and  by  family  influence,  were  moved 
with  great  indignation  against  the  intriguing  aspirants,  and  ex- 
pressed their  displeasure  so  decidedly,  that  Jesus  called  them 
around  him,  to  improve  this  manifestation  of  folly  and  passion  to 
their  advantage  ;  and  said, — "  You  know  that  the  nations  are  gov- 
erned by  princes  and  lords,  and  that  none  exercise  authority  over 
them  but  the  great  ones  of  the  land.  Now  it  shall  not  be  so  among 
you  ;  but  he  who  will  be  great  among  you,  must  be  your  servant ; 
and  he  who  shall  be  your  chief,  shall  be  the  slave  of  all  the  rest. 
For  even  the  Son  of  Man  himself  came  not  to  make  others  his 
slaves,  but  to  be  himself  a  slave  to  many,  and  even  to  sacrifice  his 
life  in  their  service." 

Salome. — The  reason  for  the  supposition  that  this  was  really  the  name  of  the  mother 
of  James,  consists  in  the  comparison  of  two  corresponding  passages  of  Matthew  and 
Mark.  In  Matt,  xxvii.  56.  it  is  said  that  among  the  women  present  at  the  crucifix- 
ion, were  "  Mary  Magdalene,  Mary,  the  mother  of  Joses,  and  the  mother  of  Zebedee's 
children."  In  the  parallel  passage,  Mark  xv.  40,  they  are  mentioned  as  "  Mary  Mag- 
dalene, Mary,  the  mother  of  James  and  Joses,  and  Salovie."  In  Mark  xvi.  1,  Salome 
is  also  mentioned  among  those  who  went  to  the  sepulchre.  This  is  not  proof  posi- 
tive, but  it  is  reasonable  ground  for  the  supposition,  more  especially  as  Matthew 
never  mentions  Salome  by  name,  but  repeatedly  speaks  of  "  the  mother  of  Zebedee's 
children." 

If,  as  is  probable  then,  Salome  and  the  mother  of  Zebedee's  children  were  identical, 
it  is  also  reasonable  to  suppose,  as  Lampe  does,  that  Zebedee  himself  may  have  died 
soon  after  the  time  when  the  call  of  his  sons  took  place.  For  Salome  could  hardly 
have  left  her  husband  and  family,  to  go,  as  she  did,  with  Jesus  on  his  journeys,  minis- 
tering to  his  necessities;— but  if  her  husband  was  really  dead,  she  would  have  l)ut  few 
ties  to  confine  her  at  home,  and  would  therefore  very  naturally  be  led,  by  her  mater- 
nal affection  and  anxiety  for  her  sons,  to  accompany  them  in  their  wandering  life. 
The  supposition  of  Zebedee's  death  is  also  justified  by  the  circumstance  that  John  is 
spoken  of  in  his  own  gospel,  (John  xix.  27,)  as  possessing  a  house  of  "  his  own,"  which 
seems  to  imply  the  death  of  his  father ;  since  so  young  a  man  would  hardly  have  ac- 
quired property,  except  by  inheritance. 

Thus  he  laid  out  before  them  all  the  indispensable  qualities  of 
the  man  who  aspired  to  the  dangerous,  painful,  and  unenviable 
primacy  among  them, — humility,  meekness,  and  laborious  indus 
try.  But  vain  were  all  the  earnest  teachings  of  his  divine  spirit 
Schemes  and  hopes  of  worldly  eminence  and  imperial  dominion, 
were  too  deeply  rooted  in  their  hearts,  to  be  displaced  by  this  oft- 
repeated  view  of  the  labors  and  trials  of  his  service.  Already,  on 
a  former  occasion,  too,  had  he  tried  to  impress  them  with  the  true 
spirit  of  the  apostleship.  When  on  the  way  to  Capernaum,  at  the 
close  of  this  journey  through  Galilee,  they  had  disputed  among 


JAMES  BOANERGES.  305 

tiliemselves  on  the  question,  which  of  them  should  be  the  prime 
minister  of  their  Messiah-king,  when  he  had  estabhshed  his  heav- 
enly reign  in  all  the  dominions  of  his  father  David.  On  their 
meeting  Avith  him  in  the  house  at  Capernaum,  he  brought  up  this 
point  of  difference.  Setting  a  little  child  before  them,  (probably- 
one  of  Peter's  children,  as  it  was  in  his  house,)  and  taking  the 
little  innocent  into  his  arms,  he  assured  them  that  unless  they 
should  become  utterly  changed  in  disposition  and  in  hope,  and  be- 
come like  that  little  child  in  simplicity  of  character,  they  should 
have  no  share  whatever  in  the  glories  of  that  kingdom  which  was 
to  them  an  object  of  so  many  ambitious  aspirations.  But  neither 
this  charge,  nor  the  repetition  of  it,  could  yet  avail  to  work  that 
necessary  change  in  their  feelings.  Still  they  lived  on  in  the  vain 
and  selfish  hope,  scheming  for  personal  aggrandizement,  till  the 
progress  of  events  bringing  calamity  and  trial  upon  them,  had 
purified  their  hearts,  and  fully  fitted  them  for  the  duties  of  the  great 
office  to  which  they  had  so  unthinkingly  devoted  themselves. 
Then,  indeed,  did  the  aspiring  James  receive,  in  a  deeper  sense 
than  he  had  ever  dreamed  of,  the  reward  for  which  he  now  longed 
and  begged  ; — drinking  first  of  the  cup  of  agony,  and  baptized  first 
in  blood,  he  ascended  first  to  the  place  on  the  right  hand  of  tlte 
Messiah  in  his  eternal  kingdom.  But  years  of  toil  and  sorrow, 
seen  and  felt,  were  his  preparation  for  this  glorious  crown. 

James  has  also  been  made  the  subject  of  a  long  series  of  fables,  though  the  early 
termination  of  his  apostolic  career  would  seem  to  leave  no  room  whatever,  for  the 
insertion  of  any  very  great  journeys  and  labors  upon  the  authentic  history.  But  the 
Spaniards,  in  the  general  rage  for  claiming  some  apostle  as  a  national  patron  saint, 
long  ago  got  up  the  most  absurd  fiction,  that  James,  the  son  of  Zebedee,  during  the 
periodintervening  between  Christ's  ascension  and  his  own  execution  at  Jerusalem, 
actually  performed  a  voyage  over  the  whole  length  of  the  Mediterranean,  into  Spain, 
where  he  remained  several  years,  preaching,  founding  churches,  and  performing 
miracles,  and  returned  to  Jerusalem  in  time  for  the  occurrence  of  the  concludiiig 
event,  as  recorded  in  the  twelfth  chapter  of  Acts.  This  story  probably  originated  in 
the  same  manner  as  that  suggested  to  account  for  the  fables  about  Andrew  ;  that  is — 
that  some  preacher  of  Christianity,  of  this  name,  in  a  later  age,  actually  did  travel 
into  Spain,  there  preaching  the  gospel,  and  founding  chiirches ;  and  that  his  name 
being  deservedly  remembered,  was,  in  the  progress  of  the  corruptions  of  the  truth, 
confounded  with  that  of  the  apostle  James,  son  of  Zebedee, — this  James  being  se- 
lected rather  than  the  son  of  Alpheus,  because  the  latter  had  already  been  established 
by  tradition,  as  the  hero  of  a  story  quite  inconsistent  with  any  Spanish  journey,  and 
being  also  less  dignified  by  the  Savior's  notice.  Be  that  as  it  may.  Saint  James 
(Santo  Jago)  is  to  this  day  esteemed  the  patron  saint  of  Spain,  and  his  tomb  is  shown 
in  Compostella,  in  that  kingdom ;  for  they  will  have  it,  that,  after  his  decapitation  by 
Herod  Agrippa,  his  body  was  brought  all  the  way  over  the  sea,  to  Spain,  and  there 
buried  in  the  scene  of  his  toils  and  miracles.  A  Spanish  order  of  knighthood,  that 
of  St.  Jago  de  Composiella,  takes  its  name  from  this  notion. 

The  old  romancer,  Abdias  Babylonius,  who  is  so  rich  in  stories  about  Andrew,  has 
much  to  tell  about  James,  and  enters  at  great  length  into  the  details  of  his  execution; 
crowning  the  whole  with  the  idle  story,  that  when  he  was  led  to  death,  his  accuser, 
Josiah,  a  Pharisee,  suddenly  repenting,  begged  his  forgiveness,  and  professed  his 


306  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

faith  in  Christ, — for  which  he  also  was  beheaded  along  with  him,  after  being  baptized 
by  James  in  some  water  that  was  handed  to  him  by  the  executioner,  in  a  calabash. 
(Abd.  Babylon.  Hist.  Apost.  IV.  §  9.) 

From  the  time  of  this  event,  there  occurs  no  mention  whatever 
of  any  act  of  James,  until  the  commemoration  of  the  occasion  of 
his  exit ;  and  even  this  tragic  circumstance  is  mentioned  so  briefly, 
that  nothing  can  be  learned  but  the  mere  fact  and  manner  of  his 
death.  On  the  occasion  fully  described  above,  in  the  life  of  Peter, 
Herod  Agrippa  I.  seized  this  apostle,  and  at  once  put  him  to  death 
by  the  executioner's  sword.  The  particular  grounds  on  which 
this  act  of  bloody  cruelty  was  justified  by  the  tyrant  and  his  friends, 
are  wholly  unknown.  Probably  there  was  a  pretense  at  a  set  ac- 
cusation of  some  crime,  which  would  make  the  act  appear  less 
atrocious  at  the  time,  than  appears  from  Luke's  silence  as  to  the 
grounds  of  the  proceeding.  The  remarkable  prominence  of  James, 
however,  was  enough  to  ofler  a  motive  to  the  popularity-seeking 
Agrippa,  whose  main  object  being  to  "  please  the  Jews,"  led  him 
to  seize  those  who  had  most  displeased  them,  by  laboring  for  the 
advancement  of  the  Nazarene  heresy.  And  that  this  actually  was 
his  governing  principle  in  selecting  his  victims,  is  made  further 
apparent  by  the  circumstance  that  Peter,  the  great  chief  of  the 
betnd,  was  next  marked  for  destruction.  Though  no  particular 
acts  of  James  are  recorded  as  having  made  him  prominently  ob- 
noxious to  the  Jews,  yet  there  is  every  reason  to  believe,  that  the 
exalted  ardor  and  now  chastened  ambition  of  the  Son  of  Thunder, 
had  made  him  often  the  bold  assaulter  of  sophistry  and  hypocrisy, 
— a  heroism  which  at  once  sealed  his  doom,  and  crowned  him 
with  the  glory  of  THE  APOSTOLIC  PROTOMARTYR. 


JOHN; 

THE  SON  OF  ZEBEDEE. 


HIS  CHARACTER. 

This  other  son  of  Zebedee,  and  of  "thundei,'  whenever  any 
description  of  the  apostles  has  been  given,  has  been  by  most  reli- 
gious writers  generally  characterized  as  a  mild,  amiable  person,  and 
is  thus  figured  in  strong  contrast  with  the  bold  and  ardent  spirit 
of  Peter,  The  circumstance  that  he  is  described  as  "  the  disciple 
whom  Jesus  loved,"  has  doubtless  done  much  to  cause  the  almost 
universal  impression  which  has  prevailed,  as  to  the  meekness  of 
his  disposition.  But  this  is  certainly  without  just  reason  ;  for 
there  is  no  ground  for  supposing  that  any  peculiar  softness  was 
essential  to  the  formation  of  the  character  for  which  the  Redeemer 
could  feel  a  strong  affection.  On  the  contrary,  the  almost  univer- 
sal behavior  of  the  apostolic  band,  seems  to  show  that  the  natural 
characteristics  which  he  marked  as  betraying  in  them  the  deeper 
qualities  that  would  best  fit  them  for  his  service,  and  qualify  them 
as  the  sharers  of  his  intimate  instruction  and  affection,  were  more 
decidedly  of  the  stern  and  fiery  order,  than  of  the  meek  and  gentle. 
Nor  is  there  any  circumstance  recorded  of  John,  whether  authentic 
or  fabulous,  that  can  justify  the  supposition  that  he  was  an  excep- 
tion to  these  general,  natural  characteristics  of  the  apostles ;  but 
instances  sufficiently  numerous  are  given  in  the  gospels,  to  make 
it  clear,  that  he  was  not  altogether  the  soft  and  gentle  creature, 
that  has  been  commonly  presented  as  his  true  image. 

It  has  been  commonly  supposed  that  he  was  the  youngest  of  all 
the  apostles  ;  nor  is  there  any  reason  to  disbelieve  an  opinion  har- 
monizing, as  this  does,  with  all  that  is  recorded  of  him  in  the  New 
Testament,  as  well  as  with  the  undivided  voice  of  all  tradition. 
That  he  was  younger  than  James,  may  be  reasonably  concluded 
from  the  circumstance  that  he  is  always  mentioned  after  him, 
though  his  importance  in  the  history  of  the  foundation  of  the 
Christian  faith,  might  seem  to  justify  an  inversion  of  this  order ; 
and  in  the  life  of  James,  it  has  already  been  represented  as  proba- 


308  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

ble,  that  he  too  must  have  been  quite  young,  being  the  son  of  a 
father  who  was  still  so  much  in  the  freshness  of  his  vigor,  as  to 
endure  the  toils  of  a  peculiarly  laborious  and  dangerous  business. 
On  this  point,  also,  the  opinion  even  of  tradition  is  entitled  to 
some  respect,  on  the  ground  taken  by  an  author  quoted  in  the 
life  of  Peter, — that  thouofh  we  consider  tradition  as  a  notorious 
liar,  yet  we  may  give  some  attention  to  its  reports,  because  even 
a  liar  may  sometimes  speak  the  truth,  where  he  has  no  object  in 
deceiving  us. 

Tlu:  youngest  of  the  disciples.— AM  that  can  be  said  on  this  opinion  is,  that  it  is  pos- 
sible ;  and  if  the  testimony  of  the  later  Fathers  were  worth  much  consideration  on 
any  historical  question  concerning  the  apostles,  it  might  be  called  even  probable;  bat 
no  early  writer  alludes  to  his  age  at  all,  till  Jerome,  who  very  decidedly  calls  John 
"  the  youngest  of  all  the  apostles."  Several  later  Fathers  make  the  same  assertion, 
but  the  voice  of  antiquity  has  already  been  shown  to  be  worth  very  little,  when  it  is 
not  heard  within  three  centuries  of  the  events  on  which  it  offers  its  testimony.  But 
at  any  rate,  the  assertion  of  John's  juniority  is  not  improbable. 

A  great  deal  of  violent  discussion  has  been  lavished  on  the  almost  equally  impor- 
tant question,  whether  John  was  ever  married.  The  earliest  established  testimony 
on  this  point  is  that  of  TertuUian,  who  numbers  John  among  those  who  had  restrained 
themselves  from  matrimony  for  the  sake  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Testimony  as 
late  as  the  third  century,  however,  and  especially  by  an  ascetic  Montanist,  as  Ter- 
tuUian was,  on  an  opinion  which  favored  monastic  views,  is  worth  nothing.  But  on 
the  strength  of  this,  many  Fathers  have  made  great  use  of  John,  as  an  instance  of 
celibacy,  accordant  with  monastic  principles.  Epiphanius,  Jerome,  and  Augustin, 
allude  frequently  to  the  circumstance ;  the  latter  Father  in  particular  insisting  that 
John  was  engaged  to  be  married  when  he  was  called,  but  gave  up  the  lady,  to  follow 
Jesus.  Some  ingenious  modern  theologians  have  even  improved  upon  this  so  far  as 
to  maintain  that  the  marriage  in  Cana  of  Galilee  was  that  of  John,  but  that  he  imme- 
diately left  his  wife  afler  the  miracle.    (See  Lampe,  Prolegom.  I.  i.  13,  notes.) 

Jerome  has  a  great  deal  to  say  also,  about  the  age  of  John  at  the  time  when  he  was 
called,  arguing  that  he  must  have  been  a  mere  boy  at  the  time,  because  tradition  as- 
serts that  he  lived  till  the  reign  of  Trajan.    Lampe  very  justly  objects,  however,  that 
this  proof  amounts  to  nothing,  if  we  accept  another  common  tradition,  that  he  lived 
to  the  age  of  100  years;  which,  if  we  count  back  a  century  from  the  reign  of  Trajan, 
would  require  him  to  have  attained  mature  age  at  the  time  of  the  call.    Neither  tra- 
dition, however,  is  worth  much.     Our  old  friend  Baronius,  too,  comes  in  to  enlighten 
the  investigation  of  John's  age,  by  what  he  considers  indubitable  evidence.    He  says 
that  John  was  in  his  twenty-second  year  when  he  was  called,  and  passing  three  years 
with  Christ,  must  have  been  twenty-five  years  old  at  the  time  of  the  crucifixion;  "be- 
cause," says  the  sagacious  Baronius,  "  he  was  then  initiated  into  the  priesthood."    An 
assertion  which  Lampe  with  indignant  surprise  stigmatizes  as  showing  "  remarkable 
boldness,"  (insignis  audacia,)  because  it  contains  two  very  gross  errors, — first,  in  pre- 
tending that  John  was  ever  made  a  priest,  (sacerdos,)  and  secondly,  in  confounding 
the  age  required  of  the  Levites  with  that  of  the  priests  when  initiated.    For  Baroni- 
ns's  argument  resting  wholly  on  the  very  strange  and  unfounded  notion,  that  John 
■was  made  a  priest,  is  furthermore  supported  on  the  idea  that  the  prescribed  age  for 
entering  the  priestliood  was  twenty-five  years  ;  but  in  reality,  the  age  thus  required 
was  thirty  years,  so  that  if  the  other  part  of  this  idle  story  was  true,  this  would  be 
enough  to  overthrow  the  conclusion.    Lampe  also  alludes  to  the  absurd  idea  of  the 
painters,  in  representing  John  as  a  young  man,  even  while  writing  his  gospel ;  while 
in  reality  all  writers  agree  that  that  work  was  written  by  him  in  his  old  age.     This 
idea  of  his  perpetual  youth,  once  led  into  a  blunder  some  foolish  Benedictine  monks, 
who  found  in  Constantinople  an  antique  agate  intaglio,  representing  a  young  man 
with  a  cornucopia,  and  an  eagle,  and  with  a  figure  of  Victory  placing  a  crown  on  his 
head.     This  struck  their  monkish  fancies  at  once,  as  an  unquestionable  portrait  of 
John,  sent  to  their  hands  by  a  miraculous  preservation.    Examination,  however,  has 
shown  it  lo  be  a  representation  of  the  apotneosis  of  Germanicus. 


OHN.  309 

HIS  FAMILY  AND  BUSINESS. 

The  authentic  history  of  the  hfe  of  this  apostle  must  also  ne- 
cessarily be  very  brief;  most  of  the  prominent  incidents  v/hich 
concern  him  having  already  been  abundantly  described  in  the 
preceding  lives.  But  there  are  particulars  which  have  not  been 
so  fully  entered  into,  some  of  which  concern  this  apostle  exclu- 
sively, while  in  others  he  is  mentioned  only  in  conjunction  with 
his  brother  and  friends ;  and  many  of  these  may,  with  propriety, 
be  more  fully  given  in  this  life,  since  his  eminence,  his  writings, 
and  long  protracted  labors,  make  him  a  proper  subject  for  a  minute 
disquisition. 

Being  the  son  of  Zebedee  and  Salome,  as  has  already  been  men- 
tioned in  the  life  of  his  brother,  he  shared  in  the  low  fortunes  and 
laborious  life  of  a  fisherman,  on  the  lake  of  Gennesaret.  This  oc- 
cupation, indeed,  did  not  necessarily  imply  the  very  lowest  rank 
in  society,  as  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  the  Jews  held  no  useful 
occupation  to  be  beneath  the  dignity  of  a  respectable  person,  or 
even  a  learned  man.  Still,  the  nature  of  their  business  was  such 
as  to  render  it  improbable  that  they  had  adopted  it  with  any  other 
view  than  that  of  maintaining  themselves  by  it,  or  of  enlarging 
their  property,  though  perhaps  not  of  earning  a  support  which  they 
had  no  other  means  whatever  of  procuring.  It  has  been  said,  that 
doubtless  there  were  many  other  inhabitants  of  the  shores  of  the 
lake,  who  occasionally  occupied  themselves  in  fishing,  and  yet  were 
by  no  means  obliged  to  employ  themselves  constantly  in  that  vo- 
cation. But  the  brief  statement  of  circumstances  in  the  gospels  is 
enough  to  show  that  such  an  equipage  of  boats  and  nets,  and  such 
steady  employment  all  night,  were  not  indicative  of  any  thing  else 
than  a  regular  devotion  of  time  to  it,  in  the  way  of  business. 
Yet,  that  Zebedee  was  not  a  man  in  very  low  circumstances,  as  to 
property,  is  quite  manifest  from  Mark's  statement,  that  when  they 
were  called,  they  left  their  father  in  the  vessel,  along  with  the 
"  servants,"  or  workmen, — which  implies  that  they  carried  on  their 
fishing  operations  on  so  extended  a  scale  as  to  have  a  number  of 
men  in  their  service,  and  probably  had  a  vessel  of  considerable 
size,  since  it  needed  such  a  plurality  of  hands  to  manage  it,  an^ 
use  the  apparatus  of  the  business  to  advantage  ;  a  circumstance 
in  which  their  condition  seems  to  have  been  somewhat  superior 
to  that  of  Peter  and  Andrew,  of  whom  no  such  particulars  are 
specified, — all  accounts  representing  them  as  alone,  in  a  small  ves- 


Sio 


LIVES   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


sel,  which  they  were  able  to  manage  of  themselves.  The  posses- 
sion of  some  family  estate  is  also  implied,  in  numerous  incidental 
allusions  in  the  gospels ;  as  in  the  fact  that  their  mother  Salome 
was  one  of  those  women  who  followed  Jesus,  and  ''ministered  to 
him  of  their  substance"  or  possessions.  She  is  also  specified 
among  those  women  who  brought  precious  spices  for  embalming 
the  body  of  Jesus.  John  is  also  mentioned  in  his  own  gospel,  as 
having  a  house  of  his  own,  in  which  he  generously  supported  the 
mother  of  Jesus,  as  if  he  himself  had  been  her  son,  throughout  the 
remainder  of  her  life  ;  an  act  of  friendly  and  pious  kindness  to 
which  he  would  not  have  been  competent,  without  the  possession 
of  some  property  in  addition  to  the  house. 

HIS    EDUCATION. 

There  is  reason  to  suppose,  that  in  accordance  with  the  estab- 
lished principles  of  parental  duty  among  the  Jews,  he  had  learned 
the  rudiments  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Mosaic  law  ;  for  a  prover- 
bial sentence  of  the  religious  teachers  of  the  nation,  ranked  among 
the  vilest  of  mankind,  that  Jew,  who  suffered  a  son  to  grow  up 
without  being  educated  in  the  first  principles,  at  least,  of  his  na- 
tional religion.  But  that  his  knowledge,  at  the  time  when  he  first 
became  a  disciple  of  Jesus,  extended  beyond  a  barely  respectable 
degree  of  information  on  religious  matters,  there  is  no  ground  for 
believing ;  and  though  there  is  nothing  which  directly  contradicts 
the  idea  that  he  may  have  known  the  alphabet,  or  have  made  some 
trifling  advances  in  literary  knowledge, — yet  the  manner  in  which 
he,  together  with  Peter,  was  spoken  of  by  the  proud  members  of 
the  Sanhedrim,  seems  to  imply  that  they  did  not  pretend  to  any 
knowledge  whatever  of  literature.  And  the  terms  in  which  both 
Jesus  and  his  disciples  are  constantly  alluded  to  by  the  learned 
scribes  and  Pharisees,  seem  to  show  that  they  were  all  considered 
as  utterly  destitute  of  literary  education,  though,  by  reason  of  that 
very  ignorance,  they  were  objects  of  the  greatest  wonder  to  all 
who  saw  their  striking  displays  of  a  religious  knowledge,  utterly 
unaccountable  by  a  reference  to  any  thing  that  was  known  of  their 
means  of  arriving  at  such  intellectual  eminence.  Indeed,  there 
^ems  to  have  been  a  distinct  design  on  the  part  of  Christ,  to  select 
for  his  great  purpose,  men  whose  minds  were  wholly  free  from  that 
pride  of  opinion  and  learned  arrogance,  almost  inseparable  from 
the  constitutions  of  those  who  had  been  regularly  trained  in  the 
subtleties  of  a  slavish  system  of  theology  and  law.     He  did  not 


JOHN.  311 

seek  among  the  trained  and  drilled  scholars  of  the  formal  routine 
of  Jewish  dogmatism,  for  the  instruments  of  regenerating  a  people 
and  a  world, — but  among  the  bold,  active,  and  intelligent,  yet  un- 
educated Galileans,  whose  provincial  peculiarities  and  rudeness, 
moreover,  in  a  high  degreei  incapacitated  them  from  taking  rank 
among  the  polished  scholars  of  the  Jewish  capital.  Thus  was  it, 
that  on  the  followers  of  Christ  could  never  be  put  the  stigma  of 
mere  theological  disputants ;  and  all  the  gifts  of  knowledge,  and 
the  graces  of  mental  power,  which  they  displayed  under  his  divine 
teachings,  were  totally  free  from  the  slightest  suspicion  of  any  other 
than  a  miraculous  origin.  Some  have,  indeed,  attempted  to  con- 
jecture, from  the  alleged  elegance  of  John's  style  in  his  gospel  and 
epistles,  that  he  had  early  received  a  finished  education,  in  some 
one  of  the  provincial  Jewish  colleges,  and  have  even  gone  so  far 
as  to  suggest,  that  probably  Jairus,  "  the  ruler  of  the  synagogue" 
in  Capernaum,  or  more  properly,  "  the  head  of  the  school  of  the 
law,"  had  been  his  instructor, — a  guess  of  most  remarkable  pro- 
fundity, but  one  that,  besides  lacking  all  sort  of  evidence  or  pro- 
bability, is  furthermore  made  totally  unnecessary,  by  the  indu- 
bitable fact,  that  no  signs  of  any  such  perfection  of  style  are 
noticeable  in  any  of  the  writings  of  John,  so  as  to  require  any 
elaborate  hypothesis  of  this  kind  to  explain  them.  The  greatest 
probability  is,  that  all  his  knowledge,  both  of  Hebrew  literature 
and  the  Greek  language,  was  acquired  after  the  beginning  of  his 
apostolic  course. 

HIS  NAME. 

The  Jews  were  accustomed,  like  most  of  the  ancient  nations  of 
the  east,  to  confer  upon  their  children  significant  names,  which 
were  made  to  refer  to  some  circumstance  connected  with  the  per- 
son's prospects,  or  the  hopes  of  his  parents  respecting  him.  In 
their  son's  name,  probably  Zebedee  and  Salome  designed  to  express 
some  idea  auspicious  of  his  progress  and  character  in  after  life. 
The  name  "  John"  is  not  only  common  in  the  New  Testament, 
but  also  occurs  in  the  Hebrew  scriptures  in  the  original  form 
"  Johanan,"  which  bears  the  happy  signification  of  "  the  favor  of 
Jehovah,"  or  "  favored  by  Jehovah."  They  probably  had  this 
meaning  in  mind  when  they  gave  the  name  to  him,  and  on  that 
account  preferred  it  to  one  of  less  hopeful  religious  character ;  but 
to  suppose,  as  some  commentators  have,  that  in  conferring  it,  they 
were  indued  with  a  prophetic  spirit,  which  for  the  moment  directed 


312  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

them  to  the  choice  of  an  appellation  expressive  of  the  high  destiny 
of  a  chosen,  favored  herald  of  the  grace  of  God,  to  Israel  and  to 
the  Gentiles, — is  a  conjecture  too  absurdly  wild  to  be  entertained 
by  a  sober  and  discreet  critic  for  a  moment.  Yet  there  are  some, 
who,  in  the  rage  for  finding  a  deep  meaning  in  the  simplest  mat- 
ters, interpret  this  simple,  common  name,  as  prophetically  express- 
ive of  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  grace,  and  of  the  abrogation 
of  the  formal  law  of  Moses,  first  announced  by  John  the  Baptist, 
whose  testimony  was  first  fully  recorded  in  the  gospel  of  John  the 
Apostle.  Such  idle  speculations,  however,  serve  no  useful  purpose, 
and  only  bring  suspicion  upon  more  rational  investigations  in  the 
same  department. 

HIS  CALL  AND  DISCIPLESHIP. 

The  first  introduction  of  John  to  Jesus,  appears  to  be  distinctly, 
though  modestly,  described  by  himself,  in  the  first  chapter  of  his 
gospel,  where  he  has  evidently  designated  himself  in  the  third 
person,  as  "  the  other  disciple"  of  John  the  Baptist,  who  accom- 
panied Andrew  on  his  first  visit  to  Jesus.  After  the  introduction 
above  narrated,  he  seems  to  have  remained  near  the  newly  found 
Messiah  for  some  days,  being,  of  course,  included  among  those 
disciples  who  were  present  at  the  marriage  in  Cana.  He  appears  to 
have  returned,  soon  after,  to  his  employments  on  the  lake,  where 
he  for  some  time  appears  to  have  followed  the  business  in  which 
he  had  been  brought  up,  till  the  word  of  his  already  adopted  Mas- 
ter came  to  summon  him  to  the  actual  duties  of  the  discipleship. 
On  the  journeys  that  followed  this  call,  he  was  engaged  in  no  act 
of  importance  in  which  he  was  not  also  associated  with  those  dis- 
ciples, in  whose  lives  these  incidents  have  been  already  fully  de- 
scribed. On  one  occasion,  however,  a  solitary  instance  is  recorded 
by  Luke,  of  a  remark  made  by  John,  during  a  conversation  which 
took  place  at  Capernaum,  after  the  return  from  the  mission  through 
Galilee,  and  not  long  before  the  great  journey  to  Jerusalem.  It 
seems  to  have  been  at  the  time  when  Jesus  was  inculcating  a  child- 
Uke  simplicity,  as  an  essential  characteristic  of  his  followers ;  and 
the  remark  of  John  is,  both  by  Mark  and  Luke,  prefaced  with  the 
words — "  and  John  answered  and  said," — though  no  very  clear 
connexion  can  be  traced  between  what  he  said  and  the  preceding 
words  of  Jesus.  The  passage,  however,  is  interesting,  as  showing 
that  John  was  not  always  most  discreet  in  his  regard  for  the  pecu- 
Har  honors  of  his  Master, — ^and  in  the  case  which  he  refers  to,  had 


JOHN.  313 

in  his  restrictive  zeal  quite  gone  beyond  the  rules  of  action,  by 
which  Jesus  expected  him  to  be  guided.  The  remark  of  John  on 
this  occasion  was — "  Master,  we  saw  one  casting  out  devils  in  thy 
name,  and  we  forbade  him,  because  he  foUoweth  not  with  us." 
This  confession  betrays  a  spirit  still  strongly  under  the  influence 
of  worldly  feelings,  manifesting  a  perfectly  natural  emotion  of 
jealousy,  at  the  thought  of  any  intrusion,  upon  what  he  deemed 
the  peculiar  and  exclusive  privilege  of  himself  and  his  eleven  as- 
sociates in  the  fellowship  of  Christ.  The  high  commission  of  sub- 
duing the  malign  agencies  of  the  demoniac  powers,  had  been  spe- 
cially conferred  on  the  elect  twelve,  when  they  first  went  forth  on 
the  apostoUc  errand.  This  divine  power,  John  had  supposed  ut- 
terly above  the  reach  of  common  men,  and  it  was  therefore  with 
no  small  surprise,  and  moreover  with  some  indignant  jealousy, 
that  he  saw  a  nameless  person,  not  enrolled  in  the  sacred  band, 
nor  even  pretending  to  follow  in  any  part  of  their  train,  boldly  and 
successfully  using  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  as  a  charm  to  silence 
the  powers  of  darkness,  and  to  free  the  victims  of  their  evil  influ- 
ences. This  sort  of  feeling  was  not  peculiar  to  John,  but  occurs 
wherever  there  arises  a  similar  occasion  to  suggest  it.  It  has  been 
rife  among  the  religious,  as  well  as  the  worldly,  in  all  ages ;  and 
not  a  month  now  passes  when  it  is  not  openly  manifested,  marring, 
by  its  low  influences,  the  noblest  schemes  of  Christian  benevolence, 
as  well  as  checking  the  advances  of  human  ambition.  So  many 
there  are,  who,  though  imbued  in  some  degree  with  the  high  spirit 
of  apostolic  devotion,  yet,  when  they  have  marked  some  great  field 
of  benevolence  for  their  efforts,  are  apt  to  regard  it  as  their  own 
peculiar  province,  and  are  disposed  to  view  any  action  in  that  de- 
partment of  exertion  as  an  intrusion,  and  an  encroachment  on  their 
natural  rights.  This  feeling  is  the  worst  characteristic  of  ultra- 
sectarianism, — a  spirit  which  would  "  compass  sea  and  land,"  not 
merely  "  to  gain  one  proselyte,"  but  also  to  hinder  a  religious  rival 
from  the  attainment  of  a  similar  purpose, — a  spirit  which  in  its 
modes  of  manifestation,  and  in  its  results,  is  nearer  to  that  of  the 
demon  it  aspires  to  expel,  than  to  that  of  Him  in  whose  name  it 
professes  to  work.  But  tliElt  such  was  not  the  spirit  of  Him  who 
went  about  doing  good,  is  seen  in  the  mild  yet  earnest  reply  with 
which  he  met  the  manifestation  of  this  haughty  and  jealous  ex- 
clusiveness  in  his  beloved  disciple.  "  Forbid  him  not ;  for  there 
is  no  man  who  can  do  a  miracle  in  my  name,  who  will  lightly 
speak  evil  of  me.     For  he  who  is  not  against  us  is  on  our  part." 


314  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

And  then  referring  to  the  previous  train  of  his  discourse,  he 
went  on  to  say, — '•  For  he  who  shall  give  you  a  cup  of  water  in 
my  name,  because  you  belong  to  Christ,  I  tell  you,  indeed,  he  shall 
not  lose  his  reward."  So  simple  were  the  means  of  manifesting  a 
true  regard  for  Christ,  and  so  moderate  were  the  services  which 
would  constitute  a  claim  to  his  remembrance,  and  to  a  participation 
in  the  rights  of  his  ministry.  If  the  act  of  kindness  or  of  apostolic 
ministration  had  been  done  in  his  name,  and  had  answered  its  good 
purpose,  this  was  enough  to  show  that  he  who  performed  it  was 
such  a  friend  as,  so  far  from  speaking  evil  of  Jesus,  would  insure 
the  best  glory  of  his  name,  though  he  had  not  attached  himself  in 
manner  and  form  to  the  train  of  regular  disciples,  Jesus  Christ 
did  not  require  a  formal  profession  of  regular  discipleship,  as  essen- 
tial to  the  right  of  doing  good  in  his  name,  or  to  the  surety  of  a 
high  and  pure  reward.  How  many  are  there  among  his  professed 
followers  in  these  times,  who  are  "  able  to  receive  this  saying?" 
There  are  few  indeed,  who,  hearing  it  on  any  authority  but  his, 
would  not  feel  disposed  to  reject  it  at  once  as  a  grievous  heresy. 
Yet  such  was,  unquestionably,  the  spirit,  the  word,  and  the  prac- 
tice of  Jesus.  It  was  enousfh  for  him  to  know  that  the  weight  of 
human  wo,  which  called  him  forth  on  his  errand  of  mercy,  was  light- 
ened ;  and  that  the  spirit  before  darkened  and  bound  down  by  the 
powers  of  evil,  was  now  brought  out  into  glorious  light  and  free- 
dom. Most  earnestly  did  he  declare  this  solemn  principle  of  cath- 
olic communion  ;  and  most  distinctly  did  he  reiterate  it  in  a  varied 
form.  The  simplest  act  of  kindness  done  to  the  commissioned  of 
Christ,  would,  of  itself,  constitute  a  certain  claim  to  his  divine 
favor.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  least  wilful  injury  of  one  sent 
forth  from  him,  would  at  once  insure  the  ruin  of  the  perpetrator. 

Soon  after  this  solemn  inculcation  of  universal  charity,  Jesus 
began  to  prepare  his  disciples  for  their  great  journey  to  Jerusalem ; 
and  at  last  having  completed  his  preliminary  arrangements,  he 
went  on  his  way,  sending  forward  messengers  (James  and  John, 
as  it  would  seem)  to  secure  a  comfortable  stopping-place,  at  a  Sa- 
maritan village  which  lay  on  his  road.  These  select  emissaries 
accordingly  proceeded  in  the  execution  of  their  honorable  com- 
mission, and  entering  the  village,  announced  to  the  inhabitants  the 
approach  of  the  far-famed  Galilean  prophet,  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
who  being  then  on  his  way  to  attend  the  great  annual  feast  in  Je- 
rusalem, would  that  niffht  deisrn  to  honor  their  village  with  his 
divine  presence ; — all  which  appears  to  have  been  communicated 


JOHN.  316 

by  the  two  messengers,  with  a  full  sense  of  the  importance  of  their 
commission,  as  well  as  of  the  dignity  of  him  whose  approach  they 
announced.  But  the  sturdy  Samaritans  had  not  yet  forgotten  the 
rigid  principles  of  mutual  exclusiveness,  which  had  so  long  been 
maintained  between  them  and  the  Jews,  with  all  the  combined  bit- 
terness of  a  national  and  a  religious  quarrel ;  and  so  they  dog- 
gedly refused  to  open  their  doors,  in  hospitality  to  one  whose  "  face 
was  as  though  he  would  go  to  Jerusalem."  At  this  manifestation 
of  sectarian  and  sectional  bitterness,  the  wrath  of  the  messengers 
knew  no  bounds,  and  reporting  their  inhospitable  and  scornful  re- 
jection to  Jesus,  the  two  Boanerges,  with  a  spirit  quite  literally 
accordant  with  their  surname,  inquired — "  Lord  !  wilt  thou  that  we 
command  fire  to  come  down  from  heaven,  and  consume  them,  as 
Elijah  did?"  The  stern  prophet  of  the  days  of  Ahaziah  had 
called  down  fire  from  heaven  to  the  destruction  of  two  successive 
bands  of  the  insolent  myrmidons  of  the  Samaritan  king  ;  and  might 
not  the  wonder-doing  Son  of  Man,  with  equal  vindictiveness,  com- 
mission his  faithful  followers  to  invoke  the  thunder  on  the  inhos- 
pitable sectaries  of  the  modern  Samaritan  race?  But  however 
this  sort  of  summary  justice  might  suit  the  wrathful  piety  of 
James  and  his  "  amiably  gentle"  brother,  it  was  by  Jesus  deemed 
the  offspring  of  a  spirit  too  far  from  the  forgiving  benevolence  of 
his  gospel,  to  be  passed  by  unrebuked.  He  therefore  turned  re- 
provingly to  these  fierce  "  Sons  of  Thunder,"  with  the  reply — 
"  Ye  know  not  what  manner  of  spirit  ye  are  of  For  the  Son  of 
Man  is  not  come  to  destroy  men's  lives,  but  to  save  them."  And 
thus  silencing  their  forward,  destructive  zeal,  he  quietly  turned 
aside  from  the  inhospitable  sectarians  who  had  refused  him  admis- 
sion, and  found  entertainment  in  another  village,  where  the  inhab- 
itants were  free  from  such  notions  of  religious  exclusiveness. 

So  idolatrous  was  the  reverence  with  which  many  of  the  Fathers  and  ancient  theo- 
logians were  accustomed  to  regard  the  apostles,  that  they  would  not  allow  that  these 
chosen  ones  of  Christ  ever  committed  any  sin  whatever ;  at  least,  none  after  their 
calling  to  be  disciples.  Accordingly,  the  most  ridiculous  attempts  have  been  made 
to  justify  or  excuse  the  faults  and  errors  of  those  apostles,  who  are  mentioned  in  the 
New  Testament  as  having  committed  any  act  contrary  to  the  received  standards  of 
right.  Among  other  circumstances,  even  Peter's  perjured  denial  of  his  Lord  has 
found  stubborn  defenders  and  apologists ;  and  among  the  saintly  commentators  of 
both  Papist  and  Protestant  faiths,  have  been  found  some  to  stand  up  for  the  immacu- 
late soundness  of  James  and  John,  in  this  act  of  wicked  and  foolish  zeal.  Ambrose 
of  Milan,  in  commenting  on  this  passage,  must  needs  maintain  that  their  ferocity  was 
in  accordance  with  approved  instances  of  a  similar  character  in  the  Old  Testament. 
" Nee  discipuli  peccant,"  says  he,  "qui  legem  sequuntnr;"  and  he  then  refers  to  the 
instance  of  extemporaneous  vindictive  justice  in  Phineas,  as  well  as  to  that  of  Elijah, 
which  was  -uoted  by  the  sons  of  Zebedee  themselves.  He  argues,  that,  since  the 
apostles  wtre  xndued  with  the  same  high  privileges  as  the  prophets,  they  were  in  this 


316  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

instance  abundantly  justified  in  appealing  to  such  authority  for  similar  acts  of  ven- 
geance. He  observes,  moreover,  that  this  presumption  was  still  farther  justified  in 
them,  by  the  name  which  they  had  received  from  Jesus;  "  being  '  sons  of  thunder' 
they  might  fairly  suppose  that  fire  would  come  down  from  heaven  at  their  word." 
But  Lampe  very  properly  remarks,  that  the  prophets  were  clearly  moved  to  these 
acts  of  wrathful  justice  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  thereby,  also,  were  justified  in  a  vin- 
dictiveness,  which  might  otherwise  be  pronounced  cruel  and  bloody.  The  evidence 
of  this  spirit-guidance,  those  old  prophets  had,  in  the  instantaneous  fiery  answer  from 
heaven,  to  their  denunciatory  prayer ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  in  this  case,  the  words 
of  Jesus  in  reply  to  the  Sons  of  Thunder,  show  that  they  were  not  actuated  by  a  holy 
spirit,  nor  by  the  Holy  Spirit ;  for  he  says  to  them — "  Ye  know  not  what  manner  of 
spirit  ye  are  of," — which  certainly  implies  that  they  were  altogether  mistaken  in  sup- 
posing that  the  spirit  and  power  of  Elijah  rested  on  them,  to  authorize  such  wide- 
wasting  and  indiscriminate  ruin  of  innocent  and  guilty, — women  and  children,  as 
•well  as  men,  inhabiting  the  village;  and  he  rebukes  and  condemns  their  conduct  for 
the  very  reason  that  it  was  the  result  of  an  unholy  and  sinful  spirit. 

Yet,  not  only  the  Romish  Ambrose,  but  also  the  Protestant  Calvin,  has,  in  his  idol- 
atrous reverence  for  the  infallibility  of  the  apostles,  (an  idolatry  hardly  less  unchris- 
tian than  the  saint-worship  against  which  he  strove,)  thought  it  necessary  to  condemn 
and  rebuke  Maldonati,  as  guilty  of  a  "  detestable  presumption,"  in  declaring  the  sons  of 
Zebedee  to  have  been  lifted  up  with  a  foolish  arrogance.  On  the  arguments  by  which 
Calvin  justifies  James  and  John,  Larape  well  remarks,  that  the  great  reformer  uses 
a  truly  Jesuitical  weapon,  (propria  vineta  caediL  Loyolita,)  when  he  says  that  "  they 
desired  vengeance  not  for  themselves,  but  for  Christ ;  and  were  not  led  into  error  by 
any  fault,  but  merely  by  ignorance  of  the  spirit  of  the  gospel  and  of  Christ."  But  was 
not  this  ignorance  itself  a  sin,  showing  itself  thus  in  the  very  face  of  all  the  oft-repeat- 
ed admonitions  of  Jesus  against  this  bloody  spirit,  even  in  his  or  any  cause  1  and  of  all 
his  inculcations  of  a  universal  rule  of  forbearance  and  forgiveness  1 

John  is  not  mentioned  again  in  the  gospel  history,  until  near 
the  close  of  the  Savior's  labors,  when  he  was  about  to  prepare  his 
twelve  chosen  ones,  for  the  great  change  which  awaited  their 
condition,  by  long  and  earnest  instruction,  and  by  prayer.  In 
making  the  preliminary  arrangements  for  this  final  meeting,  John 
was  sent  along  with  Peter,  to  see  that  a  place  was  provided  for  the 
entertainment.  After  this  commission  had  been  satisfactorily  exe- 
cuted, they  joined  with  Jesus  and  the  rest  of  the  twelve  disciples 
in  the  Paschal  feast,  each  taking  a  high  place  at  the  board,  and 
John  in  particular  reclining  next  to  Jesus.  As  a  testimony  of 
the  intimate  affection  between  them,  it  is  recorded  by  this  apostle 
himself,  in  his  gospel,  that  during  the  feast  he  lay  on  Jesus's  breast ; 
— a  position  which,  though  very  awkward,  and  even  impossible, 
in  the  modern  style  of  conducting  feasts  in  the  sitting  posture,  was 
yet  rendered  both  easy  and  natural,  in  the  ancient  mode,  both 
Oriental  and  Roman,  of  reclining  on  couches  around  the  table. 
Under  these  circumstances, — those  sharing  the  same  part  of  the 
couch,  whose  feelings  of  affection  led  them  most  readily  together, 
— such  a  position  as  that  described  by  John,  would  occur  very  na- 
turally and  gracefully.  It  here,  in  connexion  with  John's  own 
artless,  but  expressive  sentence,  mentioning  himself  as  the  disciple 
whom  Jesus  loved,  presents  to  the  least  imaginative  mind,  a  most 


JOHN.  317 

beautifully  striking  picture  of  the  state  of  feeling  between  the 
young  disciple  and  his  Lord, — showing  how  closely  their  spirits 
were  drawn  together,  in  an  affection  of  the  most  sacred  and  inter- 
esting character,  far  surpassing  the  paternal  and  filial  relation  in 
the  high  and  pure  nature  of  the  feeling,  because  wholly  removed 
from  the  mere  animalities  and  instincts  that  form  and  modify  so 
much  of  all  natural  love.  The  regard  between  these  two  beings 
was  by  no  means  essentially  dependent  on  any  striking  similarity 
of  mind  or  feeling.  John  had  very  little  of  that  mild  and  gentle 
temperament  which  so  decidedly  characterized  the  Redeemer  ; — 
he  had  none  of  that  spirit  of  meekness  and  forgiveness  which 
Jesus  so  often  and  earnestly  inculcated ;  but  a  fierce,  fiery,  thun- 
dering zeal,  arising  from  a  temperament,  ardent  alike  in  anger  and 
in  love.  Nor  was  such  a  character  at  all  discordant  with  the 
generality  of  those  for  whom  Jesus  seemed  to  feel  a  decided  pre- 
ference. There  is  no  one  among  the  apostolic  band,  whether 
Galilean  or  Hellenistic,  of  whose  characters  any  definite  idea  is 
given,  that  does  not  seem  to  be  marked  most  decidedly  by  the 
fiercer  and  harsher  traits.  Yet  like  those  of  all  children  of  nature, 
the  same  hearts  seem  to  glow,  upon  occasion,  as  readily  with  af- 
fectionate as  with  wrathful  feeling,  both,  in  many  instances,  com- 
bining in  their  affection  for  Jesus.  The  whole  gospel  record,  as 
far  as  the  twelve  disciples  are  concerned,  is  a  most  satisfactory 
comment  on  the  characteristics  ascribed  by  Josephus  to  the  whole 
Galilean  race, — "  ardent  and  fierce."  And  this  was  the  very  tem- 
perament which  recommended  them  before  all  men  in  the  world, 
for  the  great  work  of  laying  the  deep  foundations  of  the  Christian 
faith,  amid  opposition,  hatred,  confusion,  and  blood.  And  among 
these  wild,  but  ardent  dispositions,  did  even  the  mild  spirit  of  the 
Redeemer  find  much  that  was  congenial  to  its  frame,  as  well  as 
Its  purposes  ;  for  in  them,  his  searching  eye  recognized  faculties 
which,  turned  from  the  base  ends  of  worldly  strife  and  low,  brawl- 
ing contest,  might  be  exalted,  by  a  mere  modification,  and  not 
eradication,  to  the  great  works  of  divine  benevolence.  The  same 
temperament  that  once  led  the  ardent  Galileans  into  selfish  quar- 
rels, under  the  regenerating  influences  of  a  holy  spirit,  might 
be  trained  to  a  high,  devoted  self-sacrifice  for  the  good  of  others  ; 
and  the  valor  which  once  led  them  to  disregard  danger  and 
death  in  spiteful  enmity,  could,  after  an  assimilation  to  the  spirit 
of  Jesus,  be  made  equally  energetic  in  the  dangerous  labors  of 
the  cause  of  universal  love.     Such  is  most  clearly  the  spirit  of 


318  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  Galilean  disciples,  as  far  as  any  character  can  be  recognized 
in  the  brief,  artless  sketches,  incidentally  given  of  them  in  the 
New  Testament  history.  Nor  is  there  any  good  reason  to  mark 
John  as  an  exception  to  these  harsher  attributes.  The  idea,  now 
so  very  common,  of  his  softness  and  amiability,  seems  to  have 
grown  almost  entirely  out  of  the  circumstance,  that  he  was  "  the 
disciple  whom  Jesus  loved  ;"  as  if  the  high  spirit  of  the  Redeemer 
could  feel  no  sympathy  with  such  traits  as  bravery,  fierce  energy, 
or  even  aspiring  ambition.  Tempted  originally  by  the  great 
source  of  evil,  yet  without  sin,  he  himself  knew  by  what  spiritual 
revolutions  the  impulses  which  once  led  only  to  evil,  could  be 
made  the  guides  to  truth  and  love,  and  could  see,  even  in  the 
worst  manifestations  of  that  fiery  ardor,  the  disguised  germ  of  a 
holy  zeal,  which,  under  his  long,  anxious,  prayerful  care  and  cul- 
tivation, would  become  a  tree  of  life,  bringing  forth  fruits  of  good 
for  nations.  Even  in  these  low,  depraved  mortals,  therefore,  he 
could  find  much  to  love, — nor  is  the  circumstance  of  his  affection- 
ate regard,  in  itself,  any  proof  that  John  Avas  deficient  in  the  most 
striking  characteristics  of  his  countrymen  ;  and  that  he  was  not 
so,  there  is  proof  positive  and  unquestionable  in  those  details  of 
his  own  and  his  brother's  conduct,  already  given. 

At  this  Paschal  feast,  lying,  as  described,  on  the  bosom  of  Jesus, 
he  passed  the  parting  hours  in  most  intimate  communion  with  his 
already  doomed  Lord.  And  so  close  was  their  proximity,  and  so 
peculiarly  favored  was  he,  by  the  confidential  conversation  of 
Jesus,  that  when  all  the  disciples  were  moved  with  painful  doubt 
and  surprise  at  the  mysterious  annunciation  that  there  was  a 
traitor  among  them,  Peter  himself,  trusting  more  to  the  opportu- 
nities of  John  than  to  his  own,  made  a  sign  to  him  to  put  to  his 
Master  a  question,  to  which  he  would  be  more  likely  to  receive  an 
answer  than  anybody  else.  The  beloved  disciple,  therefore,  look- 
ing up  from  the  bosom  of  Jesus,  into  his  face,  with  the  confi- 
dence of  familiar  affection,  asked  him, — "  Who  is  it,  Lord  ?"  And 
to  his  eager  inquiry,  was  vouchsafed  at  once  a  most  unhesitating 
and  satisfactory  reply,  marking  out,  in  the  most  definite  manner, 
the  person  intended  by  his  former  dark  allusion. 

After  the  scenes  of  Gethsemane,  when  the  alarmed  disciples  fled 
from  their  captured  Master,  to  avoid  the  same  fate,  John  also 
shared  in  the  race  ;  but  on  becoming  assured  that  no  pursuit  of  the 
secondary  members  of  the  party  was  intended,  he  quietly  walked 
back  after  the  armed  train,  keeping,  moreover,  close  to  them,  as 


JOHN.  319 

appears  by  his  arriving  at  the  palace  gate  along  with  them,  and 
entering  with  the  rest,  on  his  way,  in  the  darkness,  he  fell  in  with 
his  friend  Peter,  also  anxiously  following  the  train,  to  learn  the 
fate  of  his  Master.  John  now  proved  of  great  advantage  to  Peter  ; 
for,  having  some  acquaintance  with  the  high  priest's  family,  he 
might  expect  admission  to  the  hall  without  difficulty.  This  inci- 
dent is  recorded  only  by  John  himself,  in  his  gospel,  where,  in  re- 
lating it,  he  refers  to  himself  in  the  third  person,  as  "another  dis- 
ciple," according  to  his  usual  modest  circumlocution.  John,  some- 
how or  other,  was  well  and  favorably  known  to  the  high  priest 
himself,  for  a  very  mysterious  reason ;  but  certainly  the  most  un- 
accountable point  in  Bible  history  is  this  : — how  could  a  faithful 
follower  of  the  persecuted  and  hated  Jesus,  be  thus  familiar  and 
friendly  in  the  family  of  the  most  powerful  and  vindictive  of  the 
Jewish  magnates  ?  Nor  can  the  difficulty  be  any  way  relieved,  by 
supposing  the  expression  "  another  disciple"  to  refer  to  a  person 
different  from  John  ;  for  all  the  disciples  of  Jesus  would  be  equally 
unlikely  persons  for  the  intimacy  of  the  Jewish  high  priest.  What- 
ever might  be  the  reason  of  this  acquaintance,  John  was  well- 
Imown  throughout  the  family  of  the  high  priest,  as  a  person  high 
in  favor  and  familiarity  with  that  great  dignitary ;  so  that  a  single 
word  from  him  to  the  portress,  was  sufficient  to  procure  the  ad- 
mission of  Peter  also,  who  had  stood  without,  not  daring  to  enter 
as  his  brother  apostle  did,  not  having  any  warrant  to  do  so  on  the 
ground  of  familiarity.  Of  the  conduct  of  John  during  the  trial 
of  Jesus,  or  after  it,  no  account  whatever  is  given, — nor  is  he  no- 
ticed in  either  of  the  gospels  except  his  own,  as  present  during  any 
of  these  sad  events ;  but  by  his  story  it  appears,  that,  in  the  hour 
of  darkness  and  horror,  he  stood  by  the  cross  of  his  beloved  Lord, 
with  those  women  who  had  been  the  constant  servants  of  Jesus 
during  life,  and  were  now  faithful,  even  through  his  death.  Among 
these  women  was  the  mother  of  the  Redeemer,  who  now  stood  in 
the  most  desolate  agony,  by  the  cross  of  her  murdered  son,  with- 
out a  home  left  in  the  world,  or  a  person  to  whom  she  had  a  natu- 
ral right  to  look  for  support.  Just  before  the  last  agony,  Jesus 
turned  to  the  mournful  group,  and  seeing  his  mother  near  the  dis- 
ciple whom  he  loved,  he  said — "  Woman  !  behold  thy  son  !"  And 
then  to  John — "  Behold  thy  mother  !"  The  simple  words  were 
sufficient,  without  a  gesture ;  for  the  nailed  and  motionless  hands 
of  Jesus  could  not  point  out  to  each,  the  person  intended  as  the 
object  of  parental  or  filial  regard.     Nor  was  this  commission,  thus 


320  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

solemnly  and  affectingly  given,  neglected ;  for,  as  the  same  disciple 
himself  assures  us,  "  from  that  hour,  he  took  her  to  his  own  house." 
The  highest  token  of  affection  and  confidence  that  the  Redeemer 
could  confer,  was  this, — marking,  as  it  did,  a  most  pre-eminent 
regard,  by  committing  to  his  charge  a  trust,  that  might  with  so 
much  propriety  have  been  committed  to  others  of  the  twelve  who 
were  very  nearly  related  to  the  mother  of  Jesus,  being  her  own 
nephews,  the  sons  of  her  sister.  But  so  high  was  the  confidence 
of  Jesus  in  the  sincerity  of  John's  affection,  that  he  unhesitatingly 
committed  to  him  this  dearest  earthly  charge,  trusting  to  his  love 
for  its  keeping,  rather  than  to  the  considerations  of  family,  and  of 
near  relationship. 

In  the  scenes  of  the  resurrection,  John  is  distinguished  by  the 
circumstance  of  his  hurrying  first,  along  with  Peter,  to  the  sepul- 
chre, on  hearing  from  the  women  the  strange  story  of  what  had 
happened ;  and  both  hastening  in  the  most  intense  anxiety  to  learn 
the  nature  of  the  occurrences  which  had  so  alarmed  the  women, 
the  nimbleness  of  the  youthful  John  soon  carried  him  beyond 
Peter,  and  outstripping  him  in  the  anxious  race,  he  came  down  to 
the  sepulchre  before  him,  and  there  stood,  breathless,  looking  down 
into  the  place  of  the  dead,  in  vain,  for  any  trace  of  its  late  pre- 
cious deposit.  While  he  was  thus  glancing  into  the  place,  Peter 
came  up,  and  with  a  much  more  considerate  zeal,  determined  on 
a  satisfactory  search,  and  accordingly  went  down  into  the  tomb 
himself,  and  narrowly  searched  all  parts  ;  and  John,  after  his  re- 
port, also  then  descended  to  assure  himself  that  Peter  had  not  been 
deceived  by  a  too  superficial  examination  of  the  inside.  But 
having  gone  down  into  the  tomb,  and  seen  for  himself  the  grave- 
clothes  lying  carefully  rolled  up,  but  no  signs  whatever  of  the 
body  that  had  once  occupied  them,  he  also  believed  the  report  of 
the  women,  that  the  remains  of  Jesus  had  been  stolen  away  in  the 
night,  probably  by  some  ill-disposed  persons,  for  an  evil  purpose, 
and  perhaps  to  complete  the  bloody  triumph  of  the  Jews,  by  deny- 
ing the  body  so  honorable  an  interment  as  the  wealthy  Joseph  had 
charitably  given  it.  In  distress  and  sorrowful  doubt,  therefore,  he 
returned  with  Peter  to  his  own  house,  without  the  slightest  idea  of 
the  nature  of  the  abstraction. 

The  next  account  of  John  is  in  that  interesting  scene,  described 
in  the  last  chapter  of  his  own  gospel,  on  the  lake  of  Galilee,  where 
Jesus  met  the  seven  disciples  who  went  on  the  fishing  excursion 
by  night,  as  already  detailed  in  the  life  of  Simon  Peter,  who  was 


JOHN.  321 

the  first  to  propose  the  thing,  and  who,  in  the  scenes  of  the  morn- 
ing, acted  the  most  conspicuous  part.  The  only  passage  which 
immediately  concerns  John,  is  the  concluding  one,  where  the  pro- 
phecy of  Jesus  is  recorded  respecting  the  future  destiny  of  this 
beloved  disciple.  Peter,  having  heard  his  Master's  prophecy  of 
the  mode  in  which  he  should  conclude  his  life,  hoping  to  pry  still 
farther  into  futurity,  asked  what  would  be  the  fate  of  John  also. 
"  Lord,  what  shall  this  man  do  ?"  To  which  Jesus  replied, — "  If 
I  will  that  he  tarry  till  I  come,  what  is  that  to  thee  ?" — an  answer 
evidently  meant  to  check  his  curiosity,  without  gratifying  it  in  the 
least ;  as  John  himself,  remarking  on  the  fact,  that  this  saying 
originated  an  unfounded  story,  that  Jesus  had  promised  him  that 
he  should  never  die, — says  that  Jesus  never  specified  any  such 
thing,  but  merely  said  those  few  unsatisfactory  words  in  reply  to 
Peter.  The  words — "  Till  I  come'^ — referred  simply  to  the  time 
when  Christ  should  come  in  judgment  on  Jerusalem,  for  that  un- 
questionably was  the  "  coming,"  of  which  he  had  so  often  warned 
them,  as  an  event  for  which  they  must  be  prepared  ;  and  it  was  partly 
from  a  misinterpretation  of  these  words,  by  applying  them  to  the 
final  judgment,  that  the  idle  notion  of  John's  immortality  arose. 
John  probably  surviving  the  other  apostles  many  years,  and  living 
to  a  very  great  age,  the  second  generation  of  Christians  conceived 
the  idea  of  interpreting  this  remark  of  Jesus  as  a  prophecy  that 
his  beloved  disciple  should  never  die.  And  John,  in  his  gospel, 
knowing  that  this  erroneous  opinion  was  prevalent,  took  pains  to 
specify  the  exact  words  of  Jesus,  showing  that  they  implied  no 
direct  prophecy  whatever,  nor  in  any  way  alluded  to  the  possibility 
of  his  immortality.  After  the  ascension,  John  is  mentioned  along 
with  the  rest  who  were  in  the  upper  room,  and  is  otherwise  par- 
ticularized on  several  occasions  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  He 
was  the  companion  of  Peter  in  the  temple,  at  the  healing  of  the 
lame  man,  and  was  evidently  considered  by  the  chief  apostle,  a 
sharer  in  the  honors  of  the  miracle ;  nor  were  the  Sanhedrim  dis- 
posed to  deem  him  otherwise  than  criminally  responsible  for  the 
act,  but  doomed  him,  along  with  Peter,  to  the  dungeon.  He  was 
also  honorably  distinguished  by  being  deputed  with  Peter  to  visit 
the  new  church  in  Samaria,  where  he  united  with  him  in  impart- 
ing the  confirming  seal  of  the  Spirit  to  the  new  converts, — and  on 
the  journey  back  to  Jerusalem,  preached  the  gospel  in  many  vil- 
lages of  the  Samaritans. 

From  this  time  no  mention  whatever  is  made  of  John  in  the 


322  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

Acts  of  the  Apostles  ;  and  the  few  remaining  facts  concerning  him, 
which  can  be  derived  from  the  New  Testament,  are  such  only  as 
occur  incidentally  in  the  epistolary  writings  of  the  apostles.  Paul 
makes  a  single  allusion  to  him,  in  his  epistle  to  the  Galatians, 
where,  speaking  of  his  reception  by  the  apostles  on  his  second  visit 
to  Jerusalem,  he  mentions  James,  Cephas,  and  John,  as  "  pillars" 
in  the  church,  and  says  that  they  all  gave  him  the  right  hand  of 
fellowship.  This  little  incidental  allusion,  though  so  brief,  is  worth 
recording,  since  it  shows  that  John  still  resided  in  Jerusalem,  and 
there  still  maintained  his  eminence  and  his  usefulness,  standing 
like  a  pillar,  with  Cephas  and  James,  rising  high  above  the  many, 
and  upholding  the  bright  fabric  of  a  pure  faith.  This  is  the  only 
mention  ever  made  of  him  in  the  epistles  of  Paul,  nor  do  any  of 
the  remaining  writings  of  the  New  Testament  contcun  any  notice 
whatever  of  John,  except  those  which  bear  his  own  name.  But 
as  these  must  all  be  referred  to  a  later  period,  they  may  be  left  un- 
noticed until  some  account  has  been  given  of  the  intervening  por- 
tions of  his  long  life.  Here  then  the  course  of  investigation  must 
leave  the  sure  path  of  scripture  testimony,  and  lead  on  through 
the  mazy  windings  of  traditionary  history,  among  the  uncertain 
records  of  the  Fathers. 

Pillars. — This  was  an  expressive  figurative  appellation,  taken,  no  doubt,  with 
direct  allusion  to  the  noble  white  columns  of  the  porches  of  the  temple,  subserving 
in  so  high  a  degree  the  purposes  both  of  use  and  ornament.  The  terra  implies  with 
great  force,  an  exalted  excellence  in  these  three  main  supporters  of  the  first  Christian, 
church,  and  besides  expressing  the  idea  of  those  eminent  virtues  which  belonged  to 
them  in  common  with  other  distinguished  teachers  of  religion,  it  is  thought  by  Lampe, 
that  there  is  implied  in  this  connexion,  something  peculiarly  appropriate  to  these 
apostles.  Among  the  uses  to  which  columns  were  applied  by  Egyptians,  Jews,  Greeks, 
and  Romans,  was  that  of  bearing  inscriptions  connected  with  public  ordinances  of 
state  or  religion,  and  of  commemorating  facts  in  science  for  the  knowledge  of  other 
generations.  To  this  use,  allusion  seems  to  be  made  in  Prov.  ix.  1.  "  Wisdom  has 
built  her  house, — she  has  engraved,  her  seven  pillars."  [n^xn,  hatsebha,  may  perhaps 
bear  this  meaning.]  And  in  Rev.  iii.  12,  a  still  more  unquestionable  reference  is 
made  to  the  same  circumstance.  "  Him  that  overcomes,  will  I  make  a  pillar  in  the 
temple  of  my  God,  and  he  shall  go  no  more  out ;  and  I  will  write  upon  Aim  the  name 
of  my  God,  and  the  name  of  the  city  of  my  God,  the  new  Jerusalem,  which  comes 
down  out  of  heaven  from  God, — and  my  own  new  name ;" — a  passage  which  Grotius 
illustrates  by  a  reference  to  this  very  use  of  pillars  for  inscriptions.  It  is  in  connexion 
with  this  idea,  that  Lampe  considers  the  term  as  peculiarly  expressive  in  its  appli- 
cation to  "  James,  Cephas,  and  John,"  since  from  them,  in  common  with  all  the  apos- 
tles, proceeded  the  oracles  of  Christian  truth,  and  those  principles  of  doctrine  and 
practice,  which  were  acknowledged  as  the  rule  of  faith,  by  the  churches  of  the  ne'ar 
covenant.  To  these  three,  moreover,  belonged  some  peculiar  attributes  of  this  char- 
acter, since  they  distinguished  themselves  above  the  most  of  the  twelve,  by  their 
written  epistolary  charges,  as  well  as  by  the  general  pre-eminence  accorded  to  them 
by  common  consent,  leaving  to  them  the  utterance  of  those  apostolic  opinions,  which 
went  forth  from  Jerusalem  as  law  for  the  Christian  churches. 

Lampe  quotes  on  this  poim  Vitringa,  (Obs.  Sac.  I.  iii.  7,)  Suicer,  (Thes.  Ecc.  voc, 
o-niXos,)  and  Gataker,  (Cin.  ii.  20.)  He  refers  also  to  Jerome,  commenting  on  Gal, 
ii.  9;  who  there  alludes  to  the  fact  that  John,  one  of  the  "  pillars,"  in  his  Revelation, 
introduces  the  Savior  speaking  as  above  quoted.    (Rev.  iii.  12.) 


JOHN.  323 

THE  RESULTS  OF  TRADITION. 

Probably  there  are  few  results  of  historical  investigatii)n,  that 
will  make  a  more  decided  impression  of  disappointment  on  the 
mind  of  a  common  reader,  than  the  sentence,  which  a  rigid  ex- 
amination compels  the  writer  to  pass,  with  such  uniform  con- 
demnatory severity,  on  most  apostolic  stories  which  are  not  sanc- 
tioned by  the  word  of  inspiration.  There  is  a  universal  curiosity, 
natural,  and  not  uncommendable,  felt  by  all  the  believers  and 
hearers  of  the  faith  which  the  apostles  preached,  to  know  some- 
thing more  about  these  noble  first  witnesses  of  the  truth,  than  the 
bare  broken  and  unconnected  details  which  the  gospel,  and  the 
apostolic  acts,  can  furnish.  At  this  day,  the  most  trifling  circum- 
stances connected  with  them, — their  actions,  their  dwelling-places, 
their  lives  or  their  deaths,  have  a  value  vastly  above  what  could 
ever  have  been  appreciated  by  those  of  their  own  time,  who  acted, 
dwelt,  lived,  and  died  with  them, — a  value  increasing  through  the 
course  of  ages,  in  a  regular  progression,  rising  as  it  removes  from 
the  objects  to  which  it  refers.  But  the  very  course  of  this  pro- 
gression implies  a  diminution  of  the  means  of  obtaining  the  de- 
sired information,  proportioned  to  the  increase  of  the  demand  for 
it ; — and  along  with  this  condition  of  things,  the  all-pervading 
and  ever-active  spirit  of  invention  comes  in,  to  quench,  with  deep 
draughts  of  delightful  falsehood,  the  honest  thirst  for  literal  truth. 
The  misfortune  of  this  constitution  of  circumstances,  being  that 
the  want  is  not  felt  till  the  means  of  supplying  it  are  irrecoverably 
gone,  puts  the  investigation  of  the  minutiae  of  all  antiquity,  sacred 
or  profane,  upon  a  very  uncertain  ground,  and  requires  the  most 
critical  test  for  every  assertion,  offered  to  satisfy  a  curiosity  which, 
for  the  sake  of  the  pleasure  thus  derived,  feels  interested  in  de- 
ceiving itself;  for 

"  Doubtless  the  pleasure  is  as  great 
Of  being  cheated  as  to  cheat." 

Even  the  spirit  of  deep  curiosity,  which  beguiles  the  historical 
inquirer  into  a  love  of  the  fabulous  and  unfounded  tales  of  tradi- 
tion, though  specifically  more  elevated  by  its  intellectual  charac- 
ter, is  yet  generically  the  same  with  the  spirit  of  superstitious  cre- 
dulity, that  leads  the  miserable  Papist  to  bow  down  with  idolatrous 
worship  before  the  ridiculous  trash,  called  relics,  which  are  pre- 
sented to  him  by  the  consecrated  impostors  who  minister  to  him 
in  holy  things ;  and  *be  feeling  of  indignant  horror  with  which  he 


324  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

repulses  the  Protestant  zeal,  that  would  rob  his  spirit  of  the  com- 
fortable support  afforded  by  the  possession  of  an  apostolical  toe-nail, 
a  lock  of  a  saint's  hair,  or  by  the  sight  of  the  Savior's  handkerchief, 
or  of  a  drop  of  his  blood, — is  all  perfectly  kindred  to  that  indignant 
regret  with  which  even  a  reformed  reader  regards  all  these  critical 
assaults  upon  agreeable  historical  delusions, — and  to  that  stubborn 
attachment  with  which  he  often  clings  to  antique  falsehood.  Yet 
the  pure  consolations  of  the  truth,  known  by  research  and  judg- 
ment, are  so  far  above  these  baser  enjoyments,  that  the  exchange 
of  fiction,  for  historical  knowledge,  though  merely  of  a  negative 
kind,  becomes  most  desirable  even  to  an  uncritical  mind. 

The  sweeping  sentence  of  condemnation  against  most  traditionary 
stories,  may,  however,  be  subjected  to  some  decided  exceptions  in 
the  case  of  John,  who,  living  much  longer  than  any  other  of  the 
apostles,  would  thus  be  much  more  widely  and  lastingly  known 
than  they,  to  the  Christians  of  the  first  and  the  second  generations 
after  the  immediate  contemporaries  of  the  twelve.  On  this  ac- 
count, the  stories  about  John  come  with  much  higher  traditionary 
authority,  than  those  which  pretend  to  give  accounts  of  any  other 
apostle ;  and  this  view  is  still  farther  confirmed  by  the  charac- 
ter of  most  of  the  stories  themselves ;  which  are  certainly  much 
less  absurd  and  vastly  more  probable  in  their  appearance  than  the 
great  mass  of  apostolic  traditions.  Indeed,  in  respect  to  this  apos- 
tle, may  be  said,  what  can  not  be  said  of  any  other,  that  many 
tolerably  well-authorized,  and  a  few  very  decidedly  authentic  state- 
ments of  his  later  life,  may  be  derived  from  passages  in  the  ge- 
nuine writings  of  the  early  Fathers. 

HIS  JUDAICAL  OBSERVANCES. 

The  first  point  in  John's  history,  on  which  the  authentic  testi- 
mony of  the  Fathers  is  offered  to  illustrate  his  life,  after  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles  cease  to  mention  him,  is,  that  during  the  difficul- 
ties between  the  weak-minded,  Judaizing  Christians,  and  those  of 
a  freer  spirit,  who  advocated  an  open  communion  with  those  Gen- 
tile brethren  that  did  not  conform  to  the  Mosaic  ritual,  he,  with 
Peter,  and  more  particularly  with  James,  joined  in  recommending 
a  compromise  with  the  inveterate  prejudices  of  the  Jewish  be- 
lievers ;  and  to  the  end  of  his  life,  though  constantly  brought  in 
contact  with  Gentiles,  he  himself  still  continued,  in  all  legal  and 
ritual  observances,  a  Jew.  A  striking  and  probable  instance  of 
this  adherence  to  Judaism,  is  given  in  the  circumstance,  that  he 


JOHN.  325 

alwa3rs  kept  the  fourteenth  day  of  March  as  holy  time,  in  con- 
formity with  one  of  the  most  common  of  the  rehgious  usages  in 
which  he  had  been  brought  up ;  and  the  respect  with  which  he 
regarded  this  observance  is  strongly  expressed  in  the  fact  that  he 
countenanced  and  encouraged  it,  also,  in  his  disciples,  some  of 
whom  preserving  it  throughout  life  as  he  did,  brought  down  the 
notice  of  the  occurrence  to  those  days  when  the  extinction  of 
almost  all  the  Judaical  part  of  primitive  Christianity  made  such  a 
peculiarity  very  remarkable.  This,  though  a  small,  is  a  highly 
valuable  incident  in  the  history  of  John,  containing  a  proof  of  the 
strong  affection  which  he  always  retained  for  the  religion  of  his 
fathers, — a  feeling  which  deserves  the  highest  commendation,  ac- 
companied as  it  was,  by  a  most  catholic  spirit  towards  those  Gen- 
tile Christians  who  could  not  bear  a  yoke,  which  education  and 
long  habit  alone  made  more  tolerable  to  him. 

With  Peter  and  James. — The  authority  for  this  is  Irenaeus,  (A.  D.  167,)  who  says 
*'  Those  apostles  who  were  with  James,  permitted  the  Gentiles  indeed  to  act  freely, 
leaving  us  to  the  spirit  of  Grod.  They  themselves,  too,  knowing  the  same  God,  per- 
severed in  their  ancient  observances.  *  *  *  Thus  the  apostles  whom 
the  Lord  made  witnesses  of  his  whole  conduct  and  his  whole  teaching,  (for  every 
where  are  found  standing  together  with  him,  Peter,  James  and  John,)  religiously 
devoted  themselves  to  the  obs-ervance  of  the  laio,  which  is  by  Moses,  thus  acknow- 
ledging both  [the  law  and  the  spirit]  to  be  from  one  and  the  same  God."  (Iren.  adv. 
Her.) 

Fourteenth  day  of  March. — This  refers  to  the  practice  of  observing  the  feast  of  the 
resurrection  of  Christ,  on  the  fourteenth  day  of  March,  corresponding  with  the  pass- 
over  of  the  Jews, — a  custom  long  kept  up  in  the  eastern  churches,  instead  of  always 
keeping  it  on  Sunday.  The  authority  for  the  statement  is  found  in  two  ancient 
writers ;  both  of  whom  are  quoted  by  Eusebius.  (H.  E.,  V.  24.)  He  first  quotes 
Polycrates,  (towards  the  end  of  the  second  century,)  as  writing  to  Victor,  bishop  of 
Rome,  in  defense  of  the  adherence  of  the  eastern  churches  to  the  practice  of  their 
fathers,  in  keeping  the  passover,  or  Easter,  on  the  fourteenth  day  of  the  month,  without 
regard  to  the  day  of  the  week  on  which  it  occurred,  though  the  great  majority  of  the 
Christian  churches  throughout  the  world,  by  common  consent,  always  celebrated  this 
resurrection  feast  on  the  Lord's  day,  or  Sunday.  Polycrates,  in  defense  of  the  Orien- 
tal practice  of  his  flock  and  friends,  so  accordant  with  early  Jewish  prejudices,  quotes 
the  example  of  the  Apostle  John,  who,  he  says,  died  at  Ephesus,  where  he  (Polycrar 
tes)  was  bishop.  He  says,  that  John,  as  well  as  his  brother-apostle,  Philip,  and  Poly- 
carp,  his  disciple,  "  all  observed  Easter  on  the  fourteenth  day  of  the  month,  never 
varying  from  that  day  at  all."  Eusebius  (ibid.)  quotes  also  Irenaeus,  writing  to  the 
same  bishop  Victor,  against  his  attempt  to  force  the  eastern  churches  into  the  adop- 
tion of  the  practice  of  the  Roman  church,  in  celebrating  Easter  always  on  a  Sunday, 
instead  of  uniformly  on  the  fourteenth  day  of  the  month,  so  as  to  correspond  with 
the  Jewish  passover.     Irenaeus,  in  defense  of  the  old  eastern  custom,  tells  of  the 

Sractice  of  Polycarp,  bishop  of  Smyrna,  a  disciple  of  John.  Polycarp,  coming  to 
Lome  in  the  days  of  Bishop  Anicetus,  (A.  D.  151 — 160,)  though  earnestly  exhorted 
by  that  bishop  to  renounce  the  eastern  mode  of  celebrating  Easter  always  on  the  four- 
teenth, like  the  Jewish  passover,  steadily  refused  to  change,  giving,  as  a  reason,  the 
fact  that  John,  the  disciple  of  Jesus,  and  others  of  the  apostles,  whoni  he  had  intimately 
known,  had  always  followed  the  eastern  mode.  This  latter  authority,  fairly  derived 
from  a  person  who  had  been  the  intimate  friend  of  John  himself,  may  be  pronounced 
entitled  to  the  highest  respect,  and  quite  clearly  establishes  this  little  circumstance, 
which  is  valuable  only  as  showing  John's  pertinacious  adherence  to  Jewish  forms,  to 
the  end  of  his  life. 
Socrates,  an  ecclesiastical  historian,  (A.  D.  439,)  alludes  to  the  circumstance,  that 


326  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

those  who  observed  Easter  on  the  fourteenth,  referred  to  the  authority  of  the  apostle 
John,  as  received  by  tradition. 

THE  DEPARTURE  FROM  JERUSALEM. 

Some  vain  attempts  have  been  made  to  ascertain  the  time  at 
which  the  Apostle  John  left  Jerusalem;  but  it  becomes  an  honest 
investigator  to  confess,  here,  the  absolute  want  of  all  testimony, 
and  the  total  absence  of  such  evidence  as  can  afford  reasonable 
ground  even  for  conjecture.  All  that  can  be  said,  is,  that  there  is 
no  account  of  his  having  left  the  city  before  the  Jewish  war ;  and 
there  is  some  reason,  therefore,  to  suppose  that  he  remained  there 
till  driven  thence  by  the  first  great  alarm  occasioned  by  the  unsuc- 
cessful attack  from  Cestius  Gallus.  This  Roman  general,  in  the 
beginning  of  the  Jewish  war,  (A.  D.  66,)  advanced  to  Jerusalem, 
and  began  a  siege,  which,  however,  he  soon  raised,  without  any 
good  reason  ;  and  suffering  a  fine  opportunity  of  ending  the  war 
at  once  thus  to  pass  by  unimproved,  he  marched  off,  though  in 
reality  the  inhabitants  were  then  but  poorly  provided  with  means 
to  resist  him.  His  retreat,  however,  gave  them  a  chance  to  pre- 
pare themselves  very  completely  for  the  desperate  struggle  which, 
as  they  could  see,  was  completely  begun,  and  from  which  there 
could  now  be  no  retraction.  This  interval  of  repose,  after  such 
a  terrible  premonition,  also  gave  opportunity  to  the  Christians  to 
withdraw  from  the  city,  on  which,  as  they  most  plainly  saw,  the 
awful  ruin  foretold  by  their  Lord,  was  now  about  to  fall.  Cestius 
Gallus,  taking  his  stand  on  the  hills  around  the  city,  had  planted 
the  Roman  eagle-standards  on  the  highths  of  Zophim,  on  the 
north,  where  he  fortified  his  camp,  and  thence  pushed  the  assault 
against  Bezetha,  or  the  upper  part  of  the  city.  These  were  signs 
which  the  apostles  of  Jesus,  who  heard  his  prophecy  of  the  city's 
ruin,  could  not  misunderstand.  Here  was  now  "  the  abomination 
of  desolation,  standing  in  the  holy  place  where  it  ought  not ;"  and 
£is  Matthew  records  the  words  of  Jesus,  this  v/as  one  great  sign  of 
coming  ruin.  "  When  they  should  see  Jerusalem  encompassed 
with  armies,  they  were  to  know  that  the  desolation  thereof  was 
nigh ;"  for  so  Luke  records  the  warning.  "  Then  let  them  which 
are  in  Judea  flee  to  the  mountains;  and  let  them  who  are  in  the 
midst  of  it  depart  out ;  and  let  not  them  that  are  in  other  countries 
enter  into  it.  For  these  are  the  days  of  vengeance,  that  all  things 
which  are  written  may  be  fulfilled."  The  apostles,  therefore^ 
reading  in  all  these  signs  the  literal  fulfilment  of  the  prophetic 
•warning  of  their  Lord,  gathered  around  them  the  flock  of  the 


JOHN.  327 

faithful ;  and  turning  their  faces  to  the  mountains  of  the  northwest, 
to  seek  refuge  beyond  the  Jordan ,- 

— "  Their  backs  they  turned, 
On  those  proud  towers,  to  swift  destruction  doomed." 

Nor  were  they  alone ;  for  as  the  Jewish  historian,  who  was  an 
eye-witness  of  the  sad  events  of  those  times,  records, — "  many  of 
the  respectable  persons  among  the  Jews,  after  the  alarming  attack 
of  Cestius,  left  the  city,  like  passengers  from  a  sinking  ship."  And 
this  fruitless  attack  of  the  Romans  he  considers  to  have  been  so 
arranged  by  a  divine  decree,  to  make  the  final  ruin  fall  with  the 
more  certainty  on  the  truly  guilty. 

THE  REFUGE  IN  PELLA. 

A  tradition,  entitled  to  more  than  usual  respect,  from  its  serious 
and  reasonable  air,  commemorates  the  circumstance  that  the  Chris- 
tians, on  leaving  Jerusalem,  took  refuge  in  the  city  of  Pella,  which 
stood  on  a  small  western  branch  of  the  Jordan,  about  sixty  miles 
northwest  from  Jerusalem,  among  the  mountains  of  Gilead.  The 
locality  on  some  accounts  is  a  probable  one,  for  it  is  distant  from 
Jerusalem  and  beyond  Judea,  as  the  Savior  directed  them  to  flee ; 
and  being  also  on  the  mountains,  answers  very  well  to  the  other 
particulars  of  his  warning.  But  there  are  some  reasons  which 
would  make  it  an  undesirable  place  of  refuge,  for  a  very  long  time, 
to  those  who  fled  from  scenes  of  war  and  commotion,  for  the  sake 
of  enjoying  peafe  and  safety.  That  part  of  Galilee  which  formed 
the  adjacent  territory  on  the  north  of  Pella,  a  few  months  after, 
became  the  scene  of  a  devastating  war.  The  city  of  Gamala,  not 
above  twenty  miles  off",  was  besieged  by  Vespasian,  the  general  of 
the  Roman  invading  army,  (afterwards  emperor,)  and  was  taken 
after  a  most  obstinate  and  bloody  contest,  the  effect  of  which  must 
have  been  felt  throughout -the  country  around,  making  it  any  thing 
but  a  comfortable  place  of  refuge,  to  those  who  sought  peace.  The 
presence  of  hostile  armies  in  the  region  near,  must  have  been  a 
source  of  great  trouble  and  distress  to  the  inhabitants  of  Pella,  so 
that  those  who  fled  from  Jerusalem  to  that  place,  would,  in  less 
than  a  year,  find  that  they  had  made  no  very  agreeable  exchange. 
These  bloody  commotions,  however,  did  not  begin  immediately, 
and  it  was  not  till  nearly  one  year  after  the  flight  of  the  Christians 
from  Jerusalem,  that  the  war  was  brought  into  the  neighborhood 
of  Pella ;  for  Josephus  fixes  the  retreat  of  Cestius  Gallus  on  the 
twelfth  of  November,  in  the  twelfth  year  of  Nero's  reign,  (A.  D. 


328  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

66,)  and  the  taking  of  Gamala,  on  the  twenty-third  of  October,  in 
the  following  year,  after  one  month's  siege.  There  was  then  a 
period  of  several  months,  during  which  this  region  was  quiet,  and 
would  therefore  afford  a  temporary  refuge  to  the  fugitives  from 
Jerusalem ;  but  for  a  permanent  home  they  would  feel  obliged  to 
look,  not  merely  beyond  Judea,  but  out  of  Palestine.  Being  in 
Pella,  so  near  the  borders  of  Arabia,  which  often  afforded  a  refuge 
to  the  oppressed  in  its  desert-girdled  homes,  the  greater  portion 
would  naturally  move  off  in  that  direction,  and  many,  too,  proba- 
bly extend  their  journey  eastward  into  Mesopotamia,  settling  at 
last  in  Babylon,  already  becoming  a  new  dwelling-place  for  both 
Jews  and  Christians,  among  whom,  as  has  been  recorded  in  a 
former  part  of  this  work,  the  Apostle  Peter  had  made  his  home, 
where  he  probably  remained  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  and  also  died 
there.  Respecting  the  movements  of  the  Apostle  John  in  this 
general  flight,  nothing  certain  can  be  affirmed ;  but  all  probability 
would,  without  any  other  evidence,  suggest  that  he  followed  the 
course  of  the  majority  of  those  who  were  under  his  pastoral  charge ; 
and  as  their  way  led  eastward,  he  would  be  disposed  to  take  that 
route  also.  And  here  the  floating  fragments  of  ancient  tradition 
may  be  cited,  for  what  they  are  worth,  in  defense  of  a  view  which 
is  also  justified  by  natural  probabilities. 

THE  JOURNEY  EASTWARD. 

The  earliest  testimony  on  this  point  does  not  Appear,  however, 
until  near  the  close  of  the  fourth  century ;  when  it  arises  in  the 
form  of  a  vague  notion,  that  John  had  once  preached  to  the  Par- 
thians,  and  that  his  first  epistle  was  particularly  addressed  to  them. 
From  a  few  such  remnants  of  history  as  this,  it  has  been  consider- 
ed extremely  probable,  by  some,  that  John  passed  many  years,  or 
even  a  great  part  of  his  life,  in  the  regions  east  of  the  Euphrates, 
within  the  bounds  of  the  great  Parthian  empire,  where  a  vast 
number  of  his  refugee  countrymen  had  settled  after  the  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem,  enjoying  peace  and  prosperity,  partly  forgetting 
their  national  calamities,  in  building  themselves  up  almost  into  a 
new  people,  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  Roman  empire.  These 
would  afford  to  him  an  extensive  and  congenial  field  of  labor  ;  they 
were  his  countrymen,  speaking  his  own  language,  and  to  them  he 
was  allied  by  the  sympathies  of  a  common  misfortune  and  a  com- 
mon refuge.  Abundant  proof  has  already  been  offered,  to  show 
that  in  this  region  was  the  home  of  Peter,  during  the  same  period  ; 


JOHN.  329 

and  probabilities,  as  well  as  all  the  most  ancient  traditions,  are 
strongly  in  favor  of  the  supposition,  that  the  other  apostles  followed 
him  thither,  making  Babylon  the  new  apostolic  capital  of  the  east- 
ern churches,  as  Jerusalem  had  been  the  old  one.  From  that  city, 
as  a  centre,  the  apostles  would  naturally  extend  their  occasional 
labors  into  the  countries  eastward,  especially  where  their  Jewish 
brethren  had  spread  their  refugee  settlements.  Beyond  the  Roman 
limits,  Christianity  seems  to  have  made  but  little  progress  indeed 
among  the  Gentiles,  in  the  time  of  the  apostles ;  and  if  there  had 
been  no  other  difficulties,  the  great  difference  of  language  and  man- 
ners, and  the  savage  condition  of  most  of  the  races  around  them, 
would  have  led  them  to  confine  their  labors  at  first  to  those  of  their 
own  nation,  who  inhabited  the  country  watered  by  the  Euphrates 
and  its  branches ;  whence  they  might  have  gone  still  farther  east, 
to  lands  where  the  Jews  seem  to  have  spread  themselves  to  the 
banks  of  the  Indus,  and  perhaps  within  the  modern  boundaries  of 
India.  But  by  intercourse  with  their  countrymen  who  were 
naturalized  among  the  heathen,  they  would  soon  acquire  facilities 
for  communicating  the  truth  to  them ;  and  there  can  hardly  be  a 
doubt  that  the  apostles  did  actually  in  this  way  become  missiona- 
ries to  the  heathen.  Nor  is  it  very  improbable  that  the  more  en- 
terprising among  them,  after  being  gradually  familiarized  with 
barbarian  habits  and  customs,  went  out  alone  into  untried  fields  of 
Christian  adventure,  upon  and  beyond  the  Indus.  Some  wild 
traditionary  accounts,  of  no  great  authority,  even  offer  reports,  that 
the  Apostle  John  preached  in  India ;  and  some  of  the  Jesuit  mis- 
sionaries have  supposed  that  they  had  detected  such  traditions 
among  the  tribes  of  that  region,  among  whom  they  labored.  All 
that  can  be  said  of  these  accounts  is,  that  they  accord  with  a  rea- 
sonable supposition,  which  is  made  probable  by  other  circum- 
stances ;  but  traditions  of  such  a  standing  cannot  be  said  to  prove 
any  thing. 

Parthia. — The  earliest  trace  of  this  story  is  in  the  writings  of  Auguslin,  (A.  D. 
398,)  who  quotes  the  first  epistle  of  John  as  "the  epistle  to  the  Parthians,"  from  which 
it  appears  that  this  was  a  common  name  for  that  epistle,  in  the  times  of  Augustin. 
Alhanasius  is  also  quoted  by  Bede,  as  calling  it  by  the  same  name.  If  he  wrote  to 
the  Parthians  in  that  familiar  way,  he  must  have  been  among  them,  and  many  writers 
have  therefore  adopted  this  view.  Among  these,  the  learned  Mill  (Prolegom.  in  N. 
T.  §  150)  expresses  his  opinion  very  fully,  that  John  passed  the  greater  part  of  his 
life  among  the  Parthians,  and  the  believers  near  them.  Lampe  (Prolegom.  in  Joan. 
Lib.  I.  cap.  iii.  §  12,  note)  allows  the  probability  of  such  a  visit,  but  strives  to  fix  its 
date  long  before  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem ;  yet  he  offers  not  one  good  reason  for 
such  a  notion.     (See  the  corresponding  passage  in  Peter's  life,  page  263.) 

India. — The  story  of  the  Jesuit  missionaries  is  given  by  Baronius,  (Ann.  44,  §  30.) 
The  story  is,  that  letters  from  some  of  these  missionaries,  in  1555,  give  an  account  of 


330  LIVES  OP  THE   APOSTLES. 

their  finding  such  a  tradition,  among  an  East  Indian  nation,  called  the  Bassoras,  who 
told  them  that  ihc  apuslle  John  once  preached  the  gospel  in  that  region.  No  further 
particulars  are  given  ;  but  this  is  enough  to  enable  us  to  judge  of  the  value  of  a  story, 
dated  fifleea  centuries  from  the  event  which  it  commemorates. 

From  his  residence  in  Babylon,  lon^-known  through  succeeding 
centuries  as  the  great  eastern  metropolitan  centre  of  Hebrew  the- 
ology and  literature,  where  the  transplanted  stocks  of  Rabbinical 
learning  grew  up  and  flourished  in  new  luxuriance, — John  proba- 
bly derived  peculiar  advantages  from  the  peculiar  facilities  thereby 
afforded  him  for  acquiring  a  knowledge  of  those  things  which,  in 
the  course  of  time,  became  the  earliest  occasion  of  error  and  secta- 
rian division  in  the  Christian  churches,  calling  on  the  last  of  the 
apostles  for  the  great  concluding  work  of  his  life,  the  dear  and 
noble  record  of  his  testimony  against  the  combination  of  Hebrew 
theological  subtleties  and  Oriental  mysticisms  with  the  pure  sim- 
plicity of  the  faith  of  Jesus.  In  this  city,  and  in  the  farther  East 
also,  must  have  been  rife  among  both  Chaldeans  and  Persians,  that 
wild  Oriental  philosophy  which  had  so  large  a  share  in  the  early 
corruptions  of  Christianity,  and  which,  floating  westward,  soon  ob- 
scured the  first  light  of  apostolic  revelation  to  the  churches  of 
Hellenic  Asia,  and  afterwards,  notwithstanding  the  evident  opposi- 
tion of  the  last  written  testimony  of  the  apostles,  continued  under 
the  high  name  of  the  Gnosis,  or  science,  to  develope  during  the 
second  century  under  a  vast  variety  of  forms,  dividing  the  churches 
and  perplexing  the  teachers.  With  the  original  source  of  these 
dreamy  mysticisms,  John  must  have  had  good  opportunities  of  be- 
coming familiar,  and  the  remarkable  aptness  and  learning  on  these 
points  which  his  writings  show,  must  have  been  owing  to  the 
circumstances  of  this  long  eastern  residence,  at  that  time  of  his  life 
when  mental  power  was  in  its  fullest  vigor.  The  fact  that  some 
of  these  subjects  had  been  pursued  by  him  with  actual  study  and 
de-^p  attention,  appears  from  the  profound,  extensive,  and  familiar 
knoNvledge  which  his  prophetic  writings  display  of  Jewish  Apocry- 
phal, Cabbahstic,  and  Talmudic  lore. 

HIS  RESIDENCE  IN  ASIA. 

The  great  mass  of  ancient  stories  about  this  apostle,  take  no 
notice  at  all  of  ?iis  residence  in  the  far  eastern  regions,  on  and  be- 
yond the  Euphrates,  but  make  mention  of  the  countries  inhabited 
by  Greeks  and  Romans,  as  the  scenes  of  the  greater  part  of  his 
long  life,  after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem.  The  palpable  reason 
of  the  character  of  these  traditions,  no  doubt,  is,  that  they  all  como 


JOHN.  331 

from  the  very  regions  which  they  commemorate  as  the  home  of 
John ;  and  the  authors  of  the  stories  being  interested  only  to  se- 
cure for  their  own  region  the  honor  of  an  apostohc  visit,  cared 
nothing  about  the  similar  glory  of  countries  far  eastward,  with 
which  they  had  no  connexion  whatever,  and  of  which  they  knew 
nothing.  That  region  which  is  most  particularly  pointed  out  as 
the  great  scene  of  John's  life  and  labors,  is  Asia,  in  the  original, 
limited  sense  of  the  term,  which  includes  only  Ionia,  or  Maeonia, 
a  small  portion  of  the  eastern  border  of  the  Aegean  sea,  as  already 
described  in  the  life  of  Peter.  The  most  important  place  in  this 
Ionic  Asia,  was  Ephesus  ;  and  in  this  famous  city  the  Apostle  John 
is  said  to  have  spent  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  after  the  great  dis- 
persion from  Palestine. 

The  motives  of  John's  visit  to  Ephesus  are  variously  given  by 
different  writers,  both  ancient  and  modern.  All  refer  the  primary 
impulse  to  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  was  the  constant  and  unerring 
guide  of  all  the  apostles  in  their  movements  abroad  on  the  great 
mission  of  their  Master.  The  divine  presence  of  their  Lord  him- 
self, too,  was  ever  with  them  to  support  and  encourage,  in  their 
most  distant  wanderings,  even  as  he  promised  at  parting, — "  Lo !  I 
am  with  you  always,  even  to  the  end  of  the  world."  But  histori- 
cal investigation  may  very  properly  proceed  with  the  inquiry  into 
the  real  occasion  which  led  him,  under  that  divine  guidance,  to 
this  distant  city,  among  a  people  who  were  mostly  foreign  to  him 
in  language,  habits,  and  feelings,  even  though  many  of  them  owned 
the  faith  of  Christ,  and  reverenced  the  apostle  of  his  word.  It  is 
said,  but  not  proved,  that  a  formal  division  of  the  great  fields  of 
labor  was  made  by  the  apostles  among  themselves,  about  the  time 
of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem ;  and  that,  when  Andrew  took 
Scythia,  and  others  their  sections  of  duty,  Asia  was  assigned  to 
John,  who  passed  the  rest  of  his  life  there  accordingly.  This  field 
had  already,  indeed,  been  gone  over  by  Paul  and  his  companions, 
and  already  at  Ephesus  itself  had  churches  been  gathered,  which 
were  afterwards  taught  and  advanced  under  the  pastoral  care  of 
Timothy,  who  had  been  instructed  and  commissioned  for  this  very 
field,  by  Paul  himself  But  these  circumstances,  so  far  from  de- 
terring the  Apostle  John  from  presenting  himself  on  a  field  of  labor 
already  so  nobly  entered,  are  supposed  rather  to  have  operated  as 
incitements  to  draw  him  into  a  place  where  so  solid  a  foundation 
had  been  laid  for  a  complete  fabric.  As  a  centre  of  missionary 
action,  indeed,  Ephesus  certainly  did  possess  many  local  advantages 


332  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

of  a  high  order.  The  metropolis  of  ail  Asia  Minor, — a  noble  em- 
porium for  the  productions  of  that  great  section  of  the  eastern  con- 
tinent, on  whose  farthest  western  shore  it  stood, — and  a  grand 
centre  for  the  traffic  of  the  great  Mediterranean  sea,  whose  waters 
rolled  from  that  haven  over  the  mighty  shores  of  three  continents, 
bearing,  wherever  they  flowed,  the  ships  of  Ephesus, — this  port 
offered  the  most  ready  and  desirable  means  of  intercourse  with  all 
the  commercial  cities  of  the  world,  from  Tyre,  or  Alexandria,  or 
Sinope,  to  the  pillars  of  Hercules,  and  gave  the  quickest  and  surest 
access  to  the  gates  of  Rome  itself  Its  widely  extended  commerce, 
of  course,  drew  around  its  gates  a  constant  throng  of  people  from 
many  distant  parts  of  the  world,  a  few  of  whom,  if  imbued  with 
the  gospel,  would  thus  become  the  missionaries  of  the  word  of 
truth  to  millions,  where  the  name  of  Jesus  was  before  unknown. 
And  since,  after  the  death  of  all  the  other  apostles,  John  survived 
so  long,  it  was  very  desirable  for  all  the  Christian  churches  in  the 
world,  that  the  only  living  minister  of  the  word  who  had  been  in- 
structed from  the  lips  of  Jesus  himself,  should  reside  in  some  such 
place,  where  he  might  so  easily  be  visited  by  all,  and  whence  his 
instructions  might  quickly  go  forth  to  all.  His  inspired  counsels, 
and  his  wonder-working  prayers,  might  be  sought  for  all  who  needed 
them,  and  his  apostolic  ordinances  might  be  heard  and  obeyed, 
almost  at  once,  by  the  most  distant  churches.  But  the  circumstance, 
which  more  especially  might  lead  the  wanderer  from  the  ruined 
city  and  homes  of  his  fathers,  to  Ephesus,  was  the  great  gathering 
of  Jews  at  this  spot,  who  of  course  thus  presented  to  the  Jewish 
apostle  an  ample  field  for  exertions,  for  which  his  natural  and  ac- 
quired endowments  best  fitted  him. 

Ephesus. — On  the  importance  of  this  place,  as  an  apostolic  station,  the  Magdeburg 
Centuriators  are  eloquent ;  and  such  is  the  classic  elegance  of  the  Latin  in  which 
these  moderns  have  expressed  themselves,  that  the  passage  is  worth  giving  entire,  for 
the  sake  of  those  who  can  enjoy  the  beauty  of  the  original.  "  Considera  mirabile 
Dei  consilium.  Joannes  in  Ephesum  ad  littus  maris  Aegaei  collocatus  est:  ut  inde, 
quasi  e  specula,  retro  suam  Asiam  videret,  suaque  fragrantia  repleret:  ante  se  vero 
Graeciam,  totamque  Europam  haberet ;  ut  inde,  tanquam  tuba  Domini  sonora,  etlam 
ultra-marinos  populos  suis  concionibus  ac  scriptis  inclamaret  et  invitaret  ad  Chris- 
tum ;  presertim,  cum  ibi  fuerit  admodum  commodus  portus,  plurimique  mercatores 
ac  homines  peregrini  ea  loca  adierint."  The  beauty  of  such  a  sentence  is  altogether 
bejrond  the  force  of  English,  and  the  elegant  paronomasia  which  repeatedly  occurs  in 
it,  increasing  the  power  of  the  original  expression  to  charm  the  ear  and  mind,  is  to- 
tally lost  in  a  translation,  but  the  meanings  of  the  sentences  may  be  given  for  the 
benefit  of  those  readers  to  whom  the  Latin  is  not  familiar  :— "  Regard  the  wonderful 
providence  of  God.  John  was  stationed  at  Ephesus,  on  the  shore  of  the  Aegean  sea  ; 
so  that  thence,  as  from  a  watch-tower,  he  might  see  his  peculiar  province,  Asia,  behind 
him,  and  might  fill  it  with  the  incense  of  his  prayers  :  before  him,  too,  he  had  Greece 
and  all  Europe  ;  so  that  there,  as  with  the  far-sounding  trumpet  of  the  Lord,  he  might 
summon  and  invite  to  Christ,  by  his  sermons  and  writings,  even  the  nations  beyond 


JOHN.  333 

the  sea,  by  the  circumstance  that  there  was  a  most  spacious  haven,  and  that  vast 
numbers  of  traders  and  travelers  thronged  to  the  place."  (Mag.  Ecc.  Hist.  Cent.  ii.  2.) 
Chrysostom  speaks  also  of  the  importance  of  Ephesus  as  an  apostolic  station,  allu- 
ding to  it  as  a  strong  hold  of  heathen  philosophy  ;  but  there  is  no  reason  to  think  that 
John  ever  distinguished  himself  by  any  assaults  upon  systems  with  which  he  was  not, 
and  could  never  have  been,  sufticienlly  acquainted  to  enable  him  to  attack  them;  for 
in  order  to  meet  an  evil,  it  is  necessary  to  understand  it  thoroughly.  There  is  no 
hint  of  an  acquaintance  with  philosophy  in  any  part  of  his  writings,  nor  does  any  his- 
torian speak  of  his  making  converts  among  them.  Chrysostom's  words  are, — "  He 
fixed  himself  also  in  Asia,  where  anciently  ail  the  sects  of  Grecian  philosophy  culti- 
vated their  sciences.  There  he  flashed  out  in  the  midst  of  the  foe,  clearing  away 
their  darkness,  and  storming  the  very  citadel  of  demons.  And  with  this  design  he 
went  to  this  place,  so  well  suited  to  one  who  would  work  such  wonders."  (Horn.  1, 
in  John.  Lampe,  Prolegom.) 

In  the  account  given  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  of  Paul's  visit 
to  Ephesus,  particular  mention  is  made  of  a  synagogue  there,  in 
which  he  preached  and  disputed  daily,  for  a  long  period,  with 
great  effect.  Yet  Paul's  labors  had  by  no  means  attained  such 
complete  success  among  the  .Tews  there,  as  to  make  it  unnecessary 
for  another  apostle  to  labor  in  the  ministry  of  the  circumcision,  in 
that  same  place ;  for  it  is  especially  mentioned  that  Paul,  after 
three  months'  active  exertion  in  setting  forth  the  truth  in  the  syn- 
agogues, was  induced  by  the  consideration  of  the  pecuhar  difBcul- 
ties  which  beset  him,  among  these  proud  and  stubborn  adherents 
of  the  old  Mosaic  system,  to  withdraw  himself  from  among  them  ; 
and  during  the  remainder  of  his  two  years'  stay,  he  devoted  him- 
self, for  the  most  part,  to  the  instruction  of  the  willing  Greeks,  who 
opened  the  schools  of  philosophy  for  his  teachings,  with  far  more 
willingness  than  the  Jews  did  their  house  of  religious  assembly. 
And  it  appears  that  the  greater  part  of  his  converts  were  rather 
among  the  Greeks  than  the  Jews ;  for  in  the  great  commotions 
that  followed,  the  attack  upon  the  preachers  of  Christianity  was 
made  entirely  by  a  heathen  mob,  in  which  no  Israelite  seems  to 
have  had  einy  hand  whatever ;  so  that  Paul  had  evidently  made 
but  little  impression,  comparatively,  on  the  latter  class.  Among 
the  Jews  then,  there  was  still  a  wide  field  open  for  the  labors  of 
one,  consecrated,  more  especially,  for  the  ministry  of  the  circum-  ^^ 
cision.  The  circumstances  of  the  times,  also,  presented  many  ad- 
vantages for  a  successful  assault  upon  the  religious  prejudices  of 
his  countrymen.  The  great  Centre  of  Unity  for  the  race  of  Israel 
throughout  the  world,  had  now  fallen  into  an  irretrievable  oblivion, 
under  the  fire  and  sword  of  the  invader.  The  glories  of  the  an- 
cient covenant  seemed  to  have  passed  away  for  ever ;  and  in  the 
high  devotion  of  the  Jew,  a  blank  was  now  left,  by  the  destruction 
of  the  only  temple  of  his  ancient  faith,  which  nothing  else  on 


334  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

earth  could  fill.  Henceforth  he  might  be  trained  to  look  for  a 
spiritual  temple, — a  city  eternal  in  the  heavens,  whose  lasting 
foundations  were  laid  by  no  mortal  hand,  for  the  heathen  to  sweep 
away  in  unholy  triumph ;  but  whose  builder  and  maker  and 
guardian  was  God.  Thus  prepared,  by  the  mournful  consumma- 
tion of  their  country's  utter  ruin,  for  the  reception  of  a  pure  faith, 
the  condition  of  the  disconsolate  Jews  must  have  appeared  in  the 
highest  degree  interesting  to  the  solitary  surviving  apostle  of  Je- 
sus ;  and  he  would  naturally  devote  the  remnant  of  his  days  to 
that  portion  of  the  world  where  he  might  make  the  deepest  in> 
pression  on  them,  and  where  his  influence  might  spread  widest  to 
the  scattered  members  of  a  people,  then,  as  now,  eminently  com- 
mercial. 

Under  these  peculiarly  interesting  circumstances,  the  Apostle 
John  is  supposed  to  have  arrived  at  Ephesus,  where  Timothy,  if 
still  surviving  and  holding  the  episcopal  chair  in  which  he  had 
been  placed  by  the  Apostle  Paul,  must  have  hailed  with  great  de- 
light the  arrival  of  the  venerable  John,  from  whose  instructions 
and  counsels  he  might  hope  to  derive  advantages  so  much  the 
more  welcome,  since  the  sword  of  heathen  persecution  had  re- 
moved his  original  apostolic  teacher  from  the  world.  John  must 
have  been,  at  the  time  of  his  journey  to  Ephesus,  considerably 
advanced  in  life.  His  precise  age,  and  the  date  of  his  arrival,  are 
altogether  unknown,  nor  are  there  any  fixed  points  on  which  the 
most  critical  and  ingenious  historical  investigation  can  base  any 
certain  conclusion  whatever,  as  to  these  interesting  matters.  Va- 
rious and  widely  different  have  been  the  conclusions  on  these 
points  ; — some  fixing  his  journey  to  Ephesus  in  the  reign  of 
Claudius,  long  before  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  and  even  before 
the  dispute  on  the  question  of  the  circumcision.  The  true  char- 
acter of  this  tale  can  be  best  appreciated  by  a  reference  to  another 
circumstance,  which  is  gravely  appended  to  it  by  its  narrators  ; — 
which  is,  that  he  was  accompanied  on  his  tour  by  the  Virgin  Mary, 
and  that  she  lived  there  with  him  for  a  long  time.  This  journey 
too,  is  thus  made  to  precede  the  journey  of  Paul  to  Ephesus,  by 
many  years,  and  yet  no  account  whatever  is  given  of  the  reasons 
of  the  profound  silence  observed  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  on  an 
event  so  important  to  the  history  of  the  propagation  of  the  gospel, 
nor  why  John  could  have  lived  so  long  at  Ephesus,  and  yet  have 
eflfected  so  little,  that  when  Paul  came  to  the  same  place,  tiie  very 
name  of  Christ  was  new  there.     But  such  stories  are  not  worth 


JOHN.  ''^  335 

refuting,  standing  as  they  do,  self-convicted  falsehoods.  Others, 
however,  are  more  reasonable,  and  date  this  journey  in  the  year  of 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  supposing  that  Ephesus  was  the  first 
place  of  refuge  to  which  the  apostle  went.  But  this  conjecture  is 
totally  destitute  of  all  ancient  authority,  and  is  inconsistent  with 
the  Very  reasonable  supposition  adopted  above, — that  he,  in  the 
flight  from  Jerusalem,  first  journeyed  eastward,  following  the 
general  current  of  the  fugitives,  towards  the  Euphrates.  Where 
there  is  such  a  total  want  of  all  data,  any  fixed  decision  is  out  of 
the  question  ;  but  it  is  very  reasonable  to  suppose  that  John's  final 
departure  from  the  East  did  not  take  place  till  some  years  after 
this  date  ;  probably  not  until  the  reign  of  Domitian,  (A.  D.  81  or 
82.)  He  had  lived  in  Babylon,  therefore,  till  he  had  seen  most  of 
his  brethren  and  friends  pass  away  from  his  eyes.  The  venerable 
Peter  had  sunk  into  the  grave,  and  had  been  followed  by  the  rest 
of  the  apostolic  band,  until  the  youngest  apostle,  now  grown  old, 
found  himself  standing  alone  in  the  midst  of  a  new  generation,  like 
one  of  the  solitary  columns  of  desolate  Babylon,  among  the  low 
dwelling  places  of  its  refugee  inhabitants.  But  among  the  hourly 
crumbling  heaps  of  that  ruined  city,  and  the  fast-darkening  regions 
of  tliat  half-savage  dominion,  there  was  each  year  less  and  less 
around  him,  on  which  his  precious  labor  could  be  advantageously 
expended.  Christianity  never  seizes  readily  on  the  energies  of  a 
broken  or  degenerating  people,  nor  does  it  flourish  where  the  in- 
fluences of  civilization  are  losing  their  hold.  Its  exalted  and  ex- 
alting genius  rather  takes  the  spirits  that  are  already  on  the  wing 
for  an  upward  course,  and  rises  with  them,  giv.ng  new  energy  to 
the  ascending  movement.  It  may  exert  its  elevating  influence 
too,  on  the  yet  wild  spirit  of  the  uncivilized,  and  give,  in  the  new 
conceptions  of  a  pure  faith  and  a  high  destiny,  the  first  impulse  to 
the  advance  of  man  towards  refinement,  in  knowledge,  and  art,  and 
freedom ;  but  its  very  existence  among  them  is  dependent  on  this 
forward  and  upward  movement, — and  the  beginning  of  its  mortal 
decay  dates  from  the  cessation  of  the  developments  of  the  intellectual 
and  physical  resources  of  the  race  on  which  it  operates.  Among 
the  subjects  of  the  Parthian  empire,  this  downward  movement  was 
already  fully  decided  ;  and  they  were  fast  losing  those  refinement? 
of  feeling  and  thought  on  which  the  new  faith  could  best  fasten  its 
spiritual  and  inspiring  influences  ;  they  therefore  soon  became  but 
hopeless  objects  of  missionary  exertion,  when  compared  with  the 
active  and  enterprising  inhabitants  of  the  still  improving  regions 


336  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

of  the  West.  "  Westward,"  then,  "the  star"  of  Christianity,  as  "  of 
empire,  took  its  way  ;"  and  the  last  of  the  apostles  was  but  follow- 
ing, not  leading,  the  march  of  his  Lord's  advancing  dominion, 
when  he  shook  off  the  dust  of  the  darkening  eastern  lands  from 
his  feet  for  ever, — turning  his  aged  face  towards  the  setting  sun,  to 
find  in  his  latter  days  a  new  home  and  a  foreign  grave  among  the 
children  of  his  brethren,  and  to  rejoice  his  old  eyes  with  the  glori- 
ous sight  of  what  God  had  done  for  the  churches,  among  the 
flourishing  cities  of  the  West,  that  were  still  advancing  in  know- 
ledge and  refinement,  under  Grecian  art  and  Roman  sway. 

The  idea  of  John's  visit  to  Ephesus,  where  Timothy  was  already  settled  over  the 
church  as  bishop,  has  made  a  great  deal  of  useless  trouble  to  those  who  confound  the 
office  of  an  aposile  with  that  of  a  bishop,  and  are  always  degrading  an  apostle  into  a 
mere  church-oflicer.  Such  persons  of  course,  are  put  to  a  vast  deal  of  pains  to 
make  out  how  Timothy  could  manage  to  keep  possession  of  his  bishopric,  with  the 
Apostle  John  in  the  same  town  with  him ;  for  they  seem  to  think  that  a  bishop,  like 
the  flag-ofScer  on  a  naval  station,  can  hold  the  command  of  the  post  not  a  moment 
after  a  senior  officer  appears  in  sight ;  but  that  then  down  comes  the  broad  blue  pen- 
non to  be  sure,  and  never  is  hoisted  again  till  the  greater  officer  is  off  beyond  the  ho- 
rizon. But  no  such  idle  arrangements  of  mere  etiquette  were  ever  suffered  to  mar 
the  noble  and  useful  simplicity  of  the  primitive  church  government,  in  the  least.  The 
presence  of  an  apostle  in  the  same  town  with  a  bishop,  could  no  more  interfere  with 
the  regular  function  of  the  latter,  than  the  presence  of  a  diocesan  bishop  in  any  city 
of  his  diocese,  excludes  the  rector  of  the  church  there,  from  his  pastoral  charge. 
The  sacred  duties  of  Timothy  were  those  of  the  pastoral  care  of  a  single  church, — a 
sort  of  charge  that  no  aposth  is  known  to  have  ever  assumed  out  of  Jerusalem  ;  but 
John's  apostolic  duties  led  him  to  exercise  a  general  supervision  over  a  great  number 
of  churches.  All  those  in  Little  Asia  would  claim  his  care  alike,  and  the  most  distant 
would  look  to  him  for  counsel;  while  that  in  Ephesus,  having  been  so  well  establish- 
ed by  Paul,  and  having  enjoyed  the  pastoral  care  of  Timothy,  who  had  been  instructed 
and  commissioned  for  that  very  place  and  duly,  by  him,  would  really  stand  in  very 
little  need  of  any  direct  attention  from  John.  Yet  among  his  Jewish  brethren  he 
would  still  find  much  occasion  for  his  miss-k)nary  labor,  even  in  that  city ;  and  this 
was  the  sort  of  duty  which  was  most  appropriate  to  his  apostolic  character ;  for  the 
apostles  were  missionaries,  and  not  bishops,  except  in  Jerusalem. 

Others  pretend  to  say,  however,  that  Timothy  was  dead  when  John  arrived,  and 
that  John  succeeded  him  in  the  bishopric,— probably  a  mere  invention  to  get  rid  of 
the  difficulty,  and  proved  to  be  such  by  the  assertion  ihat  the  apostle  was  a  bishop, 
and  rendered  suspicious  also  by  the  circumstance  of  Timothy  being  so  young  a  man. 

The  fable  of  the  Virgin  Mary's  journey,  in  company  w^ith  John,  to  Ephesus,  has 
been  very  gravely  supported  by  Baronius,  (Ann.  44,  §  29,)  who  makes  it  happen  in 
the  second  year  of  the  reign  of  Claudius,  and  quotes  as  his  authority  a  groundless 
statement,  drawn  from  a  mis-translation  of  a  synodical  epistk  from  the  council  of 
Ephesus  to  the  clergy  at  Constantinople,  containing  a  spurious  passage  which  alludes 
to  this  story,  condemning  the  Nestorians  as  heretics,  for  rejecting  ihe  tale.  There 
are,  and  have  long  been,  however,  a  vast  number  of  truly  discreet  aiA  learned  Ro- 
manists, who  have  scorned  to  receive  such  contemptible  and  useless  inventions. 
Among  these,  the  learned  Antony  Pagi,  in  hisHistorico-Chronological  Review  of  Ba- 
ronius, has  utterly  refuted  the  whole  story,  showing  the  spurious  character  of  the 
passage  quoted  in  its  support.  (Pag.  Crit.  Baron.  An.  42.  §  3.)  Lampe  quotes  more- 
over, the  Abbot  Facditius,  the  Trevoltian  collectors  and  Combefisius,  as  also  refu- 
ting the  fable.  Among  the  Protestant  critics,  Rivetus  and  S.  Basnage  have  discussed 
the  same  point. 

Of  the  incidents  of  John's  life  at  Ephesus,  no  well-authorized 
account  whatever  can  be  given.     Yet  on  this  part  of  apostolic 


JOHN,  337 

history  the  Fathers  are  uncommonly  rich  in  details,  which  are  in- 
teresting, and  some  of  which  present  no  improbability  on  exami- 
nation ;  but  their  worst  character  is,  that  they  do  not  make  their 
appearance  until  above  one  hundred  years  after  the  date  of  the 
incidents  which  they  commemorate,  and  refer  to  no  authority, 
but  loose  and  floating  tradition.     In  respect  to  these,  too,  occurs 
exactly  the   same  difficulty  which  has  already  been  specified  in 
connexion  with  the  traditionary  history  of  Peter, — that  the  same 
early  writers,  who  record  as  true  these  stories  which  are  so  proba- 
ble and  reasonable  in  their  character,  also  present  in  the  same 
grave  manner  other  stories,  which  do  bear  with  them,  on  their 
very  faces,  the  evidence  of  their  utter  falsehood,  in  their  palpable 
and  monstrous  absurdity.     Among  the  possible  and  probable  inci- 
dents of  John's  life,  narrated  by  the  Fathers,  are  a  journey  to  Je- 
rusalem, and  one  also  to  Rome, — but  of  these  there  is  no  certainty, 
nor  any  acceptable  evidence.     These  long  journeys,  too,  are  wholly 
without  any  sufficient  assigned  object,  which  would  induce  so 
old  a  man  to  leave  his  quiet  and  useful  residence  at  Ephesus,  to 
travel  Imndreds  and  thousands  of  miles.      The  churches  of  both 
R^me  and   Jerusalem   were  under  well  organized  governments, 
which  were  perfectly  competent  to  the  administration  of  their  own 
affairs,  without  the  presence  of  an  apostle ;  or,  if  they  needed  his 
counsel  in  an  emergency,  he  could  communicate  his  opinions  to 
them  with  great  certainty,  by  message,  and  with  far  more  quick- 
ness and  ease,  than  by  a  journey  to  them.     Such  an  occasion  for 
a  direct  call  on  him,  however,  could  but  very  rarely  occur, — nor 
would  so  unimportant  an  event  as  the  death  of  one  bishop  and  the 
installation  of  another,  ever  induce  him  to  take  a  journey  to  sanc- 
tion a  mere  formality  by  his  presence.    His  help  certainly  was  not 
needed  by  any  church  out  of  his  own  little  Asian  circle,  in  the 
selection  of  proper  persons  to  fill  vacant  offices  of  government  or 
instruction.     They  knew  best  their  own  wants,  and  the  abilities 
of  their  own  members  to  exercise  any  official  duty  to  which  they 
might  be  called ;  while  John,  a  perfect  stranger  to  most  of  them, 
would  feel  neither  disposed  nor  qualified  for  meddling  with  any 
part  of  the  internal  policy  of  other  churches.     But  the  principal 
condemnation  of  the  statement  of  his  journey  to  Rome  is  contained 
in  the  foolish  story  connected  with  it,  by  its  earliest  narrator, — that 
on  his  arrival  there,  he  was,  by  order  of  the  emperor  Domitian, 
thrown  into  a  vessel  full  of  hot  oil ;  but,  so  far  from  receiving  the 
shghtest  injury,  he  came  out  of  this  place  of  torture,  quite  im- 


33S 


LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 


proved  in  every  respect  by  the  immersion ;  and,  as  the  story  goes, 
arose  from  it  perfumed  like  an  athleta  anointed  for  the  combat. 
There  are  very  great  variations,  however,  in  the  different  narra- 
tions of  this  affair ;  some  representing  the  event  as  having  occur- 
red in  Ephesus,  under  the  orders  of  the  proconsul  of  Asia,  and 
not  in  Rome,  under  the  emperor,  as  the  earlier  form  of  the  fable 
states.  Among  the  statements  which  fix  the  scene  of  this  miracle 
in  Rome,  too,  there  is  a  very  important  chronological  difference, — 
some  dating  it  under  the  emperor  Nero,  which  would  carry  it  back 
as  early  as  the  time  of  Peter's  fabled  martyrdom,  and  implies  a 
total  contradiction  of  all  established  opinions  on  his  prolonged  re- 
sidence in  the  East.  In  short,  the  whole  story  is  so  completely 
covered  over  with  gross  blunders  and  contradictions  about  times 
and  places,  that  it  cannot  receive  any  place  among  the  details  of 
serious  and  well-authorized  history. 

Thrown  into  a  vessel  of  oil. — This  silly  story  has  a  tolerably  respectable  antiquity, 
going  farther  back  with  its  authorities  than  any  other  fable  in  the  Christian  mythol- 
ogy, except  Justin  Martyr's  story  about  Simon  Magus.  The  earliest  authority  for 
this  is  TertuUian,  (A.  D.  200,)  who  says  that  "  at  Rome,  the  Apostle  John,  having 
been  immersed  in  hot  oil,  suffered  no  harm  at  all  from  it."  (De  Praescripl.  adv. 
Haer.  c.  36.)  "  In  oleum  igneum  immersus  nihil  passus  est."  But  for  nearly  two 
hundred  years  after,  no  one  of  the  Fathers  refers  to  this  fable.  Jerome  (A.  D.  397) 
is  the  next  of  any  certain  date,  and  speaks  of  it  in  two  passages.  In  the  first  (adv. 
Jovin.  I.  14)  he  quotes  TertuUian  as  authority,  but  says,  that  "he  was  thrown  into 
the  kettle  by  order  of  Nero" — a  most  palpable  error,  not  sanctioned  by  TertuUian. 
In  the  second  passage  (Comm.  in  Matt.  xx.  23)  he  furthermore  refers  in  general 
terms  to  "  ecclesiastical  histories,  in  which  it  was  said  that  John,  on  account  of  his 
testimony  concerning  Christ,  was  thrown  into  a  kettle  of  boiling  oil,  and  came  out 
thence  like  an  alhlela,  to  win  the  crown  of  Christ."  From  these  two  sources,  the 
other  narrators  of  the  story  have  drawn  it.  Of  the  modern  critics  and  historians,  be- 
sides the  great  mass  of  Papists,  several  Protestants  are  quoted  by  Lampe,  as  strenu- 
ously defending  it;  and  several  of  the  greatest,  who  do  not  absolutely  receive  it  as 
true,  yet  do  not  presume  to  decide  against  it ;  as  the  Magdeburg  Centuriators,  (Cent. 
1,  lib.  2,  c.  10,)  who  however  declare  it  very  doubtful  indeed,  "  incerlissimum  est;" 
— Ittig,  Le  Clerc,  and  Mosheim,  taking  the  same  ground.  But  Meisner,  Cellarius, 
Dodwell,  Spanheim,  Heumann,  and  others,  overthrow  it  utterly,  as  a  baseless  fable. 
They  argue  against  it,  first,  from  the  bad  character  of  its  only  ancient  witness. 
TertuUian  is  well  known  as  most  miserably  credulous,  and  fond  of  catching  up  these 
idle  tales  ;  and  even  the  devoutly  believing  Baronius  condemns  him  in  the  most  un- 
measured terms,  for  his  greedy  and  undiscriminating  love  of  the  marvelous.  Secondly, 
they  object  the  profound  silence  of  all  the  Fathers  of  the  second,  third,  and  fourth 
centuries,  excepting  him  and  Jerome  ;  whereas,  if  such  a  remarkable  incident  were 
of  any  authority  whatever,  those  numerous  occasions  on  which  they  refer  to  the  ban- 
ishment of  John  to  Patmos,  which  TertuUian  connects  so  closely  with  this  story, 
would  suggest  and  require  a  notice  of  the  causes  and  attendent  circumstances  of  that 
banishment,  as  stated  by  him.  How  could  those  eloquent  writers,  who  seem  to  dwell 
with  so  much  delight  on  the  noble  trials  and  triumphs  of  the  apostles,  pass  over  this 
wonderful  peril  and  miraculous  deliverance"?  Why  did  Irenaeus,  so  studious  in  ex- 
tolling the  glory  of  John,  forget  to  specify  an  incident  implying  at  once  such  a  cour- 
ageous spirit  of  martyrdom  in  this  apostle,  and  such  a  peculiar  favor  of  God,  in  thus 
wonderfully  preserving  him  1  Hippolytus  and  Sulpitius  Severu:  too,  are  silent ;  and 
more  than  all,  Eusebius,  so  diligent  in  scraping  together  all  that  can  heap  up  the 
martyr-glories  of  the  apostles,  and  more  particularly  of  John  himself,  is  here  utterly 
without  a  word  on  this  interesting  event.     Origen,  too,  dwelling  on  the  modes  in  which 


JOHN.  339 

oe  drank  of  the  cup  of  Jesus,  as  he  prophesied,  makes  no  use  of 
.diion.    (Lampe  in  Prolegom.  in  Joannem.) 

On  the  origin  of  this  fable,  Lampe  mentions  a  very  ingenious  conjecture,  that  some 
such  act  of  cruelly  may  have  been  meditated  or  threatened,  but  afterwards  given  up ; 
cind  ihat  thence  the  slory  became  accidentally  so  perverted  as  to  make  what  was 
merely  designed,  appear  to  have  been  partly  put  in  execution. 

In  this  decided  condemnation  of  the  venerable  TertuUian,  I  am  justified  by  the  ex- 
ample of  Lampe,  whose  reverence  for  the  authority  of  the  Fathers  is  much  greater 
tiian  that  of  most  theologians  of  later  days.  He  refers  to  him  in  these  terms  :  "  Ter- 
TULLiANCs,  cujus  crcduHlas,  in  arripiendis  futilibus  narratiunculis  alias  non  ignota 
est." — "  Whose  credulity  in  catching  up  idle  tales  is  well  known  in  other  instances." 
Hanlein  also  calls  him  "der  leichtglaubige  TertuUian,"— "  the  credulous  Teriul- 
lian."    (Hanlein's  Einleitung  in  N.  T.  vol.  III.  p.  166.) 

This  miraculous  event  procured  the  highly-favored  John,  by  this  extreme  unction, 
all  the  advantages,  with  none  of  the  disadvantages  of  martyrdom ;  for  in  consequence 
of  this  peril  he  has  received  among  the  Fathers  the  name  of  a  "  living  martyr," 
(foil/  jiaoTvp.)  Gregory  of  Nazianzus,  Chrysostom,  Athanasius,  Theophylact,  and 
others,  quoted  by  Suicer,  (sub  voce  jiiiorvn^')  apply  this  term  to  him.  "  He  had  the 
mYft<i,  thoughnot  the/a/eof  a  martyr."  "  Non  dei'uit  animus  martyrio,"  &c.  (Jerome 
and  Cyprian.)  Through  ignorance  of  the  meaning  of  the  word  faorvp,  in  this  peculiar 
application  of  John,  the  learned  Hanlein  seems  to  me  to  have  fallen  into  an  error  on 
the  opinion  of  these  Fathers  about  his  mode  of  death.  In  speaking  of  the  general 
testimony  as  to  the  quiet  death  of  this  apostle,  Hanlein  says:  "  But  Chrysostom,  only 
in  one  ambiguous  passage,  (Hom.  63.  in  Matt.)  and  his  follower  Theophylact,  num- 
ber the  Apostle  John  among  the  martyrs."  (Hanlein's  Einleitung  in  das  N.  T. 
vol.  III.  cap.  vi.  §  1,  p.  168.)  The  fact  is,  that  not  only  these  two,  but  several  other 
Fathers,  use  the  term  in  application  to  John,  and  they  all  do  it  without  any  implica- 
tion of  an  actual,  fatal  martyrdom;  as  may  be  seen  by  reference  to  Suicer,  sub  voce. 

So  little  reverence  have  the  critical,  even  among  the  Romanists,  for  any  of  these 
old  stories  about  John's  adventures,  that  the  sagacious  Abbot  Facditius  (quoted  by 
Lampe)  quite  turns  these  matters  into  a  jest.  Coupling  this  story  with  the  one  about 
John's  chaste  celibacy,  (as  supported  by  the  monachists,)  he  says,  in  reference  to  the 
latter,  that  if  John  made  out  to  preserve  his  chastity  uncontaminated  among  such  a 
people  as  the  Jews  were,  in  that  most  corrupt  age,  he  should  consider  it  a  greater 
miracle  than  if  John  had  come  safe  out  of  the  kettle  of  boiling  oil ;  but  on  the  reverend 
Abbot's  sentiments,  perhaps  many  will  remark  with  Lampe, — "  quod  pronuntiatum 
tamen  nimis  audax  est" — "  It  is  rather  too  bold  to  pronounce  such  an  opinion." 
Nevertheless,  such  a  termination  of  life  would  be  so  much  in  accordance  with  the 
standard  mode  of  dispatching  an  apostle,  that  they  would  never  have  taken  him  out 
of  the  oil-kettle,  except  for  the  necessity  of  sending  him  to  Palmos,  and  dragging  him 
on  through  multitudes  of  odd  adventures  yet  to  come. 

HIS  BANISHMENT. 

This  fable  of  his  journey  to  Rome  is  by  all  its  propagators  con- 
nected with  the  well-authorized  incident  of  his  banishment  to  Pat- 
mos.  This  event,  given  on  the  high  evidence  of  the  Revelation 
which  bears  his  name,  is  by  all  the  best  and  most  ancient  authori- 
ties, referred  to  the  period  of  the  reign  of  Doniitian.  The  precise 
year  is  as  much  beyond  any  means  of  investigation,  as  most  other 
exact  dates  in  his  and  all  the  other  apostles'  history.  From  the 
terms  in  which  the  ancient  writers  commemorate  the  event,  it  is 
known,  with  tolerable  certainty,  to  have  occurred  towards  the 
close  of  the  reign  of  Domitian,  tltough  none  of  the  early  Fathers 
specify  the  year.  The  first  who  pretend  to  fix  the  date,  refer  it 
to  (he  fourteenth  year  of  that  emperor,  and  the  most  critical  among 
the  moderns  fix  it.  as  late ;  and  some  even  in  the  fifteenth  or  last 


340  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

year  of  his  reign ;  since  that  persecution  of  the  Christians,  during 
which  John  seems  to  have  been  banished,  may  be  fairly  presumed, 
from  the  known  circumstances  as  recorded  in  history,  to  have  been 
the  last  great  series  of  tyrannical  acts  committed  by  this  remark- 
ably wicked  monarch.  It  certainly  appears,  from  distinct  asser 
tions  in  the  credible  records  of  ecclesiastical  history,  that  there 
was  a  great  persecution  begun  about  this  time  by  Domitian,  against 
the  Christians ;  but  there  is  no  reasonable  doubt  that  the  extent 
and  vindictiveness  of  it  has  been  very  much  overrated,  in  the  rage, 
among  the  later  Fathers,  for  exaggerating  the  sufferings  of  the  early 
Christians  far  beyond  the  truth.  The  first  Christian  writers  who 
allude  to  this  persecution  very  particularly,  specify  its  character  as 
far  less  aggravated  than  that  of  Nero,  of  which  they  declare  it  to 
have  been  but  a  shadow, — and  the  persecutor  himself  but  a  mere 
fraction  of  Nero  in  cruelty.  There  is  not  a  single  authenticated 
instance  of  any  person's  having  suffered  death  in  this  persecution  ; 
all  the  creditable  historians  who  describe  it,  most  particularly  demon- 
strate that  the  whole  range  of  punishments  inflicted  on  the  sub- 
jects of  it,  was  confined  to  banishment  merely.  Another  reason 
for  supposing  that  this  attack  on  the  Christians  was  very  mode- 
rate in  its  character,  is  the  important  negative  fact,  that  not  one 
heathen  historian  makes  the  slightest  mention  of  any  trouble  with 
the  new  sect,  during  that  bloody  reign  ;  although  such  repeated, 
vivid  accounts  are  given  of  the  dreadful  persecution  waged  by 
Nero,  as  related  above,  in  the  Life  of  Peter.  It  is  reasonable  to 
suppose,  therefore,  that  there  Avere  no  great  cruelties  practised  on 
them ;  but  that  many  of  them,  who  had  become  obnoxious  to  the 
tyrant  and  his  minions,  were  quietly  put  out  of  the  way,  that  they 
might  occasion  no  more  trouble, — being  sent  from  Rome  and  some 
of  the  principal  cities,  into  banishment,  along  with  many  others 
whose  removal  was  considered  desirable  by  the  rulers  of  Rome  or 
the  provinces ;  so  that  the  Christians,  suffering  with  many  others, 
and  some  of  high  rank  and  character,  a  punishment  of  no  very 
cruel  nature,  were  not  distinguished  by  common  narrators,  from 
the  general  mass  of  the  banished ;  but  were  noticed  more  particu- 
larly by  the  writers  of  their  own  order,  who  thus  specified  circum- 
stances that  otherwise  would  not  have  been  made  known.  Among 
those  driven  out  from  Ephesus  at  this  time,  John  was  included, 
probably  on  no  special  accusation  otherwise  than  that  of  being 
prominent  as  the  last  survivor  of  the  original  founders,  among 
these  members  of  the  new  faith,  who  by  their  pure  lives  were  a 


JOHN.  341 

constant  reproach  to  the  open  vices  of  the  proud  heathen  around 
them;  and  by  their  refosal  to  conform  to  idolatrous  observances, 
exposed  themselves  to  the  charge  of  non-conformity  to  the  estab- 
lished religion  of  the  state, — an  offense  of  the  highest  order  even 
among  the  Romans,  whose  tolerance  of  new  religions  was  at  length 
limited  by  the  requisition,  that  no  doctrine  whatever  should  be 
allowed  to  aim  directly  at  the  overthrow  of  the  settled  order  of 
things.  When,  therefore,  it  began  to  be  apprehended  that  the  re- 
ligion of  Jesus  would,  in  its  progress,  overcome  the  securities  of 
the  ancient  worship  of  the  Olympian  gods,  those  who  felt  their 
interests  immediately  connected  with  the  system  of  idolatry,  in 
their  alarmed  zeal  for  its  support,  made  use  of  the  worst  specimens 
of  imperial  tyranny  to  check  the  advancing  evil.  . 

PATMOS. 

The  place  chosen  for  his  banishment  was  a  dreary,  desert  island, 
in  the  Aegean  sea,  called  Patmos.  It  is  situated  among  that  cluster 
of  islands,  called  the  Sporades,  about  twenty  miles  from  the  Asian 
coast,  and  thirty  or  forty  southwest  of  Ephesus.  It  is  at  this  day 
known  by  the  observation  of  travelers,  to  be  a  most  remarkably 
desolate  place,  showing  hardly  any  thing  but  bare  rocks,  on  which 
a  few  poor  inhabitants  make  but  a  wretched  subsistence.  In  this 
insulated  desert  the  aged  apostle  was  doomed  to  pass  the  lonely 
months,  far  away  from  the  enjoyments  of  Christian  communion 
and  social  intercourse,  so  dear  to  him,  as  the  last  earthly  consola- 
tion of  his  life.  Yet  to  him,  his  residence  at  Ephesus  was  but  a 
place  of  exile.  Far  away  were  the  scenes  of  his  youth  and  the 
graves  of  his  fathers.  "  The  shore  whereon  he  loved  to  dwell," — 
the  lake  on  whose  waters  he  had  so  often  sported  or  labored  in  the 
freshness  of  early  years,  were  still  the  same  as  ever,  and  others 
now  labored  there,  as  he  had  done  ere  he  was  called  to  a  higher 
work.  But  the  homes  of  his  childhood  knew  him  no  more  for 
ever,  and  rejoiced  now  in  the  light  of  the  countenances  of  stran- 
gers, or  lay  in  blackening  desolation  beneath  the  brand  of  a  wasting 
invasion.  The  waters  and  the  mountains  were  there  still, — they 
are  there  now ;  but  that  which  to  him  constituted  all  their  reality 
was  gone  then,  as  utterly  as  now.  The  ardent  friends,  the  dear 
brother,  the  faithful  father,  the  fondly  ambitious  and  loving  mother, 
— who  made  up  his  little  world  of  life,  and  joy,  and  hope ! — where 
were  they  ?  All  were  gone  ;  even  his  own  former  self  was  gone 
too,  and  the  joys,  the  hopes,  the  thoughts,  the  views  of  those  early 


342  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

days,  were  buried  as  deeply  as  the  friends  of  his  youth,  and  far 
more  irrevocably.  Cut  off  thus  utterly  from  every  thing  that 
once  excited  the  earthly  and  merely  human  emotions  within  him, 
the  whole  world  was  alike  a  desert  or  a  home,  according  as  he 
found  in  it  communion  with  God,  and  work  for  his  remaining  en- 
ergies, in  the  cause  of  Christ.  Wherever  he  went,  he  bore  about 
with  him  his  resources  of  enjoyment, — his  home  was  within  him- 
self; the  friends  of  his  youth  and  manhood  were  still  before  him 
in  the  ever  fresh  images  of  their  glorious  examples ;  the  brother 
of  his  heart  was  near  him  always,  and  nearest  now,  when  the  per- 
secutions of  imperial  tyranny  seemed  to  draw  him  towards  a  sym- 
pathetic participation  in  the  pains  and  the  glories  of  that  bloody 
death.  The  Lord  of  his  life,  the  author  of  his  hopes,  the  guide 
of  his  youth,  the  friend  of  his  bosom,  the  cherisher  of  his  spirit, 
was  over  and  around  him  ever,  with  the  consolations  of  his 
promised  presence,  —  "with  him  always,  even  to  the  end  of  the 
world." 

The  date  and  character  of  this  persecution  are  very  distinctly  given  by  Eusebius. 
(Hist.  Ecc.  iii.  18.)  "  In  this  persecution,  the  report  is  that  John  the  Apostle  and 
Evangelist,  who  yet  survived,  was  condemned,  for  having  testified  to  the  word  of 
God,  to  live  on  the  island  of  Patmos.  Irenaens  (Haeres.  V.)  says — '  It  was  not  long 
since,  but  almost  in  our  own  age,  at  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Domitian.'  And  to  such 
a  degree  did  the  teaching  of  our  faith  shine  forth  at  the  period  mentioned,  that  even 
■writers  opposed  to  our  religion,  did  not  refuse  to  record  in  their  histories,  both  the  per- 
secution and  the  testimonies  borne  in  it."  (iMupriiioia,  Martiiria,  in  the  original  sense, 
no  death  being  implied,  as  the  next  words  show.)  "  And  they  have  also  very  particu- 
larly specified  the  time,  recording  that  in  the  fifteenth  year  of  Domitian's  reign. 
(A.  D.  95,)  Flavia  Domitilla,  niece  of  Flavins  Clemens,  then  consul  in  Rome,  with 
very  many  others,  was,  for  having  teitificd  (or  confessed)  Christ,  banished  to  the 
island  of  IPontia."  The  use  of  the  word  fiapripia,  (commonly  translated  martyrdom,) 
in  connexion  with  mere  banishment,  without  injury  to  life,  very  satisfactorily  sup- 
ports the  view  taken  here  and  elsewhere,  of  the  vulgar,  modern  error  of  multiplying 
cases  of  actual  martyrdoms  among  the  apostles  and  early  Christians.  No  writer  has 
more  ably  exposed  the  worthless  character  of  these  notions  than  Henry  Dodwell,  in 
his  critical  work, — "  De  paucilate  rnartyrum,"  which  first  attacked  the  vulgar  tradi- 
tions of  thousands  of  martyrs.  Antony  Pagi  opposes  him  in  his  views  both  of  the 
Neronian  and  the  Domitianian  persecution ;  and  on  this  passage  objects  to  relying  ol. 
the  testimony  of  Eusebius,  for  fixing  the  date  of  the  beginning  of  this  persecution. 
He  quotes  from  the  Alexandrine  Chronicle  a  passage  taken  from  Brntius,  Avhich 
states  that  "  from  the  fourteenth  year  of  Domitian,  many  were  martyred,"  (probably 
in  the  same  sense  as  the  other  passage.)  The  two  dates  afe  so  expressed  as  hardly 
to  disagree. 

THE  APOCALYPSE. 

The  Revelation  of  John  the  Divine  opens  with  a  moving  and 
splendid  view  of  these  circumstances.  Being,  as  it  is  recorded,  in 
the  isle  that  is  called  Patmos,  for  preaching  the  word  of  God,  and 
for  bearing  witness  of  Jesus  Christ,  he  was  in  his  lonely  banishment, 
one  Lord's  day,  sitting  wrapped  in  a  holy  spiritual  contemplation, 
when  he  heard  behind  him  a  great  voice,  as  of  a  trumpet,  which 


JOHN.  343 

broke  upon  his  startled  ear  with  a  most  solemnly  grand  annunciation 
of  the  presence  of  one  whose  being  was  the  source  and  end  of  all 
things.  As  tlie  amazed  apostle  turned  to  see  the  person  from  whom 
came  such  portentous  words,  there  met  his  eye  a  vision  so  dazzling, 
yet  appalling  in  its  beauty  and  splendor,  amid  the  bare,  dark  rocks 
around,  that  he  fell  to  the  earth  without  life,  and  lay  motionless,  until 
the  heavenly  being,  whose  awful  glories  had  so  overwhelmed  him, 
recalled  him  to  his  most  vivid  energies,  by  the  touch  of  His  life-giving 
hand.  In  the  lightning  splendors  of  that  countenance,  far  outshining 
the  glories  of  Sinai  reflected  from  the  face  of  Moses,  the  trembling 
eye  of  the  apostolic  seer  recognized  the  lineaments  of  one  whom  he 
had  knoAvn  in  other  days,  and  upon  whose  bosom  he  had  hung  in 
the  warm  aftection  of  youth.  Even  the  eye  which  now  flashed  such 
rays,  he  knew  to  be  that  which  had  once  been  turned  on  him  in  the 
aspect  of  familiar  love ;  nor  did  its  glance  now  bear  a  strange  or 
forbidding  expression.  The  trumpet-tones  of  the  voice,  which,  of 
old,  on  Hermon,  roused  him  from  the  stupor  into  which  he  fell  at  the 
sight  of  the  foretaste  of  these  very  glories,  now  recalled  him  to  life 
in  the  same  encouraging  words, — "  Be  not  afraid."  The  crucified 
and  ascended  Jesus,  living,  though  once  dead,  now  called  on  his  be- 
loved apostle  to  record  the  revelations  which  should  soon  burst  upon 
his  eyes  and  ears ;  that  the  churches  that  had  lately  been  under 
his  immediate  care,  might  learn  the  approach  of  events  which  most 
nearly  concerned  the  advance  of  their  faith.  First,  therefore,  ad- 
dressing an  epistolary  charge  to  each  of  the  seven  churches,  he  called 
them  to  a  severe  account  for  their  various  errors,  and  gave  to  each 
such  consolations  and  promises  as  were  suited  to  its  peculiar  circum- 
stances. Then  dropping  these  individualizing  exhortations,  he  leaves 
all  the  details  of  the  past,  and  the  minutiae  of  the  state  of  the  seven 
churches,  for  a  glance  over  the  events  of  coming  ages,  and  the  revo- 
lutions of  empires  and  of  worlds.  The  full  explanation  of  the  scenes 
which  follow,  is  altogether  beyond  the  range  of  a  mere  apostolic 
historian,  and  would  require  such  ability  and  learning  in  the  writer, 
— such  a  length  of  time  for  their  application  to  this  matter,  and  such 
an  expanse  of  paper  for  their  full  expression,  as  are  altogether  out  of 
the  question  in  this  case.  Some  few  points  in  this  remarkable  writing, 
however,  fall  within  the  proper  notice  of  the  apostle's  biographer  ;  and 
some  questions  on  the  scope  of  the  Apocalypse  itself,  as  well  as  on 
the  history  of  it,  as  a  part  of  the  sacred  canon,  will  therefore  be  here 
discussed. 

The  minute  history  of  the  apostolic  writings, — the  discussion  of 
their  particular  scope  and  tenor. — and  the  evidences  of  their  inspira- 
tion and  authenticity, — are  topics,  which  fall  for  the  most  part  under 
a  distinct  and  independent  department  of  Christian  theology,  the 
common  details  of  which  are  alone  sufficient  to  fill  many  volumes ; 
and  are  of  course  altogether  beyond  the  compass  of  a  work,  whose 
main  object  is  limited  to  a  merely  historical  branch  of  religious  know- 


344 


LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


ledge.  Still,  such  inquiries  into  these  deeper  points,  as  truly  concern 
the  personal  history  of  the  apostles,  are  proper  subjects  of  attention, 
even  here.  The  life  of  no  literary  or  scientific  man  is  complete, 
which  does  not  give  such  an  account  of  his  writings  as  will  show 
under  what  circumstances, — with  what  design, — for  what  persons, — 
and  at  what  time,  they  were  written.  But  a  minute  criticism  of  their 
style,  or  illustrations  of  their  meaning,  or  a  detail  of  all  the  objec- 
tions which  have  been  made  to  them,  might  fairly  be  pronounced 
improper  intrusions  upon  the  course  of  the  narrative.  With  the 
danger  of  such  an  extension  of  these  investigations,  fully  in  view,  this 
work  here  takes  up  those  points  in  the  history  of  John's  writings, 
that  seem  to  fall  under  the  general  rule  in  maldng  up  a  personal  and 
Uterary  biography. 

Li  the  case  of  this  particular  writing,  moreover,  the  difficulties  of 
an  enlarged  discussion  are  so  numerous  and  complicated,  as  to  offer 
an  especial  reason  to  the  apostolic  historian,  for  avoiding  the  almost 
endless  details  of  questions  that  have  agitated  the  greatest  minds  in 
Christendom,  for  the  last  four  hundred  years.  And  the  decision  of 
the  most  learned  and  sagacious  of  modern  critics,  pronounces  the 
Apocalypse  of  John  to  be  "  the  most  difficult  and  doubtful  book  of  the 
New  Testament." 

The  points  proper  for  inquiry  in  connexion  with  a  history  of  the 
life  of  John,  may  be  best  arranged  in  the  form  of  questions  with 
their  answers  severally  following. 

I.   Did  the  Apostle  John  write  the  Apocalypse? 

Many  will  doubtless  feel  disposed  to  question  the  propriety  of  thus 
bringing  out,  in  a  popular  book,  inquiries  which  have  hitherto,  by  a 
sort  of  common  consent,  been  confined  to  learned  works,  and  wholly 
excluded  from  such  as  are  intended  to  convey  religious  knowledge 
to  ordinary  readers.  The  principle  has  been  sometimes  distinctly 
specified  and  maintained,  that  some  established  truths  in  exegetical 
theology,  must  needs  be  always  kept  among  the  arcana  of  religious 
knowledge,  for  the  eyes  and  ears  of  the  learned  few,  to  whom  "  it  is 
given  to  know  these  mysteries ;"  "  but  that  to  them  that  are  without," 
they  are  ever  to  remain  unknown.  This  principle  is  often  acted  on 
by  some  theologians  of  Germany  and  England,  so  that  a  distinct  line 
seems  to  be  drawn  between  an  exoteric  and  an  esoteric  doctrine, — 
a  public  and  a  private  belief, — the  latter  being  the  literal  truth,  while 
the  former  is  such  a  view  of  things  as  suits  the  common  religious 
prejudices  of  the  mass  of  hearers  and  readers.  But  such  is  not  the 
free  spirit  of  true  Protestantism ;  nor  is  any  deceitful  doctrine  of  "  ac- 
commodation^'' accordant  with  the  open,  single-minded  honesty  of 
apostolic  teachings.  Taking  from  the  persons  who  are  the  subjects 
of  this  history,  something  of  their  simple  freedom  of  word  and  ac- 
tion, for  the  reader's  benefit,  several  questions  will  be  boldly  asked, 


JOHN.  345 

and  as  boldly  answered,  on  the  authorship,  the  scope,  and  character 
of  the  Apocalypse.  And  first,  on  the  present  personal  question  in 
hand,  a  spirit  of  tolerant  regard  for  opinions  discordant  with  those 
of  some  readers,  perhaps  may  be  best  learned,  by  observing  into  what 
uncertainties  the  muids  of  the  greatest  and  most  devout  of  theolo- 
gians, and  of  the  mighty  founders  of  the  Protestant  faith,  have  been 
led  on  this  very  point. 

The  great  Michaelis  apologizes  for  his  own  doubts  on  the  Apoca- 
lypse, justifying  himself  by  the  similar  uncertainty  of  the  immortal 
Luther  ;  and  the  remarks  of  Michaelis  upon  the  character  of  the  per- 
sons to  whom  Luther  thus  boldly  published  his  doubts,  will  be 
abundantly  sufficient  to  justify  the  discussion  of  such  darkly  deep 
matters,  to  the  readers  of  the  Lives  of  the  Apostles. 

Not  only  Martin  Luther  as  quoted  by  Michaelis,  but  the  other  great 
reformers  of  that  age,  John  Calvin  and  Ulric  Zwingle,  boldly  ex- 
pressed their  doubts  on  this  book,  which  more  modern  speculators 
have  made  so  miraculously  accordant  with  anti-papal  notions.  Their 
learned  contemporary,  Erasmus,  also,  and  the  critical  Joseph  Scaliger, 
with  other  great  names  of  past  ages,  have  contributed  their  doubts, 
to  add  a  new  mark  of  suspicion  to  the  Apocalypse. 

"  As  it  is  not  improbable  that  this  cautious  method  of  proceeding  will  give  offense 
to  some  of  my  readers,  I  must  plead  in  my  behalf  the  example  of  Luther,  who  thought 
and  acted  precisely  in  the  same  manner.  His  sentiments  on  this  subject  are  deliver- 
ed, not  in  an  occasional  dissertation  on  the  Apocalypse,  but  in  the  preface  to  his  Ger- 
man translation  of  it,  a  translation  designed  not  merely  for  the  learned,  but  for  the  il- 
literate, and  even  for  children.  In  the  preface  prefixed  to  that  edition,  which  was 
printed  in  1522,  he  expressed  himself  in  very  strong  terms.  In  this  preface  he  says  : 
'  In  this  book  of  the  Revelation  of  St.  John,  I  leave  it  to  every  person  to  judge  for 
himself:  I  will  bind  no  man  to  my  opinion ;  I  say  only  what  I  feel.  Not  one  thing 
only  fails  in  this  book;  so  that  I  hold  it  neither  for  apostolical,  nor  prophetical.  First 
and  chiefly,  the  apostles  do  not  prophesy  in  visions,  but  in  clear  and  plain  words,  as 
St.  Peter,  "St.  Paul,  and  Christ  in  the  gospel  do.  It  is  moreover  the  apostle's  duty  to 
speak  of  Christ  and  his  actions  in  a  simple  way,  not  in  figures  and  visions.  Also  no 
prophet  of  the  Old  Testament,  much  less  of  the  JNew,  has  so  treated  throughout  his 
whole  book  of  nothing  but  visions  :  so  that  I  put  it  almost  in  the  same  rank  with  the 
fourth  book  of  Esdras,  and  cannot  any  v: ay  find  that  it  was  dictated  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 
Lastly,  let  every  one  think  of  it  what  his  own  spirit  suggests.  My  spirit  can  make 
nothing  out  of  this  book;  and  I  have  reason  enough  not  to  esteem  it  highly,  since 
Christ  is  not  taught  in  it,  which  an  apostle  is  above  all  things  bound  to  do,  as  he  says, 
(Acts  i.)  Ye  are  my  witnesses.  Therefore  I  abide  by  the  books  which  teach  Christ 
clearly  and  purely.' 

"But  in  that  which  he  printed  in  1534,  he  used  milder  and  less  decisive  expres- 
sions. In  the  preface  to  this  latter  edition,  he  divides  prophecies  into  three  classes, 
the  third  of  which  contains  visions,  without  explanations  of  them;  and  of  these  he 
says :  '  As  long  as  a  prophecj'  remains  unexplained  and  has  no  determinate  interpre- 
tation, it  is  a  hidden  silent  prophecy,  and  is  destitute  of  the  advantages  which  it  ought 
to  afford  to  Christians.  This  has  hitherto  happened  to  the  Apocalypse  ;  for  though 
many  have  made  the  attempt,  no  one,  to  the  present  day,  has  brought  any  thing  cer- 
tain out  of  it,  but  several  have  made  incoherent  stuff  out  of  their  own  brain.  On  ac- 
count of  these  uncertain  interpretations,  and  hidden  senses,  we  have  hitherto  left  it  to 
itself,  especially  since  some  of  the  ancient  Fathers  believed  that  it  was  not  written  by 
the  apostle,  as  is  related  in  Lib.  III.  Hist.  Eccles.     In  this  uncertainty  we,  for  our 

5 art,  still  let  it  remain  :  but  do  not  prevent  others  from  taking  it  to  be  the  work  of  St. 
ohn  the  apcstle,  if  they  choose.     And  because  I  should  be  glad  to  see  a  certain  inter- 
pretation of  it,  I  will  afford  to  other  and  higher  spirits  occasion  to  reflect.' 
"  Still,  however,  he  declared  he  was  not  convinced  that  the  Apocalypse  was  ca- 


346  LIVES   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

nonical,  and  recommended  the  interpretation  of  it  to  those  who  were  more  enlight- 
ened than  himself.  If  Luther,  then,  the  author  of  our  reformation,  thought  and  acted 
in  this  manner,  and  the  divines  of  the  last  two  centuries  slill  continued,  without  the 
charge  of  heresy,  to  print  Luther's  preface  to  the  Apocalypse,  in  the  editions  of  the 
German  Bible  of  which  tiiey  had  the  superintendence,  surely  no  one  of  the  present 
age  jught  to  censure  a  writer  for  the  avowal  of  similar  doubts.  Should  it  be  ohjected 
that  what  was  excusable  in  Luther  would  be  inexcusable  in  a  modern  divine,  since 
more  light  has  been  tlirovvn  on  the  subject  than  there  had  been  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, I  would  ask  in  what  this  light  consists.  If  it  consists  in  newly  discovered  testi- 
monies of  the  ancients,  they  are  rather  unfavorable  to  the  cause;  for  the  canon  of 
the  Syrian  church,  which  was  not  known  in  Europe  when  Luther  wrote,  decides 
against  it.  On  the  other  hand,  if  this  light  consists  in  a  more  clear  and  determinate 
explanation  of  the  prophecies  contained  in  the  Apocalypse,  which  later  commentators 
have  been  able  to  make  out,  by  the  aid  of  history,  I  would  venture  to  appeal  to  a 
synod  of  the  latest  and  most  zealous  interpreters  of  it,  such  as  Vitringa,  Lange,  Opo- 
rin,  Heumann,  and  Bengel,  names  which  are  free  from  all  suspicion  ;  and  I  have  not 
the  least  doubt,  that  at  every  interpretation  which  1  pronounced  unsatisfactory,  I 
should  have  at  least  three  voices  out  of  the  five  in  my  favor.  At  all  events,  they 
would  never  be  unanimous  against  me,  in  the  places  where  I  declared  that  I  was  un- 
able to  perceive  the  new  light,  which  is  supposed  to  have  been  thrown  on  the  subject 
since  the  time  of  Luther. 

"  I  admit  that  Luther  uses  too  harsh  expressions,  where  he  speaks  of  the  epistle  of 
St.  James,  though  in  a  preface  not  designed  for  Christians  of  every  denomination  : 
but  his  opinion  of  the  Apocalypse  is  delivered  in  terms  of  the  utmost  diffidence,  which 
are  well  worthy  of  imitation.  And  this  is  so  much  the  more  laudable,  as  the  Apoca- 
lypse is  a  book,  which  Luther's  opposition  to  the  church  of  Rome  must  have  rendered 
highly  acceptable  to  him,imless  he  had  thought  impartially,  and  had  refused  to  sacri- 
fice his  own  doubts  to  polemical  considerations."  (Michaelis.  Introduction  to  the 
study  of  the  New  Testament.     Vol.  I.  chap,  xxxiii.  §  1.) 

To  pretend  to  decide  with  certainty  on  a  point,  which  Martin  Luther  boldly  denied, 
and  which  John  David  Michaelis  modestly  doubted,  implies  neither  superior  know- 
ledge of  the  truth,  nor  a  more  holy  reverence  for  it ;  but  rather  marks  a  mere  pre- 
suniptuous  self-confidence,  and  an  ignorant  bigotry,  arising  from  the  prejudices  of 
education.  Yet  from  the  deep  researches  of  the  latter  of  these  writers,  and  of  other 
exegetical  theologians  since,  much  may  be  drawn  to  support  the  view  taken  in  the 
text  of  this  Life  of  John,  which  is  accordant  with  the  common  notion  of  its  authorship. 
The  quotation  just  given,  however,  is  valuable  as  inculcating  the  propriety  of  hesita- 
tion and  moderation  in  pronouncing  upon  the  results  of  this  very  doubtful  inquiry. 

The  testimony  or  the  Father.?,  on  the  authenticity  of  the  Apocalypse  as  a  work  of 
John  the  apostle,  may  be  very  briefly  alluded  to  here.  The  lull  details  of  this  im- 
portant evidence  may  be  found  bvthe  scholar  in  J.  D.  Michaelis's  Introd.  to  the  N.  T. 
(Vol.  IV.  c.  xxxiii.  §  2.)  Hug's' do.  (Vol.  II.  §  184  of  the  original.  2d  edit.  §  176  of 
Wait's  translation.)  Lardner's  Credibdity  of  Gosp.  Hist.  (Supp.  chap.  22.)  Fabricii 
Bibliotheca  Graeca.  (Harles's  4to.  edit,  with  Keil's,  Kuinoel's,  Gurlitt's,  and  Heyne's 
notes,  vol.  IV.  pp.  786—795,  corresp.  vol.  III.  pp.  146—149,  of  the  first  edition.) 
Lampe,  Prolegomena  in  Joannem. 

Justin  Martyr  (A.  D.  140)  is  the  first  who  mentions  this  book.  He  saj^s,  "  A  man 
among  us,  named  John,  one  of  the  apostles  of  Christ,  has,  in  a  revelation  which  was 
made  "to  him,  prophesied,"  &c.  Melito  (A.  D.  177)  is  quoted  by  Eusebius  and  by  Je- 
rome, as  having  written  a  treatise  on  the  Revelation.  He  was  bishop  of  Sardis,  one 
of  the  seven  churches,  and  his  testimony  would  be  therefore  highly  valujible,  if  it 
were  certain  whether  he  wrote  for  or  againd  the  authenticity  of  the  work.  Probably 
he  WHS  for  it,  since  he  calls  it  "the  Apocalypse  of  John,"  in  the  title  of  his  treatise, 
and  the  silence  of  Eusebius  about  the  opinion  of  Melito  may  fairly  be  construed  as 
showing  that  he  did  not  write  against  it.  Irenaeus,  (A.  D.  178,)  who,  in  his  younger 
days  was  acquainted  with  Polvcarp,  the  disciple  and  personal  friend  of  John,  often 
quotes  this  book  as  "  the  Revelation  of  John,  the  disciple  of  the  Lord."  And  in  another 
place  he  says,  "It  was  seen  not  long  ago,  almost  in  our  own  age,  at  the  cud  of  the 
reigji  of  Domitian."  This  is  the  most  direct  and  valuable  kind  of  testimony  which 
the  writings  of  the  Fathers  can  furnish  on  any  point  in  apostolic  history  ;  for  Irenaeus 
here  speaks  from  personal  knowledge,  and,  "as  will  be  hereafter  shown,  throws  great 
light  on  the  darkest  passage  in  the  Apocalypse,  by  what  he  had  heard  from  those  per- 
sons who  had  ieen  John  himself,  face  to  face,  and  who  heard  these  things  from  his  own 
lips.     Theophilus  of  Anlioch,  (A.  D.  181')— Clemens  of  Alexandria,  (A.  D.  194,)— 


JOHN.  347 

Tertullian  of  Carthage,  (A.  D.  300,)— Apollonius  of  Ephesus,  (A.  D.  211,)— Hippo- 
lytus  of  Italy,  (A.  D.  220,)— Origen  of  Alexandria  and  Caesarea,  (A.  D.  230,)— all 
received  and  quoted  it  a.s  a  work  of  John  the  apostle,  and  some  testify  very  fully  as 
to  the  character  of  the  evidence  of  its  authenticity,  received  from  their  predecessors 
and  from  the  contemporaries  of  John. 

But  from  about  the  middle  of  the  third  century,  it  fell  under  great  suspicion  of  be- 
ing the  production  of  some  person  different  from  the  apostle  John.  Having  been  quo- 
ted by  Cerinthus  and  his  disciples,  (a  set  of  Gnostical  heretics,  in  the  first  century,) 
in  support  of  their  views,  it  was,  by  some  of  their  opponents,  pronounced  to  be  a  fab- 
rication of  Cerinthus  himself  At  this  later  period,  however,  it  suffered  a  much  more 
general  condemnation  ;  but  though  denied  by  some  to  be  an  apostolic  work,  it  was  still 
almost  universally  granted  to  be  inspired.  Dionysius  of  Alexandria,  (A.  D.  250,)  in 
a  book  against  the  Millennarians,  who  rested  their  notions  upon  the  millennial  pas- 
sages of  this  revelation,  has  endeavored  to  make  the  Apocalypse  useless  to  them  in 
support  of  their  heresy.  This  he  has  done  by  referring  to  the  authority  of  some  of 
his  predecessors,  who  rejected  it  on  account  of  its  maintaining  Cerinthian  doctrines. 
This  objection,  however,  has  been  ably  refuted  by  modern  writers,  especially  by  Mi- 
chaelis  and  Hug,  both  of  whom  distinctly  show  that  there  are  many  passages  in  the 
Revelation,  so  perfectly  opposite  to  the  doctrines  of  Cerinthus,  that  he  could  never 
have  written  the  book,  although  he  may  have  been  willing  to  quote  from  it  such  pas- 
sages as  accorded  with  his  notions  about  a  sensual  millennium, — as  he  could  in  this 
way  meet  those  who  did  take  the  book  for  an  inspired  writing. 

Dionysius  himself,  however,  does  not  pretend  to  adopt  this  view  of  the  authorship 
of  it,  but  rather  thinks  that  it  was  the  work  of  John  the  presbyter,  who  lived  in  Ephe 
sus  in  the  age  of  John  the  apostle,  and  had  probably  been  confounded  with  him  by 
the  early  Fathers.  This  John  is  certainly  spoken  of  by  Papias,  (A.  D.  120,)  who 
knew  personally  both  him  and  the  apostle;  but  Papias  has  left  nothing  on  the  Apoc- 
alypse, as  the  work  of  John  the  Presbyter.  (The  substance  of  the  whole  argument  of 
Dionysius  is  very  elaborately  given  and  reviewed,  by  both  Michaelis  and  Hug.) 
After  this  bold  attack,  the  apostolic  character  of  the  work  seems  to  have  received 
much  injury  among  most  of  the  eastern  Fathers,  and  was  generally  rejected  by  both 
the  Syrian  and  Greek  churches,  having  no  place  in  their  New  Testament  canon. 
Euseb'ius,  (A.  D.  315,)  who  gives  the  first  list  of  the  writings  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, that  is  known,  divides  all  books  which  had  ever  been  offered  as  apostolical, 
into  three  classes, — the  universally  acknowledged,  {ijio'Snyovjiiva,  homologoumc7ia,) — the 
disputed,  (di^TiXtyo/ju'a,  antilegomena,) — and  the  spurious,  {voOa,  not/ia.)  In  the  first 
class,  he  puts  all  now  received  into  the  New  Testament,  except  the  epistle  to  the  He- 
brews, the  epistles  of  James  and  Jude,  the  second  of  Peter,  the  second  and  third  of 
John,  and  the  Revelation.  These  exceptions  he  puts  into  the  second,  or  disputed 
class,  along  with  sundry  writings  now  universally  considered  apocryphal.  The  Rev- 
elation, however,  he  does  not  distinctly  rank  in  the  second  class,  but  having  first  men- 
tioned it  as  a  book  which  some  place  among  the  authentic  scriptures,  he  sets  it  down 
finally  as  a  production  considered  by  many  altogether  spurious.  (Hist.  Ecc.  iii.  25.) 
Eusebius  says  also,  "  It  is  likely  that  the  Revelation  was  seen  by  John  the  presbyter, 
if  not  by  John  the  apostle."  (H.  E.  vii.  25.)  Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  (A.  D.  348,)  in  his 
catalogue  of  the  Scriptures,  does  not  allow  this  a  place.  Epiphanius  of  Salamis,  in 
Cyprus,  (A.  D.3G8,)  though  himself  receiving  it  as  of  apostolic  origin,  acknowledged 
that  others  in  his  time  rejected  it.  The  council  of  Laodicea,  (A.  D.  3G3,)  sitting  in 
the  seat  of  one  of  the  seven  churches,  did  not  give  the  Revelation  a  place  among  the 
sacred  writings  of  the  New  Testament,  though  their  list  includes  all  others  now  re- 
ceived. Gregory  of  Nazianzus,  in  Cappadocia,  (A.  D.  370,)  gives  a  catalogue  of  the 
canonical  scriptures,  but  excludes  the  Revelation.  Amphilochius  of  Iconium,  in 
Lycaonia,  (A.  D.  370,)  in  mentioning  the  canonical  scriptures,  says,  "  The  Revelation 
of  John  is  approved  by  some;  but  many  say  it  is  spurious."  The  scriptural  canon  of 
the  Syrian  churches  rejects  it,  even  a.s  given  by  Ebed  Jesu,  in  1285 ;  nor  was  it  in 
the  ancient  Syriac  version  completed  during  the  first  century ;  but  the  reason  for  this 
may  be,  that  the  Revelation  was  not  then  promulgated.  Jerome  of  Rome,  (A.  D.  396,) 
receives  it,  as  do  all  the  Latin  Fathers;  but  he  says,  "the  Greek  churches  reject  it." 
Chrysostom  (A.  D.  398)  never  quotes  it,  and  is  not  s'upposed  to  have  received  it.  Au- 
gustin  of  Africa,  (A.  D.  395,)  receives  it,  but  says  It  was  not  received  by  all  in  his  time. 
Theodoret,  (A.  D.  423,)  of  Syria,  and  cZ^  the  ecclesiastics  of  that  country,  reject  it  also. 

The  result  of  all  this  evidence  is,  as  will  be  observed  by  glancing  over  the  dales  of 
the  Fathers  quoted,  that,  until  the  year  2.50,  no  writer  can  be  found  who  scrupled  to 
receive  the  Apocalypse  as  the  genuine  work  of  John  the  apostle,— lha\.  the  further 


348  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

back  the  Fathers  are,  the  more  explicit  and  satisfactory  is  their  testimony  in  its  fa- 
vor,— and  that  the  fullest  of  all  is  that  of  Irenaeus,  who  had  his  information  from 
Polycarp,  the  most  intimate  and  beloved  disciple  of  John  himself.  Now,  where  the 
evidence  is  not  of  the  ordinary  cumulative  character,  growing  weighty,  like  a  snow- 
ball, the  farther  it  travels  from  its  original  starling-place,  but  as  here,  is  strongest  at 
the  source, — it  may  justly  be  pronounced  highly  valuable,  and  an  eminent  exception 
to  the  usual  character  of  such  historical  proofs,  which,  as  has  been  plentifully  shown 
already  in  this  book,  are  too  apt  to  grow  less  and  less,  as  the  investigator  travels 
from  the  last  to  the  first.  It  will  be  observed  also,  by  a  glance  at  the  places  where 
these  Fathers  flourished,  that  all  those  who  rejected  the  Apocalypse  belonged  to  the 
EASTERN  section  of  the  churches,  including  both  the  Greeks  and  the  Syrians,  while  the 
WESTERN  churches,  both  the  Europeans  and  Latino-Africans,  adopted  the  Apocalypse 
as  an  apostolic  writing.  This  is  not  so  fortunate  a  concurrence  as  that  of  the  dates, 
since  the  Orientals  certainly  had  better  means  of  investigating  such  a  point  than  the 
Occident^als.  A  reason  may  be  suggested  for  this,  in  the  circumstance,  that  the  Cerinthi- 
ans  and  other  heretics,  who  were  the  occasion  of  the  first  rejection  of  the  Apocalypse, 
annoyed  only  the  eastern  churches,  and  thus  originated  the  mischief  only  among 
them.  Lampe,  Michaelis,  and  others,  indeed,  quote  Caius  of  Rome,  as  a  solitary  ex- 
ception to  this  geographical  distribution  of  the  difficulty,  but  Paulus  and  Hug  have 
shown  that  the  passage  in  Caius,  to  which  they  refer,  has  been  misapprehended,  as 
the  scholar  may  see  by  a  reference  to  Hug's  Introd.,  vol.  II.  pp.  647—650,  of  Wail's 
translation,  pp.  593 — 596,  of  the  original.  There  is  something  in  Jerome  too,  which 
implies  that  some  of  the  Latins,  in  his  time,  were  beginning  to  follow  the  Greek  fashion 
of  rejecting  this  book ;  but  he  scouts  this  new  notion,  and  says  he  shall  stick  to  the  old 
standard  canon. 

The  internal  evidence  is  also  so  minutely  protracted  in  its  character,  that  only  a 
bare  allusion  to  it  can  be  here  permitted,  and  reference  to  higher  and  deeper  sources 
of  information,  on  such  an  exegetical  point,  may  be  made  for  the  benefit  of  the  scholar. 
Lampe,  Wolf,  Michaelis,  Mill,  Eichhorn,  and  others  quoted  by  Fabricius,  (Biblio- 
theca  Graeca,  vol.  IV.  p.  795,  note  46.)  Hug  and  his  English  translator,  Dr.  Wait, 
are  also  full  on  this  point. 

This  evidence  consists  for  the  mo.st  part  in  a  comparison  of  pa.ssages  in  this  book 
with  similar  ones  in  the  other  writings  of  John,  more  especially  his  gospel.  Wet- 
stein,  in  particular,  has  brought  together  many  such  parallelisms,  some  of  which  are 
so  striking  in  the  peculiar  expressions  of  John,  and  yet  so  merely  accidental  in  their 
character,  as  to  afford  most  satisfactory  evidence  to  the  nicest  critics,  of  the  identity 
of  authorship.  A  table  of  these  coincidences  is  given  from  Wetstein,  by  Wait, 
Hug's  translator,  (p.  636,  note.)  Yet  on  this  very  point, — the  style, — the  most  seri- 
ous objection  to  the  Apocalypse,  as  a  work  of  the  author  of  John's  gospel,  has  always 
been  founded; — the  rude,  wild,  thundering  sublimity  of  the  vision  of  Patmos,  pre- 
senting such  a  striking  contrast  with  the  soft,  love-teaching,  and  beseeching  style  of 
the  gospel  and  the  epistles  of  John.  But  such  objectors  have  forgotten  or  overlooked 
the  immense  difference  between  the  circumstances  under  which  these  works  were 
suggested  and  composed.  Their  period,  their  scene,  their  subject,  their  object,  were 
all  widely  removed  from  each  other,  and  a  thoughtful  examination  will  show,  that 
writings  of  such  widely  various  scope  and  tendency  could  not  well  have  less  striking 
differences,  than  those  observable  between  this  and  the  other  writings  of  John.  In 
such  a  change  of  circumstances, — the  structure  of  sentences,  the  choice  of  words,  and 
the  figures  of  speech,  could  hardly  be  expected  to  show  the  slightest  similarity  betM^een 
works,  thus  different  in  design,  though  by  the  same  author.  But  in  the  minuter  pe- 
culiarities of  language,  certain  favorite  expressions  of  the  author, — particular  asso- 
ciations of  words,  such  as  a  forger  could  never  hit  upon  in  that  uninventive  age, — 
certain  personal  views  and  sentiments  on  trifling  points,  occasionally  modifying  the 
verbal  forms  of  ideas — these  and  a  multitude  of  other  characteristics,  making  up  that 
collection  of  abstractions  which  is  called  an  author's  sltile, — all  quite  beyond  the  reach 
of  an  imitator,  but  presenting  the  most  valuable  and"  honest  tests  to  the  laborious 
critic — constitute  a  series  of  proofs  in  this  case,  which  none  can  fully  appreciate  but 
the  investigators  and  students  themselves. 

II.  With  what  design  was  the  Apocalypse  written? 

There  is  no  part  of  the  Bible  which  has  been  the  subject  of  so 
much  perversion,  or  on  which  the  minds  of  the  great  mass  of  Chris- 


JOHN.  349 

tian  readers  have  been  suffered  to  fall  into  such  gross  errors,  as  the 
Apocalypse.  This  is  the  opinion  of  all  the  great  exegetical  theolo- 
gians of  this  age,  who  have  examined  the  scope  of  the  work  most 
attentively;  and  from  the  time  of  Martin  Luther  till  this  moment, 
the  opinions  of  the  learned  have  for  the  most  part  been  totally  dif- 
ferent from  those  which  have  made  up  the  popular  sentiment, — none 
or  few,  caring  to  give  the  world  the  benefit  of  the  simple  truth, 
which  might  be  ill  received  by  those  who  love  darkness  rather  than 
light ;  and  those  who  knew  the  truth,  have  generally  preferred  to 
keep  the  quiet  enjoyment  of  it  to  themselves.  This  certainly  is 
much  to  be  regretted ;  for  in  consequence  of  this  culpable  negligence 
of  the  duty  of  making  religious  knowledge  available  for  the  good  of 
the  whole,  this  particular  apostolic  writing  has  been  the  occasion  of 
the  most  miserable  and  scandalous  delusions  among  the  majority 
even  of  the  more  intelligent  order  of  Bible  readers, — delusions, 
which,  affecting  no  point  whatever  in  creeds  and  confessions  of  faith, 
(those  bulwarks  of  sects.)  have  been  suffered  to  rage  and  spread  their 
debasing  error,  without  subjecting  those  who  thus  indulged  their 
foolish  fancies,  to  the  terrors  of  ecclesiastical  censure.  The  Reve- 
lation of  John  has,  accordingly,  for  the  last  century  or  two,  been 
made  a  licensed  subject  for  the  indulgence  of  idle  fancies,  and  used 
as  a  grand  storehouse  for  every  "  filthy  dreamer"  to  draw  upon,  for 
the  scriptural  prophetical  supports  of  his  particular  notions  of  "  the 
signs  of  the  times,"  and  for  the  warrant  of  his  special  denunciations 
of  divine  wrath  and  coming  ruin,  against  any  system  that  might 
happen  to  be  particularly  abominable  in  his  religious  eyes.  Thus, 
a  most  baseless  delusion  has  been  long  suffered  to  pervade  the  minds 
of  common  readers,  respecting  the  general  scope  of  the  Apocalypse, 
perverting  the  latter  part  of  it  into  a  prophecy  of  the  rise,  triumph, 
and  downfall  of  the  Romish  papal  tyranny ;  while  in  respect  to 
the  minor  details,  every  schemer  has  been  left  to  satisfy  himself,  as 
his  private  fancy  or  sectarian  zeal  might  direct  him.  Now,  not  only 
is  every  one  of  these  views  directly  opposed  to  the  clear,  natural,  and 
simple  explanations,  given  by  those  very  persons  among  the  earliest 
Christian  writers,  who  had  John's  own  private  personal  testimony  as 
to  his  real  meaning,  in  the  dark  passages  which  have  in  modern 
times  been  made  the  subject  of  such  idle,  fanciful  interpretations ; 
but  they  are  so  palpably  inconsistent  both  with  the  general  scope  and 
the  minute  details  of  tlie  writing  itself,  that  even  without  the  support 
of  this  most  incontrovertible  evidence  of  the  earliest  Christian  an- 
tiquity, the  falsehood  of  the  idea  of  any  anti-papal  prophecy  can  be 
most  triumphantly  and  unanswerably  settled ;  and  this  has  been 
repeatedly  done,  in  every  variety  of  manner,  by  the  learned  labors 
of  all  the  sagest  of  the  orthodox  theologians  of  Germany,  Holland, 
France,  and  England,  for  the  last  three  hundred  years.  A  most  ab- 
surd notion  seems  to  be  prevalent,  that  the  idea  of  a  rational  histori- 
cal interpretation  of  the  Apocalypse,  is  one  of  the  wicked  results  of 


350  LIVES  OF  THE   APOSTLES. 

that  most  horrible  of  abstract  monsters,  "  German  neology ;"  and  the 
dreadful  name  of  Eichhorn  is  straightway  referred  to,  as  the  source 
of  this  common-sense  view.  But  Eichhorn,  and  all  those  of  the 
modern  German  schools  of  theology,  who  have  taken  up  this  notion, 
so  far  from  originating  the  view  or  aspiring  to  claim  it  as  their  in- 
vention, were  but  quietly  following  the  standard  authorities  which 
had  been  steadily  accumulating  on  this  point  for  sixteen  hundred 
years  ;  and  instead  of  being  the  result  of  ?teology,  or  of  any  thing 
neiv,  it  was  as  old  as  the  time  of  Irenaeus.  The  testimony  of  all  the 
early  writers  on  this  point,  is  uniform  and  explicit ;  and  they  all, 
without  a  solitary  exception,  explain  the  great  mass  of  the  bold  ex- 
pressions in  it,  about  coming  ruin  on  the  enemies  of  the  pure  faith 
of  Christ,  as  a  distinct,  direct  prophecy  of  the  downfall  of  imperial 
Rome,  as  the  great  heathen  foe  of  the  saints.  There  was  among 
them  no  very  minute  account  of  the  manner  in  which  the  poetical 
details  of  the  prophecy  were  to  be  fulfilled ;  but  the  general  meaning 
of  the  whole  was  considered  to  be  so  marked,  dated,  and  individual- 
ized, that  to  have  denied  this  manifest  interpretation  in  their  presence, 
must  have  seemed  an  absurdity  not  less  than  to  have  denied  the  au- 
thentic history  of  past  ages.  Not  all  nor  most  of  the  Christian 
Fathers,  however,  have  noticed  the  design  and  character  of  the  Apo- 
calypse, even  among  those  of  the  western  churches  ;  while  the  skep- 
ticism of  the  Greek  and  Syrian  Fathers,  after  the  third  century,  about 
the  authenticity  of  the  work,  has  deprived  the  world  of  the  great  ad- 
vantage which  their  superior  acquaintance  with  the  original  language 
of  the  writing,  with  its  peculiarly  Oriental  style,  allusions,  and  quota- 
tions, would  have  enabled  them  to  afford  in  the  faithful  interpreta- 
tion of  the  predictions.  From  the  very  first,  however,  there  were 
iifficulties  among  the  different  sects,  about  the  allegorical  and  literal 
interpretations  of  the  expressions  which  referred  to  the  final  triumph 
of  the  followers  of  Christ ;  some  interpreting  those  passages  as  de- 
scribing an  actual  personal  reign  of  Christ  on  earth,  and  a  real 
worldly  triumph  of  his  followers,  during  a  thousand  years,  all  which 
was  to  happen  shortly ; — and  from  this  notion  of  a  Chiliasm,  or  a 
Millennium,  arose  a  peculiar  sect  of  heretics,  famous  in  early  eccle- 
siastical history,  during  the  two  first  centuries,  under  the  name  of 
Chiliasts  or  Millennarians, — the  Greek  or  the  Latin  appellative 
being  used,  according  as  the  persons  thus  designated  or  those  desig- 
nating them,  were  of  eastern  or  western  stock.  Cerinthus  and  his 
followers  so  far  improved  this  worldly  view  of  the  subject,  as  to 
inculcate  the  notion  that  the  faithful,  during  that  triumph,  were  to 
be  further  rewarded,  by  the  full  fruition  of  all  bodily  and  sensual 
pleasures,  and  particularly  that  the  whole  thousand  years  were  to  be 
passed  in  nuptial  enjoyments.  But  these  foolish  vagaries  soon  passed 
away,  nor  did  they,  even  in  the  times  when  they  prevailed,  affect 
the  standard  interpretation  of  the  general  historical  relations  of  the 
prophecy. 


JOHN.  351 

It  was  not  until  a  late  age  of  modern  times,  that  any  one  pretended 
to  apply  the  denunciations  of  ruin,  with  which  the  Apocalypse 
abounds,  to  any  object  but  heathen,  imperial  rome,  or  to  the  pagan 
system  generally,  iis  personified  or  concentrated  in  the  existence  of 
that  city.  During  the  middle  ages,  the  Franciscans,  an  order  of 
monks,  fell  under  the  displeasure  of  the  papal  power ;  and  being 
visited  with  the  censures  of  the  head  of  the  Romish  church,  retorted, 
by  denouncing  him  as  an  Anti-Christ,  and  directly  set  all  their  wits 
to  work  to  annoy  him  in  various  ways,  by  tongue  and  pen.  In  the 
course  of  this  furious  controversy,  some  of  them  turned  their  atten- 
tion to  the  prophecies  respecting  Rome,  which  were  found  in  the 
Apocalypse,  then  received  as  an  inspired  book  by  all  the  adlierents 
of  the  church  of  Rome  ;  and  searching  into  the  denunciations  of  ruin 
on  the  Babylon  of  the  seven  hills,  immediately  saw  by  what  a  slight 
perv'ersion  of  expressions,  they  could  apply  all  this  dreadful  language 
to  their  great  foe.  This  they  did  accordingly,  with  all  the  spite  which 
had  suggested  it ;  and  in  consequence  of  this  beginning,  the  Apoca- 
lypse thenceforward  became  the  great  storehouse  of  scriptural  abuse 
of  the  Pope,  to  all  who  happened  to  quarrel  with  him.  This  con- 
tinued the  fashion,  down  to  the  time  of  the  Reformation;  but  the  bold 
Luther  and  his  coadjutors,  scorned  the  thought  of  a  scurrilous  aid, 
drawn  from  such  a  source,  and  with  a  noble  honesty  not  only  refused 
to  adopt  this  construction,  but  even  did  much  to  throw  suspicion  on 
the  character  of  the  book  itself  Luther,  however,  had  not  the  genius 
suited  to  minute  historical  and  critical  observations ;  and  his  con- 
demnation of  it  therefore,  though  showing  his  own  honest  confidence 
in  his  mighty  cause  to  be  too  high  to  allow  him  to  use  a  dishonest 
aid,  yet  does  not  affect  the  results  to  which  a  more  deliberate  exami- 
nation has  led  those  who  were  as  honest  as  he,  and  much  better 
critics.  This,  however,  was  the  state  in  which  the  early  reformers 
left  the  interpretation  of  the  Apocalypse.  But  in  later  times,  a  set  of 
violently  zealous  Protestants,  headed  by  Napier,  Beza,  Durham, 
Henry-  More,  Mede,  and  bishop  Newton,  took  up  the  Revelation  of 
John,  as  a  complete  anticipative  history  of  the  triumphs,  the  cruel- 
ties, and  the  common  ruin  of  the  Papal  tyranny.  These  were 
followed  by  numerous  commentators  and  sermonizers,  who  went 
on  with  all  the  elaborate  details  of  this  interpretation,  even  to  the 
precise  meaning  of  the  teeth  and  tails  of  the  prophetical  locusts. 
These  views  were  occasionally  varied  by  others  tracing  the  whole 
history  of  the  world  in  these  few  chapters,  and  finding  the  conquests 
of  the  Huns,  the  Saracens,  the  Turks,  &c.,  and  even  of  Napoleon, 
all  delineated  with  most  amazing  particularity. 

But  while  these  idle  fancies  weie  amusing  the  heads  of  men,  who 
showed  more  sense  in  other  things,  the  great  current  of  Biblical 
knowledge  had  been  flowing  on  very  uniformly  in  the  old  course  of 
rational  interpretation,  and  the  genius  of  modern  criticism  had 
already  been  doing  much  to  perfect  the  explanations  of  passages  on 


352  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

which  the  wisdom  of  the  Fathers  had  never  pretended  to  throw 
light.  Of  all  critics  who  ever  took  up  the  Apocalypse  in  a  rational 
way,  none  ever  saw  so  clearly  its  real  force  and  application  as 
Hugo  Grotius  ;  and  to  him  belongs  the  praise  of  having  been  the 
first  of  the  moderns  to  apprehend  and  expose  the  truth  of  this  sub- 
limest  of  apostolic  records.  This  mighty  champion  of  Protestant 
evangelical  theology,  with  that  genius  which  was  so  resplendent 
in  all  his  illustrations  of  Divine  things  as  well  as  of  human  law, 
distinctly  pointed  out  the  three  grand  divisions  of  the  prophetical 
plan  of  the  work.  "  The  visions  as  far  as  to  the  end  of  the  eleventh 
chapter,  describe  the  affairs  of  the  Jews ;  then,  as  far  as  to  the  end 
of  the  twentieth  chapter,  the  affairs  of  the  Romans ;  and  thence  to 
the  end,  the  most  flourishing  state  of  the  Christian  church."  Later 
theologians,  following  the  great  plan  of  explanation  thus  marked 
out,  have  still  farther  perfected  it,  and  penetrated  still  deeper  into  the 
mysteries  of  the  whole.  They  have  shown  that  the  two  cities,  Rome 
and  Jerusalem,  whose  fate  constitutes  the  most  considerable  portions 
of  the  Apocalypse,  are  mentioned  only  as  the  seats  of  two  religions 
whose  fall  is  foretold ;  and  that  the  third  city,  the  new  Jerusalem, 
whose  triumphant  heavenly  building  is  described  in  the  end,  after 
the  downfall  of  the  former  two,  is  the  religion  of  Christ.  Of  these 
three  cities,  the  first  is  called  Sodom ;  but  it  is  easy  to  see  that  this 
name  of  sin  and  ruin  is  only  used  to  designate  another  devoted  by 
the  wrath  of  God  to  a  similar  destruction.  Indeed,  the  sacred  writer 
himself  explains  that  this  is  only  a  metaphorical  or  spiritual  use  of 
the  term, — "  which  is  spiritually  called  Sodom  and  Egypt ; — and 
to  set  its  locality  beyond  all  possibility  of  doubt,  it  is  furthermore 
described  as  the  city  "  where  also  our  Lord  was  crucified."  It  is 
also  called  the  "  Holy  city,"  and  in  it  was  the  temple.  Within,  have 
been  slain  two  faithful  witnesses  of  Jesus  Christ ;  these  are  the  two 
Jameses, — the  great  apostolic  protomartyrs ;  James  the  son  of  Zebe- 
dee,  killed  by  Herod  Agrippa,  and  James  the  brother  of  our  Lord, 
the  son  of  Alpheus,  killed  by  order  of  the  high  priest,  in  the  reign 
of  Nero,  as  described  in  the  lives  of  those  apostles.  The  ruin  of  the 
city  is  therefore  sealed.  The  second  described,  is  called  Babylon ; 
but  that  Chaldean  city  had  fallen  to  the  dust  of  its  plain,  centuries 
before :  and  this  city,  on  the  other  hand,  stood  on  seven  hills,  and  it 
was,  at  the  moment  when  the  apostle  wrote,  the  seat  of  "  the  king- 
dom of  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth,"  the  capital  of  the  nations  of  the 
world, — expressions  which  distinctly  mark  it  to  be  imperial  Rome. 
The  seven  ana:els  pour  out  the  seven  vials  of  wrath  on  this  Babylon, 
and  the  awful  ruin  of  this  mighty  city  is  completed. 

To  give  repetition  and  variety  to  this  grand  view  of  the  downfall 
of  these  two  dominant  religions,  and  to  present  these  grand  objects 
of  the  Apocalypse  in  new  relations  to  futurity,  which  could  not  be 
fully  expressed  imder  the  original  figures  of  the  cities  which  were 
the  capital  seats  of  each,  they  are  each  again  presented  under  the 


JOHN.  353 

poetical  image  of  two  females,  whose  actions  and  features  describe 
tlie  fate  of  these  two  systems,  and  their  upholders.  First,  imraedi- 
diately  after  the  account  of  the  city  which  is  called  Sodom,  a  female 
is  described  as  appearing  in  the  heavens,  in  a  most  peculiar  array 
of  glory,  clothed  in  the  sun's  rays,  with  the  moon  beneath  her  feet, 
and  upon  her  head  a  crown  of  twelve  stars.  This  woman,  thus 
splendidly  arrayed,  and  exalted  to  the  skies,  represents  the  ancient 
covenant,  crowned  with  all  the  old  and  holy  honors  of  the  twelve 
tribes  of  Israel.  A  huge  red  dragon  (the  image  under  which  Daniel 
anciently  represented  idolatry)  rises  in  the  heavens,  sweeping  away 
the  third  part  of  the  stars,  and  characterized  by  seven  heads  and 
ten  horns,  (thus  identified  with  a  subsequent  metaphor  representing 
imperial  Rome ;) — he  rages  to  devour  the  oifspring  to  which  the 
woman  is  about  to  give  existence.  The  child  is  born  destined  to 
rule  all  nations  with  a  rod  of  iron, — and  is  caught  up  to  the  throne 
of  God,  while  the  mother  flees  from  the  rage  of  the  dragon  into  the 
wilderness,  where  she  is  to  wander  for  ages,  till  the  time  decreed  by 
God  for  her  return.  Thus,  when  from  the  ancient  covenant  had 
sprung  forth  the  new  revelation  of  truth  in  Jesus,  it  was  driven  by 
the  rage  of  heathenism  from  its  seat  of  glory,  to  wander  in  loneliness, 
unheeded  save  by  God,  till  the  far  distant  day  of  its  blissful  re-union 
with  its  heavenly  offspring,  which  is,  under  the  favor  of  God,  ad- 
vancing to  a  firm  and  lasting  dominion  over  the  nations.  Even  in 
her  retirement,  she  is  followed  by  the  persecutions  of  the  dragon, 
now  cast  down  from  higher  glories ;— but  his  fury  is  lost, — she  is 
protected  by  the  earth,  [sheltered  by  the  Parthian  empire ;  (?)]  yet 
the  dragon  still  persecutes  those  of  her  children  who  believe  in 
Christ,  and  are  yet  within  his  power  ;  [Jews  and  Christians  perse- 
cuted in  Rome,  by  Nero  and  Domitian.  (?)] 

Again,  after  the  punishment  and  destruction  of  imperial  Babylon 
have  been  described,  a  second  female  appears,  not  in  heaven,  like 
the  first,  but  in  an  earthly  wilderness  splendidly  attired,  but  not 
with  the  heavenly  glories  of  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars.  Purple  and 
scarlet  robes  are  her  covering,  marking  an  imperial  honor ;  and  gold, 
silver,  and  all  earthly  gems,  adorn  her, — showing  only  worldly 
greatness.  In  her  hand  is  the  golden  cup  of  sins  and  abominations, 
and  she  is  designated  beyond  all  possibility  of  mistake,  by  the  words 
"Mystery,  Babylon  the  Great."  This  refers  to  the  fact,  that 
Rome  had  another  name  which  was  kept  a  profound  secret,  known 
only  to  the  priests,  and  on  the  preservation  of  which  religious  "  mys- 
tery," the  fortunes  of  the  empire  were  supposed  to  depend.  The 
second  name  also  identifies  her  with  the  city  before  described  as 
"  Babylon."  She  sits  on  a  scarlet  beast,  with  seven  heads  and  ten 
horns.  The  former  are  afterwards  minutely  explained  by  the  apos- 
tle himself,  in  the  same  chapter,  as  the  seven  hills  on  which  she  sits  ; 
they  are  also  seven  kings,  that  is,  it  would  seem,  seven  periods  of 
empire,  epochs  of  triumph,  or  leaders  of  conquest,  of  which  five  are 


354  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

past,  one  now  is,  and  one  brief  one  is  yet  to  come,  and  the  bloody 
beast  itself — the  religion  of  heathenism — is  another, — an  eighth 
power,  yet  one  of  the  seven,  coeval  with  all  and  each,  yet  doomed 
with  them  at  last,  to  perdition.  The  ten  horns  are  the  ten  kings  or 
sovrans  who  never  received  any  lasting  dominion,  but  merely  held 
the  sway  one  after  another,  a  brief  hour,  with  the  beast,  or  spirit  of 
heathenism.  These,  in  short,  are  the  ten  emperors  of  Rome  before 
the  days  of  tlie  Apocalypse : — Augustus,  Tiberius,  Caligula,  Clau- 
dius, Nero,  Galba,  Otho,  Vitellius,  Vespasian,  and  Titus.  These 
had  all  reigned,  each  his  hour,  giving  his  power  to  the  support  of 
heathenism,  and  thus  warring  against  the  faith  of  the  true  believers. 
Still,  though  reigning  over  the  imperial  city,  they  shall  hate  her, 
and  make  her  desolate ;  strip  her  of  her  costly  attire,  and  burn  her 
with  fire.  How  well  expressed  here  the  tyranny  of  the  worst  of  the 
Caesars,  plundering  the  state,  banishing  the  citizens,  and,  in  the  case 
of  Nero,  "  burning  her  with  fire  !"  Who  can  mistake  the  gorgeously 
awful  picture  ?  It  is  heathen  imperial  Rome,  desolating  and  deso- 
lated, at  that  moment  suffering  under  the  tyrannic  sway  of  him  whom 
the  apostle  cannot  yet  number  with  the  gloomy  ten,  that  have 
passed  away  to  the  tomb  of  ages  gone.  It  is  the  mystic  Babylon, 
drunk  with  the  blood  of  the  faithful  witnesses  of  Christ,  and  tri- 
umphing in  the  agonies  of  his  saints,  "  butchered  to  make  a  Roman 
holiday !"  No  wonder  that  the  amazement  of  the  apostolic  seer 
should  deepen  into  horror,  and  highten  to  indignation.  Through 
her  tyranny  his  brethren  had  been  slaughtered,  or  driven  out  from 
among  men,  like  beasts  ;  and  by  that  same  tyranny  he  himself  was 
now  doomed  to  a  lonely  exile  from  friends  and  apostolic  duties,  on 
that  wild  heap  of  barren  rocks.  "Well  might  he  burst  out  in  pro- 
phetic denunciation  of  her  ruin,  and  rejoice  in  the  awful  doom, 
which  the  angels  of  God  sung  over  her ;  and  listen  exultingly  to 
the  final  wail  over  her  distant  fall,  rolling  up  from  futurity,  in  the 
coming  day  of  the  Gothic  and  Vandal  and  Hunuish  and  Herulic 
ravagers,  when  she  should  be  "  the  desolator  desolate,  the  victor 
overthrown." 

Mystery. — There  is  a  remarkable  reference,  not  often  noticed,  in  these  words,  to 
the  fact  that  ancient  Rome  had  a  mysterious  name,  supposed  to  be  connected  with 
the  destiny  of  the  city,  and  kept  as  an  awful  religious  secret  among  the  most  solemn 
arcana  of  heathenism.  The  learned  and  ingenious  Creuzer,  in  his  profound  work 
on  the  religion  of  ancient  Italy,  touching  in  conclusion  on  the  religious  antiquities 
and  the  founding  of  Rome,  remarks—"  It  was  now  necessary  that  the  city  should  also 
have  its  name, — or  rather,  several  names, — an  ordinary,  an  extraordinary,  and  a 
mysterious  name.  It  is  known  how  much  the  nations  of  antiquity  relied  on  the 
power  of  secret  names.  There  was  one  name  for  it,  which  only  the  gods,  and  men 
to  whom  it  was  entrusted  by  the  gods,  knew, — another  name  known  only  to  the 
priests,— and  a  name  for  the  whole  people's  use.  Romulus,  too,  gave  his  city  three 
names ;  a  secret  one,  a  sacerdotal,  and  a  public  one.  The  secret  name  was,  Love, 
(Lat.  Amor,  an  anagram  on  Ronia.  Probus  and  Servius  on  Virgil  Ecloga.  I.  5,)  be- 
cause all  dwelt  in  the  city  in  harmony,  under  the  influence  of  divine  love  :  the  sacer- 
dotal name  was  Flora,  or  Anthu.sa,  {KvOovija,  flowery,  Macrob.  and  Solin  ;)  and  the 
Eublic  name  was  Rome.  The  well-known  passage  in  the  Apocalypse  of  John  (xvii.  5) 
as  given  rise  to  several  investigations  into  the  secret  names  of  the  city  of  Rome. 


JOHN.  355 

Munter  (i?e  occuUo  urbis  Romae  nomine)  has  lately  given  an  examination  of  the 
evidences.  He  quotes  the  most  important  opinions,  and  expresses  his  surprise  that 
no  one  has  ever  fallen  upon  the  name  Saturnia.  This  name  was  consecrated  in 
Eiruria  and  Latium ;  and  the  original  ancient  Rome  had  at  first  two  hills  [of  the 
seven  finally  included]  within  the  circuit  of  its  walls,  viz.  the  Pallanteum,  after- 
wards the  Palatine  hill,  and  the  Capitoline,  on  which  formerly  stood  the  little  city 
of  Saturiua,  (Dionys.  Halicarn.  and  Varro;)  and  Munter  thinks  he  has  now  found 
on  old  Roman  coins,  traces  of  the  fact  that  Saturnia  was  the  earliest  mark  of  the  lo- 
cality which  afterwards  became  known  as  the  Capitoline  hill. — The  sacerdotal  name, 
Anthusa,  (or,  in  Latin,  Flora,)  had  its  own  legend.  Tarquinius  Priscus  wished  to 
build  on  the  Tarpeian  hill,  (afterwards  the  Capitoline.)  For  this  purpose,  many 
places  on  which  altars  then  stood,  must  be  unhallowed,  {exaugurate,  that  is,  reduced 
from  a  sacred  to  a  common  use.)  The  Augurs  effected  this  with  the  altars  of  all  the 
rest  of  the  gods,  without  difficulty  ;  but  Terminus,  (the  god  of  boundaries,)  and  Ju- 
ventas,  Tlhe  goddess  of  youth,  Hebe.)  refused  to  give  way.  The  conclusion  at  which 
the  propnets(or  Augurs)  then  arrived  on  this  occurrence,  was  the  joyful  hope  that  no 
time  should  ever  displace  the  boundary  of  the  city  of  Rome,  or  overthrow  its  high  place. 
This  was  implied  in  the  names  of  Flora,  or  the  blooviing,  and  Valentia-Roma,  or 
the  strong.  The  ancient  Rome  is  said  to  have  had  tlie  name  of  Valentia,  (or,  as 
Miinter  suggests,  in  accordance  with  the  forms  of  the  early  Latin,  Valesia,  or  Va- 
leria.) But  after  the  time  of  the  Grecian  Evander,  it  is  said  to  have  received  the 
Greek  name,  Rome,  ('Pw/i^,  strength.)  [The  idle  fiction  that  the  city  took  its  name 
from  Romulus,  has  long  been  e.xploded,  the  king  having  undoubtedly  taken  his  name 
from  the  city  which  he  enlarged  and  ruled.]  The  old  etymology  from  ruvia,  {breast,) 
has  been  lately  favored,  however,  by  A.  W.  Schlegel,  and  is  supported  by  some  Ro- 
man antiquities.  But  the  derivation  from  the  Greek,  'Pw//>7,  (home,  strength,)  has 
many  mythological  supports,  and  Salnr  (whence  Saturnus  and  Saturnia)  signifies 
moreover  '  manly,'  '  stro/is,'  as  does  Mavors  also."  (Creuzer's  SymboliK.  Theil. 
II.  cap.  ix.  §  18.  pp.  1001—1003.) 

From  the  assurances  conveyed  by  these  most  ancient  religious  mysteries  and 
prophecies,  as  well  as  from  the  possession  of  the  seven  mystic  pledges  of  eternal 
duration,  (the  royal  stone,  the  earthen  car  of  Jupiter  from  Veii,  the  ashes  of  Orestes, 
the  sceptre  of  Priam,  the  veil  of  Helen,  the  ancilia,  and  the  palladium,)  the  proud 
Romans  derived  their  firm  belief  of  the  eternity  of  their  city.  The  title  of  "  Eter.val 
CITY."  {Aeterna  urbs,)  which  is  so  often  applied  to  Rome,  on  ancient  coins  and  in- 
scriptions, marks  the  confidence  which  national  and  religious  feeling  inspired  in 
Roman  patriots  and  monarchs,  that  the  centre  of  dominion  should  never  depart  from 
the  seven-hilled  seat  to  which  so  many  pledges  held  it.  And  it  is  most  remarkable 
that  to  this  day  those  high  prophetic  anticipations  are  justified  by  the  unequaled 
power  which  Rome  still  holds  over  the  vast  majority  of  the  civilized  and  Christian 
world,  in  religion  and  historical  association,  maintaining  more  than  its  ancient  glory 
and  power,  in  the  hearts  of  millions. 

Never  received  any  dominion. —  The  Greek  ovtto)  {oupo)  is  in  the  common  English 
version  translated  "  not  as  yet ;"  but  the  ordinary  natural  force  of  the  word  requires 
nothing  more  than  the  vague  "  never." 

As  there  are  three  mystically  named  cities — Sodom,  Babylon,  and 
the  New  Jerusalem ;  so  there  are  three  metaphoric  females, — the 
star-crowned  woman  in  heaven,  the  bloody  harlot  on  the  beast  in 
the  wilderness,  and  the  bride,  the  Lamb's  wife.  A  peculiar  fate  be- 
falls each  of  the  three  pairs.  The  spiritual  Sodom  (Jerusalem) 
falls  under  a  temporary  ruin,  trodden  under  foot  by  the  Gentiles, 
forty-two  months  ;  and  the  star-crowned  daughter  of  Zion  (Judaism) 
wanders  desolate  in  the  wilderness  of  the  world,  for  twelve  hundred 
and  sixty  days,  till  the  hand  of  her  God  shall  restore  her  to  grace 
and  glory.  The  great  Babylon  of  the  seven  hills,  (Rome,)  falls 
under  a  doom  of  far  darker,  and  of  irrevocable  desolation : — like  the 
dashing  roar  of  the  sinking  rock  thrown  into  the  sea,  she  is  thrown 
down,  and  shall  be  found  no  moje  at  all.     And  such,  too,  is  the 


356  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

doom  of  the  fierce  scarlet  rider  of  the  beast,  (Heathenism,) — "  Re- 
joice over  her,  O  heaven  !  and  ye  holy  apostles  and  prophets !  for 
God  has  avenged  you  on  her."  But  beyond  all  this  awful  ruin  ap- 
pears a  vision  of  contrasting,  splendid  beauty. 

"  The  two  first  acts  already  past, 
The  t/iird  shall  close  the  drama  with  the  day — 
Time's  noblest  offspring  is  the  last." 

The  shouts  of  vindictive  triumph  over  the  dreadful  downfall  of 
the  bloody  city,  now  soften  and  sweeten  into  the  songs  of  joy  and 
praise,  while  the  New  Jerusalem  (the  Church  of  God  and  Christ) 
comes  down  from  the  heavens  in  a  solemn,  glorious  mass  of  living 
splendor,  to  bless  the  earth  with  its  holy  presence.  In  this  last  great 
scene,  also,  there  is  a  female,  the  third  of  the  mystic  series ;  not  like 
her  of  the  twelve  stars,  now  wandering  like  a  widow  disconsolate, 
in  the  wilderness ; — not  like  her  of  the  jeweled,  scarlet,  and  purple 
robes,  cast  down  from  her  lofty  seat,  Uke  an  abandoned  harlot,  now 
desolate  in  ashes,  from  which  her  smoke  rises  up  for  ever  and 
ever ; — but  it  is  one,  all  holy,  happy,  pure,  beautiful,  coming  down 
stainless  from  the  throne  of  God,  (Christianity,) — a  br'ide,  crowned 
with  the  glory  of  God,  adorned  for  her  husband, — the  One  slain  from 
the  foundation  of  the  world.  He  through  the  opening  heavens,  too, 
has  come  forth  before  her,  the  Word  of  God,  the  Faithful  and  the 
True, — known  by  his  bloody  vesture,  stained,  not  in  the  gore  of 
slaughtered  victims,  but  in  the  pure  blood  poured  forth  by  himself, 
for  the  world,  from  its  foundation.  Lately  he  rode  forth  on  his 
white  horse,  as  a  warrior-king,  dealing  judgment  upon  the  world 
with  the  sword  of  wrath, — with  the  sceptre  of  iron.  Behind  him 
rode  the  armies  of  heaven, — the  hallowed  hosts  of  the  chosen  of  God, 
— like  their  leader,  on  white  horses,  but  not  like  him,  in  crimson 
vesture ;  their  garments  are  white  and  clean  ;  by  a  miracle  of  puri- 
fication, they  are  washed  and  made  white  in  blood.  This  mighty 
leader,  with  these  bright  armies,  now  returns  from  the  conquests  to 
which  he  rode  forth  from  heaven  so  gloriously.  The  kings  and  the 
hosts  of  the  earth  have  arrayed  themselves  in  vain  against  him ; — 
the  mighty  imperial  monster,  in  all  the  vastness  of  his  wide  dominion, 
— the  false  prophets  of  heathenism,  combining  their  vile  deceptions 
with  his  power,  are  vanquished,  crushed  with  all  their  miserable 
slaves,  whose  flesh  now  fills  and  fattens  the  eagles,  the  vultures,  and 
the  ravens.  The  spirit  of  heathenism  is  crushed ;  the  dragon,  the 
monster  of  idolatry,  is  chained,  and  sunk  into  the  bottomless  pit, — 
yet  not  for  ever.  After  a  course  of  ages, — a  mystic  thousand  years, 
— he  slowly  rises,  and  winding  with  serpent  cunning  among  the  na- 
tions, he  deceives  them  again  ;  till  at  last,  lifting  his  head  over  the 
world,  he  gathers  each  idolatrous  and  barbarous  host  together,  from 
the  whole  breadth  of  the  earth,  encompassing  and  assaultino:  the 
camp  of  the  saints ;  but  while  they  hope  for  the  ruin  of  the  faithful, 
fire  comes  down  from  God,  an4  devours  them.     The  accusing  de- 


JOHN.  357 

ceiver, — the  genius  of  idolatry  and  superstition,  is  at  last  seized  and 
bound  again ;  but  not  for  a  mere  temporary  imprisonment.  With 
the  spirit  of  deception  and  imposture,  he  is  cast  into  a  sea  of  fire, 
where  both  are  held  in  unchanging  torment,  day  and  night,  for  ever. 
But  one  last,  awful  scene  remains ;  and  that  is  one,  that  in  sublimity, 
and  vastness,  and  beauty,  shining  out  from  amid  the  most  overwhelm- 
ing horror,  as  far  outgoes  the  highest  efforts  of  any  genius  of  human 
poetry,  as  the  boundless  expanse  of  the  sky  excels  the  mightiest  work 
of  man.  "  A  great  white  throne  is  fixed,  and  One  sits  on  it,  from  whose 
face  heaven  and  earth  flee  away,  and  no  place  is  f6und  for  them." 
"  The  dead,  small  and  great,  stand  before  God;  they  are  judged  and 
doomed,  as  they  arise  from  the  sea  and  from  the  land, — from  Hades, 
and  from  every  place  of  death."  Over  all,  rises  the  new  heaven  and  the 
new  earth,  to  which  now  comes  down  the  city  of  God, — the  church 
of  Christ, — into  which  the  victorious,  the  redeemed,  and  the  faithful 
enter.  The  Conqueror  and  his  armies  march  into  the  bridal  city 
of  the  twelve  jeweled  gates,  on  whose  twelve  foundation-stones  are 
written  the  names  of  the  mighty  founders,  the  twelve  apostles  of 
the  slain  one.  The  glories  of  that  last,  heavenly,  and  truly  eternal 
city,  are  told ;  and  the  mighty  course  of  prophecy  ceases.  The  three 
great  series  of  events  are  announced ;  the  endless  triumphs  of  the 
faithful  are  achieved. 

III.  What  is  the  style  op  the  Apocalypse? 

This  inquiry  refers  to  the  language,  spirit,  and  rhetorical  struc- 
ture of  the  writing,  to  its  rank  as  an  effort  of  composition,  and  to 
its  peculiarities  as  expressive  of  the  personal  character  and  feelings 
of  its  inspired  writer.  The  previous  inquiry  has  been  answered  in 
such  a  way  as  to  illustrate  the  points  involved  in  the  present  one  j 
and  a  recapitulation  of  the  simple  results  of  that  inquiry,  will  best 
present  the  facts  necessary  for  a  satisfactory  reply  to  some  points  of 
this. 

First,  the  Apocalypse  is  a  'prophecy^  in  the  common  understand- 
ing of  the  term ;  but  is  not  limited,  as  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  that 
word,  to  a  mere  declaration  of  futurity;  it  embraces  in  its  plan  the 
events  of  the  past,  and  with  a  glance  like  that  of  the  Eternal,  sweeps 
over  that  which  has  been,  and  that  which  is  to  be,  as  though  both 
were  noiv;  and  in  its  solemn  course  through  ages,  past,  present,  and 
future,  it  bears  the  record  of  faithful  history,  as  well  as  of  glorious 
prophecy. 

Second,  the  Apocalypse  is  poetry,  in  the  highest  and  justest  sense 
of  the  word.  All  prophecy  is  poetry.  The  sublimity  of  such 
thoughts  can  not  be  expressed  in  the  plain  unbroken  detail  of  a  prose 
narrative ;  and  even  when  the  events  of  past  history  are  combined 
in  one  harmonious  series  with  wide  views  of  the  future,  they,  too, 
rise  from  the  dull  unpicturcd  record  of  a  mere  narrator,  and  share 
ill  the  elevation  of  the  mighty  whole.     The  spirit  of  the  writer,  re- 


LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

plete,  not  with  mere  particulars,  but  with  vivid  images,  seeks  lan- 
guage that  paints,  '•  thoughts  that  breathe,  and  words  that  burn  ;" 
and  thus  the  writing  that  flows  forth  is  poetry, — the  imaginative  ex- 
pression of  deep,  high  feeling — swelling  where  the  occasion  moves 
the  writer,  into  the  energy  of  passion,  whether  dark  or  holy. 

The  character  of  the  Apocalypse,  as  affected  by  the  passionate  feel- 
ings of  the  writer,  is  also  a  point  which  has  been  illustrated  by  fore- 
going historical  statements  of  liis  situation  and  condition  at  the  time 
of  the  Revelation.  He  was  the  victim  of  an  unjust  and  cruel  sen- 
tence, deprived  of  all  the  sweet  earthly  solaces  of  his  advanced  age, 
and  left  on  a  desert  rock,  useless  to  the  cause  of  Christ,  and  beyond 
even  the  knowledge  of  its  progress.  The  mournful  sound  of  sweep- 
ing winds  and  dashing  waves,  alone  broke  the  dreary  silence  of  his 
loneliness,  and  awaking  sensations  only  of  a  melancholy  order,  sent 
back  his  thoughts  into  the  sadder  remembrances  of  the  past,  and 
called  up  also  many  of  the  sterner  emotions  against  those  who  had 
been  the  occasions  of  the  past  and  present  calamities  which  grieved 
him.  The  very  outset  is  in  sucVi  a  tone  as  these  circumstances 
would  naturally  inspire.  A  deep,  holy  indignation  breaks  forth  in 
the  solemn  annunciation  of  himself:  as  their  "brother  and  companion 
in  tribulation."  Sadness  is  the  prominent  sentiment  expressed  in 
all  the  addresses  to  the  churches;  and  in  the  prelude  to  the  great 
Apocalypse,  while  the  ceremonies  of  opening  the  book  which  con- 
tains it  are  going  on,  the  strong  predominant  emotion  of  the  writer 
is  again  betrayed  in  the  vision  of  "  the  souls  of  them  that  were  slain 
for  the  word  of  God,  and  for  the  testimony  which  they  bore  ;"  and 
the  solemnly  mournful  cry  which  they  send  up  to  him  for  whom 
they  died,  expresses  the  deep  and  bitter  feeling  of  the  writer  towards 
the  murderers, — "  How  long-,  O  Lord  !  holy  and  true  !  dost  thou  not 
judge  and  avenge  our  blood  on  them  that  dwell  on  the  earth  ?"  The 
apostle  was  thinking  of  the  martyrs  of  Jerusalem  and  Rome, — of 
those  who  fell  under  the  persecutions  of  the  high  priests,  of  Agrippa, 
and  of  Nero.  And  when  the  seven  seals  are  broken,  and  the  true 
revelation,  of  which  this  ceremony  was  only  a  poetical  prelude, 
actually  begins,  the  first  great  view  presents  the  bloody  scenes  of 
that  once  Holy  city,  which  now,  by  its  cruelties  against  the  cause 
which  is  to  him  as  his  life, — by  the  remorseless  murder  of  those  who 
are  near  and  dear  to  him, — has  lost  all  its  ancient  dominion  over 
the  affections  and  the  hopes  of  the  last  apostle  and  all  the  followers 
of  Christ. 

Again  the  mournful  tragedies  of  earlier  apostolic  days  pass  before 
him.  Again  he  sees  his  noble  brother  bearing  his  bold  witness  of 
Jesus ;  and  with  him  that  other  apostle,  who  in  works  and  fate  as 
much  resembled  the  first,  as  in  name.  Their  blood  pouring  out  on 
the  earth,  rises  to  heaven,  but  not  sooner  than  their  spirits, — whence 
their  loud  witness  calls  down  woful  ruin  on  the  blood-defiled  city  of 
the  temple.     And  when  that  ruin  falls,  no  regret  checks  the  exulting 


JOHN.  359 

tone  of  the  thanksofivina:.  All  that  made  those  places  holy  and  dear, 
is  gone  ; — God  dwells  there  no  more  ;  "  the  temple  of  God  is  opened 
in  heaven,  and  tliere  is  seen  in  his  temple  the  ark  of  his  covenant," 
and  all  lieaven  swells  the  jubilee  over  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem. 
And  after  this,  when  the  apostle's  view  moved  forward  from  the 
past  to  the  future,  and  his  eye  rested  on  the  crimes  and  the  destiny 
of  heathen  Rome,  the  bitter  remembrances  of  her  cruelties  towards 
his  brethren,  lifted  his  soul  to  high  indignation,  and  he  burst  forth 
on  her  in  the  inspired  wrath  of  a  Son  of  Thunder, — 

"  Every  burning  word  he  spoke, 
Full  of  rage,  and  full  of  grief, 

"  '  Rome  shall  perish ;  write  that  word 
In  the  blood  that  she  has  spilt— 
Perish,    hopeless    and   abhorred, — 
Deep  in  ruin  as  in  guilt.'  " 

In  respect  to  the  learning  displayed  in  the  Apocalpyse,  some  most 
remarkable  facts  are  observable.  Apart  from  the  very  copious  mat- 
ters borrowed  from  the  canonical  writings  of  the  Old  Testament, 
from  Isaiah,  Ezekiel,  Daniel,  and  other  prophets,  from  which,  as  any 
reader  can  see,  some  of  the  most  splendid  imagery  has  been  taken 
almost  verbatim, — it  is  undeniable,  that  John  has  drawn  very  largely 
from  a  famous  apocryphal  Hebrew  writing,  called  the  Book  op 
Enoch,  which  Jude  has  also  quoted  in  his  epistle ;  and  in  his  life  it 
will  be  more  fully  described.  The  vision  of  seven  stars,  explained 
to  be  angels, — of  the  pair  of  balances  in  the  hand  of  the  horseman, 
after  the  opening  of  the  third  seal, — the  river  and  tree  of  life, — the 
souls  under  the  altar,  crying  for  vengeance, — the  angel  measuring 
the  city, — the  thousand  years  of  peace  and  holiness, — are  all  found 
vividly  expressed  in  that  ancient  book,  and  had  manifestly  been 
made  familiar  to  John  by  reading.  In  other  ancient  apocryphal 
books,  are  noticed  some  other  striking  and  literal  coincidences  with 
the  Apocalypse.  The  early  Rabbinical  writings  are  also  rich  in  such 
parallel  passages.  The  name  of  the  Conqueror,  "  which  no  one 
knows  but  himself," — the  rainbow  stretched  around  the  throne  of 
God, — the  fiery  sceptre, — the  seven  angels, — the  sapphire  throne, — 
the  cherubic  four  beasts,  six-winged,  crying  Holy,  Holy,  Holy,  Lord 
God  of  hosts, — the  crowns  of  gold  on  the  heads  of  the  saints,  which 
they  cast  before  the  throne, — the  book  with  seven  seals, — the  souls 
under  the  altar, — the  silence  in  heaven — the  Abaddon, — the  child 
caught  up  to  God, — -Satan,  as  the  accuser  of  the  saints,  day  and 
night  before  God, — the  angel  of  the  waters, — the  hail  of  great  weight, 
— the  second  death, — the  new  heaven  and  earth, — the  twelve-gated 
city  of  precious  stones, — and  Rome,  under  the  name  of  "  Great  Ba- 
bylon,"— are  all  found  in  the  old  Jewish  writings,  in  such  distinct- 
ness as  to  make  it  palpable  that  John  was  deeply  learned  in  Hebrew 
literature,  both  sacred  and  traditional. 

Yet  all  these  are  but  the  forms  of  expression,  not  of  thought.    The 


360  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

apostle  used  them,  because  lon^,  constant  familiarity  with  the  writings 
in  which  such  imagery  abounded,  made  these  sentences  the  most 
natural  and  ready  vehicles  of  inspired  emotions.  The  tame  and 
often  tedious  details  of  those  old  human  inventions,  had  no  influence 
in  molding  the  grand  conceptions  of  the  glorious  revelation.  This 
had  a  deeper,  a  higher,  a  holier  source,  in  the  spirit  of  eternal  truth, 
— thevmighty  suggestions  of  the  time-oversweeping  spirit  of  pro- 
phecy,— the  same  that  moved  the  fiery  lips  of  those  denouncers  of 
the  ancient  Babylon,  whose  writings  had  been  deeply  known  to  him 
by  years  of  study,  and  had  furnished  also  a  share  of  consecrated  ex- 
pressions. That  spirit  he  had  caught  during  his  long  eastern  resi- 
dence in  the  very  scene  of  their  prophecy,  and  its  awful  fulfilment. 
If  the  notion  of  his  dwelling  for  a  time  with  Peter  in  Babylon  is 
well  founded,  as  it  has  been  above  narrated,  it  is  at  once  suggested 
also,  that  in  that  Chaldean  city, — then  the  capital  seat  of  all  Hebrew 
learning,  and  for  ages  the  fount  of  light  to  the  votaries  of  Judaism, 
— he  had,  during  the  years  of  his  stay,  been  led  to  the  deep  study 
and  the  vast  knowledge  of  that  amazing  range  of  Talmudical  and 
Cabbalistical  learning,  which  is  displayed  in  every  part  of  the  Apo- 
calypse. But  how  different  all  these  resources  in  knowledge,  from 
the  mighty  production  that  seemed  to  flow  from  them !  How  far  are 
even  the  sublimest  conceptions  of  the  ancient  prophets,  in  their  un- 
connected bursts  and  fragments  of  inspiration,  from  the  harmonious 
plan,  the  comprehensive  range,  and  the  faultless  dramatic  unity, 
or  rather  tri-unity,  of  this  most  perfect  of  historical  views,  and  of 
poetical  conceptions ! 

All  these  coincidences,  with  a  vast  number  of  other  learned  references,  highly  illus- 
trative of  the  character  of  the  Apocalypse,  as  enriched  with  Oriental  imagery,  may 
be  found  in  Wait's  very  copious  notes  on  Hug's  Introduction.  Adam  Clarke  is  also 
very  full  indeed  on  the  Rabbinical  coincidences,  and  refers  largely  to  SchOllgen. 

There  are  many  things  in  this  view  of  the  Apocalypse  which  will  occasion  surprise 
to  many  readers,  but  to  none  who  are  familiar  with  the  views  of  the  standard  ortho- 
dox writers  on  this  department  of  Biblical  literature.  The  view  taken  in  the  text  of 
this  work,  corresponds  in  its  grand  outlines,  to  the  high  authorities  there  named; 
though  in  the  minute  details,  it  follows  none  exactly.  Some  interpretations  of  par- 
ticular passages  are  found  nowhere  else;  but  these  occasional  peculiarities  cannot 
affect  the  general  character  of  the  view;  and  it  will  certainly  be  found  accordant 
with  that  universally  received  among  the  Biblical  scholars  of  Germany  and  England, 
belonging  to  the  Romish,  the  Lutheran,  the  Anglican,  and  Wesleyan  churches. 
The  authority  most  closely  followed  is  Dr.  Hug,  a  Romanist  professor  of  theology 
in  an  Austrian  university,  further  explained  by  his  translator.  Dr.  D.  G.  Wait,  of  the 
church  of  England,  whose  attainments  in  Biblical  and  Oriental  literature,  must 
place  him  among  the  most  eminent  of  the  m'.merous  learned  divines  of  that  church. 
These  views  are  also  supported  by  the  commentary  of  that  splendid  Orientalist,  Dr. 
Adam  Clarke,  a  work  which,  fortunately  for  the  world,  is  fast  taking  the  place  of  the 
numerous  lumbering,  prosing  quartos,  that  have  too  long  met  the  mind  of  the  com- 
mon Bible  reader  with  mere  masses  of  dogmatic  theology,  where  he  needs  the  help 
of  simple,  clear  interpretation  and  illustration,  which  has  been  drawn  by  the  truly 
learned,  from  a  minute  knowledge  of  the  language  and  critical  history  of  the  .sacred 
writings.  This  noble  commentary,  as  far  as  I  know,  is  the  first  which  favored  the 
honest  ground  of  the  ancient  interpretation  of  the  Apocalypse,  with  common  readers, 
and  constitutes  a  noble  monument  to  the  praise  of  the  good  and  learned  men,  who 
first  threw  light  for  such  readers  on  the  most  sublime  book  in  the  sacred  canon,  and 
among  all  the  writings  ever  penned  by  man, — a  book  wliich  ignorant  visionaries  had 


JOHN.  361 

too  long  been  suffered  to  overcloud  and  perplex  for  those  who  need  the  guidance  of 
the  learned  in  the  interpretation  of  the  "  many  things  hard  to  be  understood"  in  the 
volume  of  truth.  [He  has,  however,  so  far  favored  common  prejudices,  as  to  give 
(on  Rev.  xii.,xiii.,xvii.)  the  long  anti-papal  explanations  of  some  anonymous  writer, 
(J.  E.  C. ;)  but  Dr.  Clarke  expre.ssiy  declares  that  he  will  not  be  answerable  for  them; 
and  he  says  all  that  he  dare,  to  discountenance  them  by  his  own  notes.]  The  first 
book  of  a  popular  character,  ever  issued  from  the  American  press,  eicplaining  the 
Apocalypse  according  to  the  standard  mode,  is  a  treatise  on  the  Millennium,  by  the 
learned  Professor  Bush,  of  the  New  York  University,  in  which  he  adopts  the  grand 
outlines  of  the  plan  above  detailed,  though  I  have  not  had  the  opportunity  of  ascer- 
taining how  it  is,  in  the  minor  particulars. 

Probably  no  two  commentators  have  ever  thought  exactly  alike  as  to  the  proper 
interpretation  of  the  prophecies  of  the  Apocalypse.  Indeed,  in  the  mere  particulars 
there  is  so  much  that  was  undoubtedly  fanciful  and  poetical,  that  it  does  not  seem 
reasonable  to  believe  that  any  thing  like  a  complete  explanation  of  details  can  ever 
be  reasonably  hoped  for.  Every  thing,  for  instance,  connected  with  numbers,  may 
most  properly  be  left  to  the  vagueness  which  befits  the  minor  details  of  a  poetical 
or  prophetical  writing.  The  numbers  seven  and  ten,  for  instance,  are  often  used  in  a 
vague  way,  without  any  very  exact  regard  to  the  particulars  in  any  case  alluded  to; 
for  these  two  numbers  have  a  sort  of  solemn  character,  in  popular  impressions,  which 
fits  them  for  application  to  subjects  where  the  obscure,  rather  than  the  precise,  is  de- 
sirable, to  highien  effect.  In  some  particulars,  however,  it  is  unquestionable  that  these 
numbers  are,  in  the  Apocalypse,  literally  exact.  But  they  are  often  so  used  as  to 
imply  nothing  very  definite. 

Though  Grotius,  Eichhorn,  Hug,  Wait,  (and  I  might  have  added,  Hammond,  Jo- 
hannsen,  Rosenmuller,  and  Creuzer,)  are  named  as  advocating  the  general  views 
here  adopted,  as  to  the  general  scope  of  the  Apocalypse,  and  though  all  of  them,  with 
the  great  body  of  modern  critical  and  learned  commentators,  agree  in  justly  denying 
any  reference  whatever  of  these  prophecies  to  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  Romish 
papal  power,  still  neither  all  nor  any  one  of  these  great  authorities  can  be  referred 
to,  as  supporting  all  of  the  opinions  here  advanced,  though  most  of  the  particulars  are 
advocated  by  the  majority  of  the  standard  commentators.  Hug  and  his  translator  are 
those  who  are  most  closely  followed ;  but  the  critical  reader  will  perceive  many  dif- 
ferences, upon  comparison.  Each  one  of  the  distinguished  commentators  named  has 
been  pronounced  unfortunate  in  making  peculiar  errors  in  the  details  of  his  particular 
exposition  of  the  prophecy.  Grotius  has  been  justly  considered  very  unsuccessful  in 
explaining  the  figure  of  the  beast  as  applicable  to  the  emperor  Domitian,  personally; 
and  in  many  other  details  he  has  undoubtedly  failed.  But  in  just  conception  of  the 
general  .scope  of  the  Apocalypse,  he  surpassed  all  before  his  time,  and  has  hardly 
been  equaled  by  ihose  who  have  followed  him.  Eichhorn,  too,  was  misled  by  the 
fanciful  notion  of  a  dramatic  structure  of  the  Apocalypse.  Rosenmuller  has  also 
fallen  into  great  errors,  in  seeking  to  interpret  the  great  figures  of  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  chapters,  as  applying  only  to  the  events  of  the  civil  wars  of  Rome,  be- 
tween the  partisans  of  Vitellius  and  Vespasian,  and  in  giving  the  work  too  early  a 
date.  Various  other  errors  might  be  traced  in  these  and  most  of  those  who  have 
attempted  an  explanation  of  the  Apocalypse, — errors  which  serve  to  show  the  idle 
character  of  any  attempt  to  reconcile  all  the  minute  poetical  figures  of  the  prophecy 
with  the  actual  developments  of  history. 

With  the  ordinary  sermonizing  commentators,  such  as  Henry,  Scott,  Newton,  &c. 
(and  in  this  case,  Doddridge,)  these  rational  views  find  no  .support ;  but  whatever 
may  be  their  circulation  among  common  readers,  most  of  these  writers  have  so  little 
authority  among  the  critical,  that  their  opinions  on  a  question  of  interpretation  are  of 
too  trifling  consequence  to  deserve  quotation  here.  These,  with  the  still  more  fanciful 
modern  speculations  of  Faber,  Croly,  &c.  are  left  to  other  hands  and  more  appropri- 
ate places  for  criticism.  Of  all  the  fierce  anti-papal  interpretations,  it  is  enough  to 
saj ,  that  no  such  view  was  ever  taken  until  the  thirteenth  century,  when  the  Abbot 
Joachim,  and  the  monks  of  the  Franciscan  order,  in  their  furious  quarrels  with  the 
Pope,  first  conceived  the  idea  of  applying  John's  denunciations  of  ancient  pagan 
Rome  to  the  seat  of  their  theological  foes, — modern  papal  Rome.  The  first  reform- 
ers, Luther,  Calvin,  and  Zwingle,  all  disdained  such  aids,  and  even  rejected  the  book 
from  the  inspired  canon.  Yet  the  fanciful  interpreters  of  later  date,  tell  us  that  the 
reformation  is  distinctly  foretold  in  the  Apocalypse ;  and  the  vulgar  interpretation  of 
chap.  xiv.  is,  that  the  angel  described  in  verse  sixth,  is  Martin  Luther  himself!  (who 
believed  all  this  to  be  a  mere  human  invention,  and  denounced  the  Apocalypse  in  the 


362  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

most  violent  and  unmeasured  terms  !)  and  the  other  angels  are  in  the  same  way  ex- 
plained as  representing  the  other  great  reformers  !  The  first  Protestant  commentator 
of  any  note,  who  adopted  the  Franciscan  interpretation  of  the  Apocalypse,  was  Beza, 
whose  great  worth  and  authority  did  much  to  make  these  views  prevalent.  The 
other  advocates  of  the  vulgar  interpretation  afterwards  became  so  numerous,  that 
even  their  names  can  not  be  given  here.  I'he  best  general  view  of  the  opinions  of  all 
before  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  may  be  found  in  Poole's  Synopsis. 

To  do  justice  to  the  views  here  expressed  on  the  scope  of  the  Apocalypse,  it  must 
be  remembered  thai  only  a  general  account  is  intended;  and  mainly,  only  those  parts 
which  have  a  distinguishable  reference  to  the  history  of  John's  own  times.  Of  the  great 
figures  used  in  the  prophecy,  it  may  be  here  summarily  staled,  that  the  dragon  (chap, 
xii.,  xiii.,  &c.,)  is,  according  to  established  usages  in  the  prophetic  writings  of  the  Old 
Testament,  interpreted  as  referring  to  heathenism  generally,  throughout  the  world, 
as  opposed  to  the  pure  religion  anciently  revealed  to  Israel.  The  beast  with  ten 
horns  (chap,  xiii.)  is  considered  as  the  imperial  power  of  Rome;  and  the  beast  with 
ttoo  horns  (xiii.  11 — 17)  as  the  Roman  svstem  ok  idolatry,  superstition,  and  impos- 
ture, wliich,  united  with  the  imperial  power,  and  supported  by  it,  in  turn  furnished 
the  immense  spiritual  power  and  influence  which  it  pos.sessed,  for  the  support  of 
secular  tyranny.  The  woman  in  scarlet  is  the  city  of  Rome,  (rather  than  the  em- 
pire,)  and  all  which  is  said  of  it  applies  to  it  as  the  centre  of  heathenism,  tyranny, 
and  perseciUion.  The  general  points  respecting  the  three  females  and  the  three 
cities,  are  distinctly  enough  explained  in  the  text  of  this  work. 

In  reference  to  the  tone  assumed  in  some  passages  of  the  statement  in  the  text,  per- 
haps it  may  be  thought  that  more  freedom  has  been  used  in  characterizing  opposite 
views,  than  is  accordant  with  a  proper  moderation  and  hesitation.  But  where,  in  the 
denunciation  of  popular  error,  a  ref'erence  to  the  motive  of  the  inculcators  of  it  would 
serve  to  expose  most  readily  its  nature,  such  a  freedom  of  pen  has  been  fearlessly 
adopted;  and  severity  of  language  on  these  occasions  is  justified  by  the  consideration 
of  the  character  of  the  delusion  which  is  to  be  overthrown.  The  statements  loo, 
which  are  the  occasion  and  the  support  of  these  condemnationsof  vulgar  notions,  are 
not  all  drawn  from  the  mere  conceptions  of  the  writer  of  this  book,  but  from  the  un- 
answerable authorities  of  the  great  standards  of  Biblical  interpretation.  The  oppor- 
tunity of  research  on  this  point  has  been  too  limited  to  allow  any  thing  like  an 
enumeration  of  all  the  great  names  who  support  this  view ;  but  references  enough 
have  already  been  made,  to  show  that  an  irresistible  weight  of  orthodox  sentiment  has 
decided  in  favor  of  these  views,  as  above  given. 

Some  of  the  minute  details,  particularly  those  not  authorized  by  learned  men,  who 
have  already  so  nearly  perfected  the  standard  view,  may  fall  under  the  censure  of 
the  critical,  as  fanciful,  like  those  so  freely  condemned  before;  but  they  were  written 
down  because  it  seemed  that  there  was,  in  those  cases,  a  wonderfully  minute  corres- 
pondence between  these  passages  and  events  in  the  life  of  John,  not  commonly  noticed. 
Much  of  this  view,  however,  may  be  found  almost  verbatim  in  "Wait's  translation  of 
Hug's  Introduction. 

The  most  satisfactory  evidence  of  the  meaning  of  the  great  mystery  of  the  Apoca- 
lypse, is  in  the  true  interpretation  of  "  the  number  of  the  beast,"  the  mystic  666.  In 
the  Greek  and  Oriental  languages,  the  letters  are  used  to  represent  numbers ;  and 
thence  arose  in  my.stic  writings  a  mode  of  representing  a  name  by  any  number, 
which  would  be  made  up  by  adding  together  the  numbers  for  which  its  leUers  stood  ; 
and  so  any  number  thus  my.stically  given  may  be  resolved  into  a  name,  by  taking 
any  woid  whose  letters,  when  added  together,  will  make  up  that  sum.  Now  the  word 
Latinus,  (Afjrai/05,)  lueaning  the  Latin  or  Roman  empire,  (for  the  names  are  synony- 
mous,) is  made  up  of  Greek  letters  representing  the  numbers  whose  sum  is  66G. 
Thus,  A-30,  a-1,  T-300,  e-5,  <-10,  .-50,  n-70,  j-206— all  which,  added  up,  make  just 
C66.  What  confirms  this  view  is,  that  Irenaeus  says,  "John  himself  told  those  who 
saw  him  face  to  face,  that  this  was  what  he  meant  by  the  number;"  and  Irenaeus  as- 
sures us  that  he  himself  heard  this  from  the  personal  acquaintances  of  John.  (See 
Wail's  note.     Trans,  of  Hug's  Introd.  II.  626—629,  note.) 

In  Dr.  Adam's  Clarke's  commentary,  (on  Rev.  xiii.  18,)  a  new  and  ingenious  so- 
lution is  given,  not  at  all  inconsistent  with  the  general  view  above  supported.  The 
number  666  can  in  the  same  way  be  resolved  into  'H  Aarivr)  p  aa  t  X  £  r  a — "  The 
Roman  Empire."  The  only  important  objections  to  this  are— its  opposition  to  that 
interpretation  which  Irenaeus  received  from  John's  personal  acqiuiintanccs,  as  the 
apostle's  own  explanation  of  the  number, — and  its  omission  of  the  letter  £  in  the  Greek 
form  of  the  name  of  the  Roman  empire,  the  long  i  in  such  cases  being  always  repre- 


JOHN.  368 

sented  by  the  diphthong  cT.  (See  Rosenmiiller  in  Apocal.  xiii.  18.)  The  expression, 
"  HERErN  IS  wisno.M,"  it  should  be  observed,  is  an  old  Rabbinical  Ibrmula,  often  used 
to  announce  some  mystery  of  this  sort,  which  the  learned  reader  was  to  search  out. 
It  is  remarkable,  also,  that  the  number  666  can  in  like  manner  be  made  up  by  the 
numerals  of  the  Hebrew  word  n"'Dii  {Romith,)  which  is  the  Hebrew  form  of  tne  name 
of  Rome. 

HIS  LAST  RESIDENCE  IN  EPHESUS. 

The  date  of  John's  return  from  Patmos  is  capable  of  more  exact 
proof  than  any  other  point  in  the  chronology  of  his  later  years. 
The  death  of  Domitian,  who  fell  at  last  under  the  daggers  of  his 
own  previous  friends,  now  driven  to  this  measure  by  their  danger 
from  his  murderous  tyranny,  happened  in  the  sixteenth  year  of  his 
own  reign,  (A.  D.  96.)  On  the  happy  consummation  of  this  de- 
sirable revolution,  Cocceius  Nerva,  who  had  himself  suffered  ban- 
ishment under  the  suspicious  tyranny  of  Domitian,  was  now  re- 
called from  his  exile,  to  the  throne  of  the  Caesars ;  and  mindful  of 
his  own  late  calamity,  he  commenced  his  just  and  blameless  reign 
by  an  auspicious  act  of  clemency,  restoring  to  their  country  and 
home  all  who  had  been  banished  by  the  late  emperor.  Among 
these,  John  was  doubtless  included ;  for  the  decree  was  so  compre- 
hensive that  he  could  hardly  have  been  excluded  from  the  benefit 
of  its  provisions  ;  and  to  give  this  view  the  strongest  confirmation, 
it  is  specified  by  the  heathen  historians  of  Rome,  that  this  sena- 
torial decree  of  general  recall  did  not  except  even  those  who  had 
been  found  guilty  of  religious  offenses.  Christian  writers,  also, 
of  a  respectable  antiquity,  state  distinctly  that  the  Apostle  John 
was  recalled  from  Patmos  by  this  decree  of  Nerva.  Some  of  the 
early  ecclesiastical  historians,  indeed,  have  pretended  that  this  per- 
secution against  the  Christians  was  suspended  by  Domitian  him- 
self, on  some  occasion  of  repentance  ;  but  critical  examination  and 
a  comparison  of  higher  authorities,  both  sacred  and  profane,  have 
disproved  the  notion.  The  data  above  mentioned,  therefore,  fix 
the  return  of  John  from  banishment,  in  the  first  year  of  Nerva, 
which,  according  to  the  most  approved  chronology,  corresponds 
with  A.  D.  96.  This  date  is  useful  also,  in  affording  ground  for 
a  reasonable  conjecture  respecting  the  comparative  age  of  John. 
He  could  not  have  been  near  as  old  as  Jesus  Christ,  since  the  at- 
tainment of  the  age  of  ninety-six  must  imply  an  extreme  of  in- 
firmity necessarily  accompanying  it,  unless  a  miracle  of  most 
unparalleled  character  is  supposed ;  and  no  one  can  venture  to 
require  belief  in  a  pretended  miracle,  of  which  no  sacred  record 
bears  testimony.     If  he  was,  on  his  return  from  Patmos,  as  well 


364  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

as  during  his  residence  there,  able  to  produce  writings  of  such 
power  and  such  clear  expression,  as  those  which  are  generally- 
attributed  to  these  periods,  it  seems  reasonable  to  suppose  that  he 
was  many  years  younger  than  Jesus  Christ.  The  common  Chris- 
tian era,  also,  fixing  the  birth  of  Christ  some  years  too  late,  this 
circumstance  will  require  a  still  larger  subtraction  from  this  num- 
ber, for  the  age  of  John. 

HIS  GOSPEL. 

The  united  testimony  of  early  writers  who  allude  to  this  matter, 
is — that  John  wrote  his  gospel  long  after  the  completion  and  circula- 
tion of  the  writings  of  the  three  first  evangelists.  Some  early  testi- 
mony on  the  subject  dates  from  the  end  of  the  second  century,  and 
specifies  that  John,  observing  that  in  the  other  gospels  those  things 
were  copiously  related  which  concern  the  humanity  of  Christ,  wrote 
a  spiritual  gospel,  at  the  earnest  solicitations  of  his  friends  and  disci- 
ples, to  explain  in  more  full  detail  the  divinity  of  Christ.  This  ac- 
count is  certainly  accordant  with  what  is  observable  of  the  structure 
and  tendency  of  this  gospel ;  but  much  earlier  testimony  than  this, 
distinctly  declares  that  John's  design  in  writing  was  to  attack  certain 
heresies  on  the  same  point  specified  in  the  former  statement.  The 
Nicolaitans  and  the  followers  of  Cerinthus,  in  particular,  who  were 
both  Gnostical  sects,  are  mentioned  as  having  become  obnoxious  to 
the  purity  of  the  truth,  by  inculcating  notions  which  directly  attack- 
ed the  true  divinity  and  real  Messiahship  of  Jesus.  The  earliest 
heresy  that  is  known  to  have  arisen  in  the  Gentile  churches,  is 
that  of  the  Gnostics,  who,  though  divided  among  themselves  by  some 
minor  distinctions,  yet  all  agreed  in  certain  grand  errors,  against 
which  this  gospel  appears  to  have  been  particularly  directed.  The 
great  system  of  mystical  philosophy  from  which  all  these  errors 
sprung,  did  not  derive  its  origin  from  Christianity,  but  existed  in 
the  East  long  before  the  time  of  Christ ;  ^ret  after  the  wide  diffusion 
of  his  doctrines,  many  v/ho  had  been  previously  imbued  with  this 
Oriental  mysticism,  became  converts  to  the  new  faith.  But  not 
rightly  apprehending  the  simplicity  of  the  faith  which  they  had  par- 
tially adopted,  they  soon  began  to  contaminate  its  purity  by  the 
addition  of  strange  doctrines,  drawn  from  their  philosophy,  which 
were  totally  inconsistent  with  the  great  revelations  made  by  Christ 
to  his  apostles.  The  prime  suggestion  of  the  mischief,  and  one, 
alas  !  which  has  not  at  this  moment  ceased  to  distract  the  churches 
of  Christ,  was  a  set  of  speculations,  introduced  "  to  account  for  the 
origin  and  existence  of  evil  in  the  ivorld,''^ — which  seemed  to  them 
inconsistent  with  the  perfect  work  of  an  all-wise  and  benevolent 
being.  Overleaping  all  those  minor  grounds  of  dispute  which  are 
now  occupying  the  attention  of  modern  controversialists,  they  attack- 
ed the  very  basis  of  religious  truth,  and  adopted  the  notion  that  the 


JOHN.  365 

world  was  not  created  by  the  supreme  God  himself,  but  by  a  being 
of  inferior  rank,  called  by  them  the  Demiurgus,  whom  they  consider- 
ed deficient  iiL  benevolence  and  in  wisdom,  and  as  thus  being  the 
occasion  of  the  evil  so  manifest  in  the  works  of  his  hands.  This 
Demiurgus  they  considered  identical  with  the  God  of  the  Jews,  as 
revealed  in  the  Old  Testament,  Between  hira  and  the  Supreme 
Deity  they  placed  an  order  of  beings,  to  which  they  assigned  the 
names  of  the  "  Only-begotten,"  "  the  Word,"  "  the  Light,"  "  the  Life," 
&c. ;  and  among  these  superior  beings  was  Christ, — a  distinct  ex- 
istence from  Jesus,  whom  they  declared  a  mere  man,  the  son  ot 
Mary,  but  acquiring  a  divine  character  by  being  united  at  his  bap- 
tism to  the  Divinity,  Christ,  who  departed  from  him  at  his  death. 
Most  of  the  Gnostics  utterly  rejected  the  law  of  Moses ;  but  Cerin- 
thus  is  said  to  have  respected  some  parts  of  it. 

A  full  account  of  the  prominent  characteristics  of  the  Gnostical  system  may  be 
found  in  Mosheim's  Ecclesiastical  History,  illustrated  by  valuable  annotations  in  Dr. 
Murdock's  translation  of  that  work.  The  scholar  will  also  find  an  elaborate  account 
of  this,  with  other  Oriental  mysticisms,  in  Beausobre's  Historic  de  Manichee  et  du 
Manicheisme.  J.  D.  Michaelis,  in  his  Introduction  to  the  N.  T.,  (vol.  III.  c.  ii.  §  5,) 
is  also  copious  on  these  tenets,  in  his  account  of  John's  gospel.  He  refers  also  to 
Watch's  History  of  Heretics.  Hug's  Introduction  also  gives  a  very  full  account  of 
the  peculiarities  of  Cerinthus,  as  connected  with  the  scope  of  this  gospel.  Introd.  vol. 
II.  §§  49—53,  of  the  original,  §§  48—52,  Wait's  translation. 

In  connexion  with  John's  living  at  Ephesus,  a  story  became  afterwards  current 
about  his  meeting  him  on  one  occasion  and  openly  expressing  a  personal  abhorrence 
of  him.  "  Irenaeus  (adv.  Haer.  III.  c.  4.  p.  140)  states  from  Polycarp,  that  John  once 
going  into  a  bath  at  Ephesus,  discovered  Cerinthus,  the  heretic,  there ;  and  leaping 
out  of  the  bath  he  hastened  away,  saying  he  was  afraid  lest  the  building  should  fall 
on  him,  and  crush  him  along  with  the  heretic."  Conyers  Middleton,  in  his  Miscel- 
laneous works,  has  attacked  this  story,  in  a  treatise  upon  this  express  point.  (This 
is  in  the  edition  of  his  works  in  four  or  five  volumes,  quarto ;  but  I  cannot  quote  the 
volume,  because  it  is  not  now  at  hand.)  Lardner  also  discusses  it.  (Vol.  I.  p.  325', 
vol.  II.  p.  555,  4to.  ed.) 

There  can  be  no  better  human  authority  on  any  subject  connected  with  the  life  of 
John,  than  that  of  Irenaeus  of  Lyons,  (A.  D.  160,)  who  had  in  his  youth  lived  in 
Asia,  where  he  was  personally  acquainted  with  Polycarp,  the  disciple  and  intimate 
friend  of  John,  the  apostle.  His  words  are,  "  John,  the  disciple  of  the  Lord,  wishing 
by  the  publication  of  his  gospel  to  remove  that  error  which  had  been  sown  among 
men,  by  Cerinthus,  and  much  earlier,  by  those  called  Nicolaitans,  who  are  a  shoot 
of  science,  (or  the  Gnosis,)  falsely  so  called ; — and  that  he  might  both  confound  them, 
and  convince  them  that  there  is  but  one  God,  who  made  all  things  by  his  word,  and 
not,  as  they  say,  one  who  was  the  Creator,  and  another  who  was  the  Father  of  our 
Lord."  (Heres.  lib.  III.  c.  xi.)  In  another  passage  he  says, — "  As  John,  the  disciple 
of  the  Lord,  confirms,  saying,  '  But  these  are  written  that  yon  may  believe  that  Jesus 
is  the  Son  of  God,  and  that  believing,  you  may  have  eternal  life  in  his  name,' — 
guarding  against  these  blasphemous  notions,  which  divide  the  Lord,  as  far  as  they 
can,  by  saying  that  he  was  made  of  two  different  substances."  (Heres.  lib.  III.  c.  xvi.) 
Michaelis,  in  his  Introduction  on  John,  discusses  this  passage,  and  illustrates  its  true 
application. 

The  first-quoted  passage  from  Irenaeus  relating  to  this  sect,  contains  a  remarkable 
Latin  word,  "  vulsio,"  not  found  in  any  other  author,  and  not  explained  at  all  in  the 
common  dictionaries.  That  miserable,  unsatisfactory  mass  of  words,  Ainsworth's 
Thesaurus,  does  not  contain  it,  and  I  was  left  to  infer  the  meaning  from  the  theme, 
vello,  and  it  was  therefore,  in  the  first  edition,  translated  "fragment," — a  meaning  not 
inconsistent  with  its  true  sense.  Since  that  was  printed,  a  learned  friend,  to  whom 
the  difficulty  was  mentioned,  on  searching  for  the  word  in  better  dictionaries,  found 
it  in  Gesner's  Thesaurus,  distinctly  quoted  from  the  very  passage,  with  a  very  satis- 
factory explanation  of  its  exact  meaning.    Gesner's  account  of  it  is  as  follows: 


366  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

"  Vvlsio,  Irenaeus,  iii.  11,  Nicolaitae  sunt  vulsio  ejus,  i.  e.  surculus  inde  enatus,  et 
revulms,  stolo,  airopy.w^.  Sccta  una  ex  altera  velut  jiuUulavit."  The  meaning  therefore 
is,  a  "sucker,"  "  a  shoot  or  scion,  springing  out  of  the  root  or  side  of  the  stock,"  and 
the  expression  in  this  passage  may  therefore  be  translated,  "  The  Nicolaitans  are  a 
slip  or  sprig  of  the  old  stock  of  the  Gnosis."  And  as  Gesner  happily  explains  it,  "  One 
sect,  as  it  were,  sprouted  up  from  another." 

The  word  "  scieiUia,"  in  this  wretched  Latin  translation,  is  quoted  along  with  the 
adjacent  words  from  Paul's  second  epistle  to  Timothy,  (vi.  20,)  where  he  is  warning 
him  against  the  delusions  of  the  Gnostics,  and  speaks  of  "  the  dogmas  of  the  Gnosis," 
(yvMtTii,)  translated  "  science,"  but  the  word  is  evidently  technical  in  this  passage. 
Irenaeus  no  doubt  quoted  it  in  the  Greek;  but  his  ignorant  translator,  not  perceiving 
the  peculiar  force  of  the  word,  translated  it  "  scientia,"  losing  all  the  sense  of  the  ex- 
pression. The  common  translations  of  the  Bible  have  done  the  same,  in  the  passage 
in  2  Timothy  vi.  20. 

It  appears  well  established  by  respectable  historical  testimony,  that 
Cerinthiis  was  contemporary  with  John  at  Ephesus,  and  that  he  had 
already  made  alarming  progress  in  the  diffusion  of  these  and  other 
peculiar  errors,  during  the  life  of  the  apostle.  John  therefore,  now 
in  the  decline  of  life,  on  the  verge  of  the  grave,  would  wish  to  bear 
his  inspired  testimony  against  the  advancing  heresy  ;  and  the  occa- 
sion, scope,  and  object  of  his  gospel,  are  very  clearly  illustrated  by  a 
reference  to  the  circumstances.  The  peculiar  use  of  terms,  more 
particularly  in  the  first  part, — terms  which  have  caused  so  much 
perplexity  and  controversy  among  those  who  knew  nothing  about 
the  peculiar  technical  sio^nifications  of  these  mystical  phrases,  as  they 
were  limited  by  the  philosophical  application  of  them  in  the  system 
of  the  Gnostics, — is  thus  shown  in  a  historical  light,  highly  valuable 
in  preventing  a  mis-interpretation  among  common  readers.  This 
view  of  the  great  design  of  John's  gospel  will  be  found  to  coincide 
exactly  with  the  results  of  a  minute  examination  of  almost  all  parts 
of  it,  and  gives  new  force  to  many  passages,  by  revealing  the  par- 
ticular error  at  which  they  were  aimed.  The  details  of  these  coin- 
cidences cannot  be  given  here,  but  have  been  most  satisfactorily 
traced  out,  at  great  length,  by  the  labors  of  the  great  modern  ex- 
egetical  theologians,  who  have  occupied  volumes  with  the  elucida- 
tion of  these  points.  The  whole  gospel,  indeed,  is  not  so  absorbed 
in  the  unity  of  this  plan,  as  to  neglect  occasions  for  supplying  general 
historical  deficiencies  in  the  narratives  of  the  preceding  evangelists. 
An  account  is  thus  given  of  two  journeys  to  Jerusalem,  of  which  no 
mention  had  ever  been  made  in  former  records,  while  hardly  any 
notice  whatever  is  taken  of  the  incidents  of  the  wanderings  in  Gali- 
lee, which  occupy  so  large  a  portion  of  former  narratives, — except 
so  far  as  they  are  connected  with  those  instructions  of  Christ  which 
accord  with  the  great  object  of  this  gospel.  The  scene  of  the  great 
part  of  John's  narrative  is  laid  in  Judea,  more  particularly  in  and 
about  Jerusalem;  and  on  the  parting  instructions  given  by  Christ  to 
his  disciples,  just  before  his  crucifixion,  he  is  very  full ;  yet.  even  in 
those,  he  seizes  hold  mainly  of  those  things  which  fall  most  directly 
within  the  scope  of  his  work.  But  throughout  the  whole,  the  grand 
object  is  seen  to  be,  the  presentation  of  Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  the  son 


JOHN.  367 

of  the  living,  eternal  God,  containing  within  himself  the  Life,  the 
Light,  the  Only-begotten,  the  Word,  and  all  the  personified  excel- 
lences, to  which  the  Gnostics  had,  in  their  mystic  idealism,  given  a 
separate  existence.  It  thus  differs  from  all  the  former  gospels,  in 
the  circumstance,  that  its  great  object  and  its  general  character  is 
not  historical,  but  dogmatical, — not  universal  in  its  direction  and 
tendency,  but  aimed  at  the  establishment  of  particular  doctrines,  and 
the  subversion  of  particular  errors. 

Another  class  of  sectaries,  against  whose  errors  John  wrote  in  this 
gospel,  were  the  Sabians,  or  disciples  of  John  the  Baptist ;  for  some 
of  those  who  had  followed  him  during  his  preaching,  did  not  after- 
wards turn  to  the  greater  Teacher  and  Prophet,  whom  he  pointed  out 
as  the  one  of  whom  he  was  the  forerunner ;  and  these  disciples  of 
the  great  Baptizer,  after  his  death,  taking  the  pure  doctrines  which 
he  taught  as  a  basis,  made  up  a  peculiar  religious  system,  by  large 
additions  from  the  same  Oriental  mysteries  from  which  the  Gnostics 
had  drawn  their  remarkable  principles.  They  acknowledged  Jesus 
Christ  as  a  beins:  of  hio^h  order,  and  desig-nate  him  in  their  reliofious 
books  as  the  "  Disciple  of  Life  ;"  while  John  the  Baptist,  himself 
somewhat  inferior,  is  called  the  "  Apostle  of  Light," — and  is  said 
to  have  received  his  peculiar  glorified  transfiguration,  from  a  body 
of  flesh  to  a  body  of  light,  from  Jesus,  at  the  time  of  his  baptism  in 
the  Jordan  ;  and  yet  is  represented  as  distinguished  from  the  "  Dis- 
ciple of  Life,"  by  possessing  this  peculiar  attribute  of  Light. 

This  mystical  error  is  distinctly  characterized  in  the  first  chapter 
of  this  gospel,  and  is  there  met  by  the  direct  assertions,  that  in  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Word,  and  the  God,  was  not  only  life,  but  that  the  life 
itself  was  the  light  of  men  ; — and  that  John  the  Baptist  "  was  not 
the  Light,  but  was  only  sent  to  bear  witness  of  the  liiGHT ;"  and 
again,  with  all  the  reiterative  earnestness  of  an  old  man,  the  aged 
writer  repeats  the  assertion,  that  "  this  was  the  true  Light,  which 
enlightens  every  man  that  comes  into  the  world."  Against  these 
same  sectaries,  the  greater  part  of  the  first  chapter  is  directed  dis- 
tinctly, and  the  whole  tendency  of  the  work  throughout,  is,  in  a 
marked  manner,  opposed  to  their  views.  With  them,  too,  John  had 
had  a  local  connexion,  by  his  residence  in  Ephesus,  where,  as  it  is 
distinctly  specified  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  Paul  had  found  the 
peculiar  disciples  of  John  the  Baptist  long  before,  on  his  first  visit  to 
that  city  ;  and  had  successfully  preached  to  some  of  them  the  religion 
of  Christ,  which  before  was  a  strange  and  a  new  thing  to  them. 
The  whole  tendency  and  scope  of  this  gospel,  indeed,  as  directed 
against  these  two  prominent  classes  of  heretics,  both  Gnostics  and 
Sabians,  are  fully  and  distinctly  summed  up  in  the  conclusion  of  the 
twentieth  chapter : — "These  things  are  written,  that  ye  might  believe 
that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  and  that  in  believing  on 
him,  ye  might  have  life  through  his  name." 
This  view  of  the  design  of  John's  gospel,  I  adopted  long  since,  on  a  perusal  of  John 


368  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

David  Michaelis's  Introduction,  which  gives  the  evidences  in  favor  of  this  view  so 
fully  and  fairly,  that  the  reflexion  of  years,  conjoined  with  the  reading  of  the  ablest 
statements  and  defenses  of  opposite  opinions,  has  not  induced  me  to  change.  These 
views,  I  know,  have  been  powerfully  opposed  by  able,  critical,  and  truly  learned 
writers ;  and  probably  there  is  no  one  wno  has  more  ably  supported  these  opposite 
views,  than  Charles  Christian  Tittman,  of  Dresden,  who,  in  his  Meletemata  Sacra  in 
Evang.  Joann.  has  maintained  that  in  none  of  the  writings  of  the  New  Testament  are 
there  any  traces  of  the  existence  of  either  the  Gnostic  or  the  Sabian  sect.  He  de- 
nies altogether  that  the  sect  now  existing  in  the  East  under  the  latter  name,  are  in 
any  way  connected  with  the  disciples  of  John  the  Baptist,  and  maintains  that  they 
are  merely  a  Muhammedan  sect,  for  the  proof  of  which  he  refers  to  the  opinions  and 
statements  of  Niebuhr,  Tychsen,  Adler,  and  Paulus,  the  first-mentioned  writer  being 
the  traveler  whose  accounts  afforded  the  basis  of  modern  speculations  upon  this  sub- 
ject. He  slights  also  the  evidence  of  the  existence  of  the  followers  of  John  as  a  dis- 
tinct sect,  and  claims  that  there  is  no  historical  testimony  of  their  continuance  through 
the  earlier  ages  of  Christianity. 

As  to  Niebuhr's  evidence  that  the  Sabians  consider  Muhammed  as  a  prophet,  no 
•writer  has  ever  denied  it ;  and  there  is  no  difficulty  whatever  in  the  fact  that  the  sup- 

f»osed  followers  of  John  the  Baptist,  living  without  any  true  knowledge  of  the  clear 
ight  of  Christian  revelation,  gave  themselves  up  to  the  delusions  of  the  Muhamme- 
dan faith,  grafting  that  upon  their  previous  incomplete  religious  creed.  Muhammed 
did  not  require  of  any  believer  in  the  Old  Testament  to  renounce  his  previous  faith, 
nor  is  even  the  Christian  convert  to  Islamism  required  to  disown  the  divine  au- 
thority and  inspiration  of  John  the  Baptist,  of  Jesus  Christ,  or  of  his  apostles.  All 
over  the  Muhammedan  world,  from  Western  Africa  to  the  farthest  East,  John  and 
IssA  (Jesus)  are  acknowledged  as  the  prophets  of  God,  and  the  Koran  requires  them 
to  be  reverenced  as  such.  The  followers  of  John  the  Baptist,  therefore,  would  not 
be  required,  in  becoming  Muhammedans,  to  renounce  a  single  article  of  their  pre- 
vious faith,  but  merely  to  adopt  Muhammed  as  the  last  and  greatest  prophet  of  God; 
nor  would  they  cease  to  be  Sabians,  in  becoming  Moslems. 

The  evidence  in  the  New  Testament,  of  the  existence  of  the  followers  of  John  the 
Baptist  as  a  sect,  is  also  very  unjustifiably  slighted  by  Tittman.  From  passages  in 
the  gospels,  it  is  evident  that  during  the  life  of  John,  there  were  many  who  still  attach- 
ed themselves  to  him  as  a  divine  teacher,  in  preference  to  following  Jesus,  and  many 
among  the  people  who,  as  well  as  the  king,  regarded  him  as  the  greatest  of  prophets. 
(Matt.  xi.  2—19.  xiv.  1,  2.  Mark  vi.  14—29.  Luke  vii.  18—30.  ix.  7—9.  John  iii. 
25 — 36.)  From  the  last  passage  it  further  appears  that  some  jealousy  existed  among 
them,  of  the  progressive  fame  and  influence  of  Jesus.  It  is,  by  most  commentators  on 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  also  considered  incontestable  that  many  of  the  disciples  of 
John  did  remain  distinct  and  separate  after  the  ascension  of  Jesus,  not  joining  them- 
selves to  the  apostles,  or  receiving  the  essential  doctrines  of  Christianity,  mostly  in- 
deed through  ignorance.  (See  Poole,  Kuinoel,  and  Bloomfield,  on  Acts  xviii.  24—26. 
six.  1—7.)  ApoUos,  though  so  well  instructed  in  the  way  of  the  Lord,  as  far  as  it 
could  be  learned  by  the  teaching  of  John,  was  yet  so  very  ignorant  of  true  Christiani- 
ty, as  to  need  very  careful  indoctrination  before  he  could  be  safely  trusted  with  the 
work  of  the  gospel.  It  should  be  particularly  noticed  also,  that  he  as  well  as  the 
other  disciples  of  John,  soon  after  mentioned,  were  all  at  ^^/tcs«5,— the  very  place 
where  John  wrote  his  gospel,  and  where  the  local  existence  of  such  a  sect  is  supposed 
to  have  been  an  occasion  and  motive  for  his  writing  it.  This  coincidence  is  one 
which  adds  much  to  the  probability  of  the  view  here  taken.  Though  twelve  of  these 
disciples  readily  adopted  the  truth,  as  made  known  to  them  by  Paul,  there  is  no  ac- 
count of  the  conversion  of  any  others  among  them  ;  and  doubtless  many  still  preferred 
their  previous  half-knowledge  of  the  truth  to  the  full  light  of  the  gospel. 

There  is  also  a  passage  in  one  of  the  spurious  writings  attributed  to  Clement,  which 
speaks  of  this  sect.  It  is  true  that  these  are  not  so  early  as  they  claim  to  be,  and  de- 
serve no  confidence  in  general ;  but  it  is  beyond  all  question  that  they  were  written 
before  the  year  400  of  the  Christian  era;  and  the  merest  reference  to  the  followers  ot 
John  the  Baptist,  as  a  sect,  is  enough  to  show  that  in  the  fourth  century  the  existence 
of  such  a  sect  was  believed,  and  apparently  well-known.  This  is  a  still  more  im- 
portant coincidence,  and  one  Avhich  no  one  has  ever  pretended  to  account  for.  (See 
Clementis  Romani  Recognitiones,  I.  §  54,  60.) 

The  books  now  in  use  among  the  Sabians,  are  remarkably  characterized  by  the 
very  frequent  recurrence  of  those  peculiar  expressions  with  which  John's  gospel  so 
much  abounds,— such  as  Life.  Light,  &c.  ;  and  the  great  errors  which  they  inculcate 


JOHN.  309 

are  just  such  as  the  prominent  doctrines  continually  held  out  in  John's  gospel  must 
have  been  especially  calculated  to  overthrow.  The  rank  and  character  which  ihey 
attribute  to  Jesus,  and  the  qualities  which  they  claim  that  John  the  Baptist  had  in  a 
superior  degree,  are  quite  directly  opposite  the  great  statements  of  John's  gospel,  and 
remind  the  reader,  at  once,  of  the  peculiar  phraseology  of  the  evangelist.  (Michaelis 
has  given  large  extracts  from  these  books,  in  his  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament, 
— on  John's  gospel ;  and  to  him  the  reader  is  referred  for  the  details  of  the  argument.) 
As  to  the  fact  that  this  sect  is  so  little  noticed  by  the  ancient  ecclesiastical  writers, 
it  is  sutficient  to  reply,  that  its  existence  could  not  have  been  very  widely  known, 
since  by  all  accounts  it  appears  not  to  have  existed  beyond  the  neighborhood  around 
Ephesus  and  certain  sections  of  Palestine  and  the  farther  East.  John  had  doiibtlesj 
had  opportunities  of  becoming  acquainted  with  these  sectaries  in  the  regions  where 
they  originally  arose,  and  where  they  are  still  found  ;  and  he  was  doubtless  thus  pre- 
pared to  attacif  their  errors  with  such  success  at  Ephesus,  that  the  sect  soon  ceased  to 
exist  there.  (Besides  Michaelis,  several  great  names  in  theologj'  support  this  view. 
Wolzogen,  Barkey,  Overbeck,  Storr,  and  Norberg,  are  quoted  and  disputed  by  Titt- 
man.)  Tittman  also  attacks  the  view  above  taken,  that  John  wrote  with  a  special 
reference  to  ihe  errors  of  the  Gnostics.  His  most  elaborate  criticism  of  this  point  is 
in  a  different  work  from  that  above  quoted.  {Traclatus  de  Vestigiis  Gnoslicorum  in 
N.  T.  frustra  quaesitis.)  Not  having  seen  the  original  work,  I  cannot  here  pretend  to 
do  full  justice  to  Tittman's  reasons,  which  he  alludes  to  only  in  general  terms  in  his 
Meletemata  on  John.  But  in  defense  and  explanation  of  the  view  here  adopted  on  the 
high  authority  of  Michaelis,  Hug,  and  the  majority  of  the  most  learned  modern 
critics  and  commentators,  it  may  be  well  to  remark,  that  by  the  Gnosis,  or  Gno&lical 
system,  is  not  understood  that  complete  scheme  of  mysticism  that  attained  such  alarm- 
ing strength  and  perfection  in  the  second  and  third  centuries,  but  the  first  floating 
errors  of  this  sort  that  infected  some  of  the  earliest  beginnings  of  Christian  theology. 
This  system  was  doubtless  originally  of  eastern  origin,  and  during  the  first  century 
appeared  in  the  various  forms  of  the  Nicolaitan,  the  Cerinthian,  and  other  heresies 
without  name,  which  are  the  subject  of  definite  allusion  in  the  New  Testament, — 
coming  from  the  various  sources  of  Jewish  Essenism  and  Cabbalisra,  Oriental  Zoro- 
astrism,  Alexandrine  philosophy  and  Therapeutism,  but  all  characterized  by  one 
general  spirit  of  imaginative  mysticism,  which  gradually  advancing  in  spite  of 
apostolic  teachings,  at  last  overspread  with  a  temporary  cloud  of  error  large  portions 
oi  the  eastern  churches.  (See  Murdock's  Mosheim,  I.  i.  2.  chap.  i.  §  4,  note,  (7,)  also 
chap.  V.) 

As  to  the  j)lat::e  where  this  gospel  was  written,  there  is  a  very  de- 
cided difference  of  opinion  among  high  authorities,  both  ancient  and 
modern, — some  affirming  it  to  have  been  composed  in  Patmos,  during 
his  exile,  and  others  in  Ephesus,  before  or  after  his  banishment. 
The  best  authority,  however,  seems  to  decide  in  favor  of  Ephesus, 
as  the  place  ;  and  this  view  seems  to  be  most  generally  adopted  in 
modern  times.  Even  those  who  suppose  it  to  have  been  written  in 
Patmos,  however,  grant  that  it  was  first  given  to  the  Christian  world 
in  Ephesus, — the  weight  of  early  authority  being  very  decided  on 
this  latter  point.  This  distinction  between  the  place  of  composition 
and  the  place  of  publication,  is  certainly  very  reasonable  on  some 
accounts,  and  is  supported  by  ancient  authorities  of  dubious  date ; 
but  there  are  important  objections  to  the  idea  of  the  composition  of 
both  this  and  the  Apocalypse,  in  the  same  place,  daring  about  one 
year,  which  was  the  period  of  his  exile.  There  seem  to  be  many 
things  in  the  style  of  the  gospel  which  would  show  it  to  be  a  work 
written  at  a  different  period,  and  under  different  circumstances  from 
the  Apocalypse ;  and  some  Biblical  critics,  of  high  standing,  have 
thought  that  the  gfospel  bore  marks  in  its  style,  which  characterize  it 
as  a  production  of  a  much  older  man  than  the  author  of  the  energetic, 


370  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

and  almost  furious  denunciations  of  the  Apocalypse,  must  have  been. 
In  this  case,  where  ancient  authority  is  so  little  decisive,  it  is  but  fair 
to  leave  the  point  to  be  determined  by  evidence  thus  connected  with 
the  date,  and  drawn  from  the  internal  character  of  the  composition 
itself, — a  sort  of  evidence,  on  which  the  latest  moderns  are  far  more 
capable  of  deciding,  than  the  most  ancient,  and  the  sagest  of  the 
Fathers.  The  date  itself  is  of  course  inseparably  connected  with 
the  determination  of  the  place,  and  like  that,  must  be  pronounced 
very  uncertain.  The  greatest  probability  about  both  these  points  is, 
that  it  was  written  at  Ephesus,  after  his  return  from  Patmos  ;  for 
the  idea  of  its  being  produced  before  his  banishment,  during  his  first 
residence  in  Asia,  has  long  ago  been  exploded  ;  nor  is  there  any  late 
writer  of  authority  on  these  points,  who  pretends  to  support  this  un- 
founded notion. 

HIS  FIRST  EPISTLE. 

All  that  has  been  said  on  the  character  and  the  objects  of  the  gos- 
pel, may  be  exactly  applied  to  this  very  similar  production.  So 
completely  does  it  resemble  John's  gospel,  in  style,  language,  doc- 
trines, and  tendencies,  that  even  a  superficial  reader  might  be  ready 
to  pronounce,  on  a  common  examination,  that  they  were  written  in 
the  same  circumstances  and  with  the  same  object.  This  has  been 
the  conclusion  at  which  the  most  learned  critics  have  arrived,  after 
a  full  investigation  of  the  peculiarities  of  both,  throughout ;  and  the 
standard  opinion  now  is,  that  they  were  both  written  at  the  same 
time  and  for  the  same  persons.  Some  reasons  have  been  given  by 
high  critical  authority,  for  supposing  that  they  were  both  written  at 
Patmos,  and  sent  together  to  Ephesus, — the  epistle  serving  as  a  preface, 
dedication,  and  accompaniment  of  the  gospel,  to  those  for  whom  it 
was  intended,  and  commending  the  prominent  points  in  it  to  their  par- 
ticular attention.  This  beautiful  and  satisfactory  view  of  the  object 
and  occasion  of  the  epistle,  may  certainly  be  adopted  with  great  pro- 
priety and  justice  ;  but  in  regard  to  the  places  of  its  composition  and 
direction,  a  different  view  is  much  more  probable,  as  well  as  more 
consistent  with  the  notion,  already  presented  above,  of  the  date  and 
occasion  of  the  gospel.  It  is  very  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  epistle 
was  written  some  years  after  John's  return  to  Ephesus, — that  it  was 
intended  (along  with  the  gospel,  for  the  churches  of  Asia  generally, 
to  whom  John  hoped  to  make  an  apostolical  pastoral  visit,  shortly) 
to  confirm  them  in  the  faith,  as  he  announces  in  the  conclusion. 
There  is  not  a  single  circumstance  in  gospel  or  epistle,  which  should 
lead  any  one  to  believe  that  they  were  directed  to  Ephesus  in  par- 
ticular. On  the  contrary,  the  total  absence  of  any  thing  like  a  per- 
sonal or  local  direction  to  the  epistle,  shows  the  justice  of  its  common 
title,  that  it  is  a  "  general  epistle,"  a  circular,  in  short,  to  all  the 
churches  under  his  special  apostolic  supervision, — for  whose  par- 
ticular dangers,  errors,  and  necessities,  he  had  written  the  gospel 


JOHN.  371 

just  sent  forth,  and  to  whom  he  now  minutely  commended  that 
work,  in  the  very  opening  words  of  his  letter,  referring  as  palpahly 
and  undeniably  to  his  gospel,  as  any  words  can  express.  "  Of  that 
which  '  was  from  the  beginning,  of  the  Word,^  which  1  have  heard, 
which  I  have  seen  with  my  eyes,  which  I  have  looked  upon,  which 
my  hands  have  handled — of  the  Word  of  hife^^  &c. ;  particularizing 
with  all  the  minute  verbosity  of  old  age,  his  exact  knowledge  of  the 
facts  which  he  gives  in  his  gospel,  assuring  them  thus  of  the  accura- 
cy of  his  descriptions.  The  question  concerns  his  reputation  for 
fidelity  as  a  historian  ;  and  it  is  easy  to  see,  therefore,  why  he  should 
labor  thus  to  impress  on  his  readers  his  important  personal  advan- 
tages for  knowing  exactly  all  the  facts  he  treats  of,  and  all  the  doc- 
trines which  he  gives  at  such  length  in  the  discourses  of  Christ. 
Again  and  again  he  says,  "  I  write,"  and  "  1  have  written,"  recapitu- 
lating the  sum  of  the  doctrines  which  he  has  designed  to  inculcate  ; 
and  he  particularizes  still  farther  that  he  has  written  to  all  classes 
and  ages,  from  the  oldest  to  the  youngest,  intending  his  gospel  for 
the  benefit  of  all.  '■'•  I  have  written  to  you,  fathers^'' — "  unto  you, 
young  inen^'' — "  unto  you,  little  children^''  (fee.  What  else  can  this 
imply,  than  a  dedication  of  the  work  concerning  "  the  Word,"  to 
all  stations  and  ages, — to  the  whole  of  the  Christian  communities, 
to  whom  he  commits  and  recommends  his  writings ; — as  he  writes 
"  to  the  fathers, — because  they  know  him  who  was  from,  the  begin- 
ning^^— in  the  same  way  "  to  the  young  men,  because  they  are  con- 
stant, and  the  Word  of  God  dwells  in  them,"  and  "  that  the  doctrine 
they  have  received  may  remain  unchangeable  in  them,"  and  "  on 
account  of  those  who  would  seduce  them."  He  recapitulates 
all  the  leading  doctrines  of  his  gospel, — the  Messiahship  and  the  Di- 
vinity of  Jesus, — his  Unity,  and  identity  with  the  divine  abstractions 
of  the  Gnostic  theoloo;y.  Here  too,  he  inculcates  and  renewedly 
urges  the  great  feeling  of  Christian  brotherly  love,  which  so  decidedly 
characterizes  the  discourses  of  Jesus,  as  reported  in  his  gospel.  So 
perfect  was  the  connexion  of  origin  and  design,  between  the  gospel 
and  this  accompanying  letter,  that  they  were  anciently  placed  to- 
gether, the  epistle  immediately  followino-  the  gospel ;  as  is  indubita- 
bly proved  by  certain  marks  in  ancient  manuscripts. 

It  was  mentioned,  in  connexion  with  a  former  part  of  John's  life,  that  this  epistle 
is  quoted  by  Augiistin  and  others,  under  the  title  of  the  epistle  to  the  Parthians.  It 
seems  very  probable  that  this  may  have  been  also  addressed  to  those  churches  in  the 
East,  about  Babylon,  which  had  certainly  suffered  much  under  the  attacks  of  these 
same  mystical  heretics.  It  is  explained,  however,  by  some,  that  this  was  an  acciden- 
tal corruption  in  the  copying  of  the  Greek. — The  .■^ecoMrZ  epistle  was  quoted  by  Clemens 
Alexandrinus,  under  the  title  of  "  the  epistle  to  the  virgins,"  vap6u'nvs,  (parihnious,) 
which,  as  some  of  the  modern  critics  say,  must  have  been  accidentally  changed  to 
irapOovi,  {parthous,)  by  dropping  some  of  the  syllables,  and  afterwards  transferred  to 
the  first  (.')  as  more  appropriate;— a  perfectly  unauthorized  conjecture,  and  directly 
ill  the  face  of  all  rules  of  criticism.  This  ancient  and  remarkable  testimony,  there- 
fore, must  stand  as  good  evidence,  notwith.'itanding  this  absurdly  trifling  conjecture; 
and  it  is  another  interesting  trace  of  that  eastward  movement  of  the  apostles  which 
research  enables  a  critical  historian  to  bring  to  light  from  these  incidental  references 
43 


372  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

to  it  among  the  Fathers,  as  well  as  from  passages  in  the  New  Testament.  It  offers 
proof  also  of  the  important  fact  that  this  epistle,  and,  of  course,  the  gospel  accompa- 
nying it,  were  addressed  not  only  to  the  Christians  of  Ionic  Asia,  among  whom  John 
then  resided,  but  also  to  those  of  Parthia,  among  whom  he  had  long  labored,  and 
with  whose  spiritual  wants  and  errors  he  must  have  been  well  acquainted.  The 
views  already  taken  of  the  origin  of  the  Gnostics,  show  that  the  eastern  regions,  where 
John  had  previously  resided,  were  the  great  sources  of  that  mysticism;  and  thus  to 
both  Eastern  and  Western  Gnostical  heretics,  as  well  as  to  both  Eastern  and  Western 
Sabians,  or  disciples  of  John  the  Baptist,  the  gospel  and  its  accompanying  epistle 
were  pointedly  and  properly  addressed. 

THE  SECOND  AND  THIRD  EPISTLES. 

These  are  both  evidently  private  letters  from  John  to  two  of  his 
intimate  personal  friends,  of  whose  circumstances  nothing  whatever 
being  known,  except  what  is  therein  contained,  the  notice  of  these 
brief  writings  must  necessarily  be  brief  also.  They  are  both  honor- 
ably referred  to,  as  entertainers  of  those  servants  of  Jesus  Christ 
who  travel  from  place  to  place,  and  seem  to  have  been  residents  in 
some  of  the  Asian  cities  within  John's  apostolic  circuit,  and  probably 
received  him  kindly  and  reverently  into  their  houses  on  his  tours  of 
duty ;  and  them  he  was  about  to  visit  again  shortly.  The  second 
epistle  is  directed  to  a  Christian  female,  who,  being  designated  by  the 
very  honorable  title  of  "  lady^''  was  evidently  a  person  of  rank  ;  and 
from  the  remark  towards  the  conclusion,  about  the  proper  objects  of 
her  hospitality,  it  is  plain  that  she  must  have  been  also  a  person  of 
some  property.  Mention  is  made  of  her  children  as  also  objects  of 
warm  affection  to  the  aged  apostle ;  and  as  no  other  member  of  her 
family  is  noticed,  it  is  reasonable  to  conclude  that  she  was  a  v/idow. 
The  contents  of  this  short  letter  are  a  mere  transcript,  almost  ver 
batim,  of  some  important  points  in  the  first,  inculcating  Christian 
love,  and  watchfulness  against  deceivers  ; — (no  doubt  the  Gnostical 
heretics, — the  Cerinthians  and  Nicolaitans.)  He  apologizes  for  the 
shortness  of  the  letter,  by  saying  that  he  hopes  shortly  to  visit  her  ; 
and  ends  by  communicating  the  affectionate  greetings  of  her  sister's 
children,  then  residents  in  Ephesus,  or  whatever  city  was  then  the 
home  of  John.  The  third  epistle  is  directed  to  Gains,  (that  is, 
Caius,  a  Roman  name.)  whose  hospitality  is  commemorated  with 
great  particularity  and  gratitude,  in  behalf  of  Christian  strangers, 
probably  preachers,  traveling  in  his  region.  Another  person,  named 
Diotrephes,  (a  Greek  by  name,  and  probably  one  of  the  partizans  of 
Cerinthus,)  is  mentioned  as  maintaining  a  very  different  character, 
who,  so  far  from  receiving  the  ministers  of  the  gospel  sent  by  the 
apostle,  had  even  excluded  from  Christian  fellowship  those  who  did 
exercise  this  hospitality  to  the  messengers  of  the  apostle.  John 
speaks  threateningly  of  him,  and  closes  with  the  same  apology  for 
the  shortness  of  the  letter,  as  in  the  former.  There  are  several  per- 
sons, named  Gains,  or  Caius,  mentioned  in  apostolic  history  ;  but 
there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  any  of  them  was  identical  with 
this  man,  whose  name  was  very  common. 


JOHN. 


S73 


For  these  lucid  views  of  the  objects  of  all  these  epistles,  I  am  mainly  indebted  to 
Hug's  Iniroduciion,  to  whom  belongs  the  merit  of  expressing  them  with  this  distinct- 
ness, though  others  before  him  have  not  been  far  from  apprehending  their  simple 
force.  Michaelis,  for  instance,  is  very  satisfactory,  and  much  more  full  on  some 
points.  In  respect  to  the  place  whence  they  were  written,  Hug  appears  to  be  wholly 
m  the  wrong,  in  referring  them  to  Patmos,  just  before  John's  return.  Not  the  least 
glimmer  of  a  reason  appears  why  all  the  writings  of  John  should  be  huddled  together 
in  his  exile.  I  can  make  nothing  whatever  of  the  learned  commentator's  reason 
about  the  deficiency  of  "  pen,  ink,  and  paper,"  (mentioned  in  Epist.  ii.  12,  and  iii.  13,) 
as  showing  that  John  must  still  have  been  in  "  that  miserable  place,"  Patmos.  The 
idea  seems  to  require  a  great  perversion  of  simple  words,  which  do  not  seem  to  be 
capable  of  any  other  sense  than  that  adopted  in  the  above  account. 

THE  TRADITIONS  OF  HIS  LIFE  IN  EPHESUS. 

To  tliis  period  of  his  life  are  referred  those  stories  of  his  mira- 
cles and  actions,  with  which  the  ancient  fictitious  apostolic  narra- 
tives are  so  crowded, — John  being  the  subject  of  more  ancient' 
traditions  than  any  other  apostle.  Some  of  those  are  so  respecta- 
ble and  reasonable  in  their  character,  as  to  deserve  a  place  here, 
although  none  of  them  are  of  such  antiquity  as  to  deserve  any 
confidence,  on  points  where  fiction  has  often  been  so  busy.  The 
first  which  follows  is  altogether  the  most  ancient  of  all  apostolic 
stories,  which  are  not  in  the  New  Testament  ;  and  even  if  it  is  a 
work  of  fiction,  it  has  such  merits  as  a  mere  tale,  that  it  would  be 
injustice  to  the  readers  of  this  book,  not  to  give  them  the  whole 
story,  from  the  most  ancient  and  best  authorized  record. 

It  is  related  that  John,  after  returning  from  banishment,  was  often  called 
to  the  neighboring  churches  to  organize  them,  or  to  heal  divisions,  and  to 
ordain  elders.  On  one  occasion,  after  ordaining  a  bishop,  he  committed  to 
his  particular  care  and  instruction  a  fine  young  man,  whom  he  saw  in  the 
congregation,  charging  the  bishop,  before  the  whole  church,  to  be  faithful 
to  him.  The  bishop  accordingly  took  the  young  man  into  his  house, 
watched  over  him,  and  instructed  him,  and  at  length  baptized  him.  After 
this,  viewing  the  young  man  as  a  confirmed  Christian,  the  bishop  relaxed 
his  watchfulness,  and  allowed  the  youth  greater  liberties.  He  soon  got 
into  bad  company,  in  which  his  talents  made  him  conspicuous,  and  pro- 
ceeding from  one  step  to  another,  he  finally  became  the  leader  of  a  band  of 
robbers.  In  this  state  of  things,  John  came  to  visit  the  church,  and  pre- 
sently called  upon  the  bishop  to  bring  forward  his  charge.  The  bishop 
replied  that  he  was  dead — dead  to  God; — and  was  now  in  the  mountains, 
a  captain  of  banditti.  John  ordered  a  horse  to  be  brought  immediately  to 
the  church  door,  and  a  guide  to  attend  him;  and  mounting,  he  rode  full 
speed  in  search  of  the  gang.  He  soon  fell  in  with  some  of  them,  v;ho 
seized  him,  to  be  carried  to  their  head  quarters.  John  told  them  that  this 
was  just  what  he  wanted,  for  he  came  on  purpose  to  see  their  captain.  As 
they  drew  near,  the  captain  stood  ready  to  receive  them ;  but  on  seeing 
John,  he  drew  back,  and  began  to  make  off  John  pursued  with  all  the 
speed  his  aged'limbs  would  permit,  crying  out,  "  My  son,  why  do  you  run 
from  your  own  father,  who  is  unarmed  and  aged  1  Pity  me,  my  son,  and 
do  not  fear.     There  is  yet  hope  of  your  life.     I  will  intercede  for  you ; 


sri 


LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


and,  if  necessary,  will  cheerfully  suffer  death  for  you,  as  the  Lord  did  for 
us.  Stop, — believe  what  I  say ;  Christ  hath  sent  me."  The  young  man 
stopped,  looked  on  the  ground,  and  then  throwing  down  his  arms,  came 
trembling,  and  with  sobs  and  tears,  begged  for  pardon.  The  apostle  as- 
sured him  of  the  forgiveness  of  Christ ;  and  conducting  him  back  to  the 
church,  there  fasted  and  prayed  with  him,  and  at  length  procured  his 
absolution. 

Another  story,  far  less  probable,  is  related  in  the  ancient  martyrologies, 
and  by  the  counterfeit  Abdias.  Craton,  a  philosopher,  to  make  a  display 
of  contempt  for  riches,  had  persuaded  two  wealthy  young  men,  his  follow- 
ers, to  invest  all  their  property  in  two  very  costly  pearls ;  and  then,  in  the 
presence  of  a  multitude,  to  break  them,  and  pound  them  to  dust.  John 
happening  to  pass  by,  at  the  close  of  the  transaction,  censured  this  destruc- 
tion of  property,  which  might  better  have  been  given  in  alms  to  the  poor. 
Craton  told  him,  if  he  thought  so,  he  might  miraculously  restore  the  dust 
to  solid  pearls  again,  and  have  them  for  charitable  purposes.  The  apostle 
gathered  up  the  particles,  and  holding  them  in  his  hand,  prayed  fervently 
that  they  might  become  solid  pearls,  and  when  the  people  said  "  Amen," 
it  took  place.  By  this  miracle,  Craton,  and  all  his  followers,  were  con- 
verted to  Christianity;  and  the  two  young  men  took  back  the  pearls,  sold 
them,  and  then  distributed  the  avails  in  charity.  Influenced  by  this  ex- 
ample, two  other  young  men  of  distinction,  Atticus  and  Eugenius,  sold 
their  estates,  and  distributed  the  avails  among  the  poor.  For  a  time,  they 
followed  the  apostle,  and  possessed  the  power  of  working  miracles.  But, 
one  day,  being  at  Pergamus,  and  seeing  some  well-dressed  young  men, 
glittering  in  their  costly  array,  they  began  to  regret  that  they  had  sold  all 
their  property,  and  deprived  themselves  of  the  means  of  making  a  figure 
in  the  world.  John  read  in  their  countenances  and  behavior  the  state  of 
their  minds;  and  after  drawing  from  them  an  avowal  of  their  regret,  he 
bid  them  bring  him  each  a  bundle  of  straight  rods,  and  a  parcel  of  smooth 
stones  from  the  sea  shore.  They  did  so, — and  the  apostle,  after  converting 
the  rods  into  gold,  and  the  stones  into  pearls,  bid  them  take  them,  and  sell 
them,  and  redeem  their  alienated  estates,  if  they  chose.  At  the  same  time, 
he  plainly  warned  them,  that  the  consequence  would  be  the  eternal  loss  of 
their  souls.  While  he  continued  his  long  and  pungent  discourse,  a  funeral 
procession  came  along.  John  now  prayed,  and  raised  the  dead  man  to 
life.  The  resuscitated  person  began  to  describe  the  invisible  world,  and  so 
graphically  painted  to  Atticus  and  Eugenius  the  greatness  of  their  loss, 
that  they  were  melted  into  contrition.  The  apostle  ordered  them  to  do 
penance  thirty  days, — till  the  golden  rods  should  become  wood,  and  the 
pearls  become  stones.  They  did  so,  and  were  afterwards  very  distinguish- 
ed saints. 

Another  story,  of  about  equal  merit,  is  told  by  the  same  authority. 
While  John  continued  his  successful  ministry  at  Ephesus,  the  idolaters 
there,  in  a  tumult,  dragged  him  to  the  temple  of  Diana,  and  insisted  on  his 
sacrificing  to  the  idol.  He  warned  all  to  come  out  of  the  temple,  and  then, 
by  prayer,  caused  it  to  fall  to  the  ground,  and  become  a  heap  of  ruins. 
Then,  addressing  the  pagans  on  the  spot,  he  converted  twelve  thousand  of 
them  in  one  day.  But  Aristodemus,  the  pagan  high  priest,  could  not  be 
convinced,  till  John  had  drunken  poison  without  harm,  by  which  two 
malefactors  were  killed  instantly,  and  also  raised  the  malefactors  to  life. 


JOHN.  375 

This  resuscitation  he  rendered  the  more  convincing-  to  Aristodemus,  by 
making  him  the  instrument  of  it.  The  apostle  pulled  off  his  tunic,  and 
gave  it  to  Aristodemus.  "And  what  is  this  for?"  said  the  high  priest. 
"  To  cure  you  of  your  infidelity,"  was  the  reply.  "  But  how  is  your  tunic 
to  cure  me  of  infidelity?"  "  Go,"  said  the  apostle,  "  and  spread  it  upon  the 
dead  bodies,  and  say,  '  The  apostle  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  hath  sent  me 
to  resuscitate  you,  in  his  name,  that  all  may  know,  that  life  and  death  are 
the  servants  of  Jesus  Christ,  ray  Lord.'  "  By  this  miracle  the  high  priest 
Avas  fully  convinced ;  and  afterwards  convinced  the  proconsul.  Both  of 
them  were  baptized, — and  persecution,  from  that  time,  ceased.  They  also 
built  the  church  dedicated  to  St.  John,  at  Ephesus. 

For  this  series  of  fables  I  am  indebted  again  to  the  kindness  of  Dr.  Murdock,  in 
whose  manuscript  lectures  they  are  so  well  translated  from  the  original  romances,  as 
to  make  it  unnecessary  for  me" to  repeat  the  labor  of  making  a  new  version  from  the 
Latin.  The  sight  of  the  results  of  abler  efforts  directly  before  me,  offers  a  tempta- 
tion to  exonerate  myself  from  a  tedious  and  unsatisfactory  effort,  which  is  too  great 
to  be  resisted,  while' researches  into  historical  truth  have  a  much  more  urgent  claim 
for  time  and  exertion. 

The  only  one  of  all  these  fables  that  occurs  in  the  writings  of  the  Fathers,  is  the 
first,  which  may  be  pronounced  a  tolerably  respectable  and  ancient  story.  It  is  nar- 
rated by  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  (about  A.  D.  200.)  The  story  is  copied  from  Cle- 
mens Alexandrinus  by  Eusebius,  from  whom  we  received  it,  the  original  work  of 
jClemens  being  now  lost.  Chrysostom  also  gives  an  abridgment  of  the  tale.  (I.  Pa- 
raenes.  ad  Theod.)  Anastasiu's  Sinaita,  Simeon  Metaphrastes,  Nicephorus  Callistus, 
the  Pseudo-Abdias,  and  the  whole  herd  of  monkish  writers,  give  the  story  almost 
verbatim  from  Clemens;  for  it  is  so  full  in  his  account  as  to  need  no  embellishment 
to  make  it  a  good  story.  Indeed,  its  completeness  in  all  these  interesting  details,  is 
one  of  the  most  suspicious  circumstances  about  it ;  in  short,  it  is  almost  too  good  a 
story  to  be  true.  Those  who  wish  to  see  all  the  evidence  for  and  against  its  authen- 
ticity, may  find  it  thoroughly  examined  in  Lampe's  Prolegomena  in  Joannem. 
(I.  v.  4 — 10.)  It  is,  on  the  whole,  the  best  authorized  of  all  the  stories  about  the  apos- 
tles, which  are  given  by  the  Fathers,  and  may  reasonably  be  considered  to  have  been 
true  in  the  essential  parts,  though  the  minute  details  of  the  conversations,  &c.,  are 
probably  embellishments  worked  in  by  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  or  his  informants. 

The  rest  of  these  stories  are,  most  unquestionably,  all  falsehoods;  nor  does  any 
body  pretend  to  find  the  slightest  authority  for  a  solitary  particular  of  them.  They 
are  found  no  where  but  in  the  novels  of  the  Pseudo-Abdias,  and  the  martyrologies. 
(Abd.  Babyl.,  Apo.st.  Hist.  lib.  V.,  S.  Joan.) 

HIS  DEATH. 

Respecting  the  close  of  his  life,  all  antiquity  is  agreed  that  it 
was  not  terminated  by  martyrdom,  nor  by  any  violent  death  what- 
ever, but  by  a  calm  and  peaceful  departure  in  the  course  of  na- 
ture, at  a  very  great  age.  The  precise  number  of  years  to  which 
he  attained  cannot  be  known,  because  no  writer  who  lived  within 
five  hundred  years  of  his  time,  has  pretended  to  specify  his  exact 
age.  It  is  merely  mentioned  on  very  respectable  ancient  authority, 
that  he  survived  to  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Trajan.  This 
noblest  of  the  successors  of  Julius,  began  his  splendid  reign  in 
A.  D.  98,  according  to  the  most  approved  chronology  ;  so  that  if 
John  did  not  outlive  even  the  first  year  of  Trajan,  his  death  is 
brought  very  near  the  close  of  the  first  century ;  and  from  what 


376  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

has  been  reasonably  conjectured  about  his  age,  compared  with  that 
of  his  Lord,  it  may  be  supposed  that  he  attained  upwards  of  eighty 
years, — a  supposition  which  agrees  well  enough  with  the  state- 
ment of  some  of  the  Fathers,  that  he  died  worn  out  with  old  age. 
But  even  here,  the  monkish  inventors  have  found  room  for  new 
fables,  and  though  the  great  weight  of  all  ancient  testimony  de- 
prives them  of  the  opportunity  to  enter  into  the  horrible  details 
of  a  bloody  and  agonizing  death,  they  can  not  refuse  themselves 
the  pleasure  of  some  tedious  absurdities,  about  the  manner  of  his 
death  and  burial,  which  are  barely  worth  a  partial  sketch,  to  show 
how  determined  the  apostolic  novelists  are  to  follow  their  heroes 
to  the  very  last,  with  the  glories  of  a  fancifully  miraculous  de- 
parture. 

The  circumstances  of  his  death  are  described  in  the  martyrologies,  and 
by  Abdias,  in  this  manner.  He  had  a  vision  acquainting  him  with  his 
approaching  exit,  five  days  before  it  happened.  On  a  Lord's-day  morning, 
he  went  to  the  great  church  at  Ephesus,  bearing  his  name,  and  there  per-a 
formed  public  worship  as  usual,  at  day-break.  About  the  middle  of  the 
forenoon,  he  ordered  a  deacon,  and  some  grave-diggers,  with  their  tools, 
to  accompany  him  to  the  burying  ground.  He  then  set  them  to  digging 
his  grave,  while  he,  after  ordering  the  multitude  to  depart,  spent  the  time 
in  prayer.  He  once  looked  into  the  grave,  and  bid  them  dig  it  deeper. 
When  it  was  finished,  he  took  off  his  outer  garment,  and  spread  it  in  the 
grave.  Then,  standing  over  it,  he  made  a  speech  to  those  present,  (which 
is  not  worth  repeating,)  then  gave  thanks  to  God  for  the  arrival  of  the  time 
of  his  release, — and  placing  himself  in  the  grave,  and  wrapping  himself 
up,  he  instantly  expired.  The  grave  was  filled  up ;  and  afterwards  mira- 
cles took  place  at  it,  and  a  kind  of  manna  issued  from  it,  which  possessed..^ 
great  virtues. 

There  is  no  need,  however,  of  such  fables,  to  crown  with  the 
false  honors  of  a  vain  prodigy,  the  calmly  glorious  end  of  the 
"  Last  of  the  Apostles."  It  is  enough  for  the  Christian  to 
know,  that,  with  the  long,  bright  course  of  almost  a  century  behind 
him,  and  with  the  mighty  works  of  his  later  years  around  him, 
John  closed  the  solemn  apostolic  drama,  bearing  with  him  in  his 
late  departure  the  last  light  of  inspiration,  and  the  last  personal 
"  testimony  of  Jesus,  which  is  the  spirit  of  prophecy."  Blessed  in 
his  works  thus  following  him,  he  died  in  the  Lord,  and  now  rests 
from  his  labors, — as  calmly  and  as  sweetly  as  once  on  the  breast  of 
that  loved  friend,  who  cherished  so  tenderly  the  youthful  Son  of 


Thunder, — on 


"  The  bosom  of  his  Father  and  his  God." 


PHILIP. 

In  all  the  three  gospel  lists,  this  apostle  is  placed  fifth  in  order, 
the  variations  in  the  arrangements  of  the  preceding  making  no 
difference  in  his  position.  In  the  first  chapter  of  Acts,  however,  a 
different  arrangement  is  made  of  his  name,  as  will  be  hereafter 
mentioned.  The  mere  mention  of  his  name  on  the  list,  is  all  the 
notice  taken  of  him  by  either  of  the  three  first  evangelists,  and  it 
is  only  in  the  gospel  of  John,  that  the  slightest  additional  circum- 
stance can  be  learned  about  him.  From  this  authority  it  is  ascer- 
tained that  he  was  of  Bethsaida,  the  city  of  Andrew  and  Peter, 
and  probably  also  the  home  or  frequent  visiting-place  of  the  sons 
of  Zebedee,  by  the  younger  of  whom  he  is  so  particularly  com- 
memorated. Immediately  after  the  narration  of  the  introduction 
of  Andrew,  John,  and  Peter,  to  Jesus,  in  the  first  chapter  of  this 
gospel,  it  is  said  that  Jesus  designing  to  leave  Betliabara  and  go 
forth  into  Galilee,  and  probably  seeking  as  his  companions  such 
followers  of  John  as  were  natives  and  residents  of  that  regfion, 
came  to  Philip,  and  called  him  to  go  with  him.  From  his  ac- 
quaintance and  local  connexion  with  Peter  and  Andrew,  who  had 
just  devoted  themselves  with  such  ready  zeal  to  the  faith  and  ser- 
vice of  Jesus,  Philip,  too,  must  have  heard  of  him  before  he  saw 
him ;  so  that  when  Jesus  met  him,  he  was  prepared  at  once  to 
receive  the  call  which  Jesus  immediately  gave  him, — "  Follow  me." 
From  the  circumstance  that  he  was  the  first  person  who  was  sum- 
moned by  Jesus,  in  this  particular  formula  of  invitation  to  the  dis- 
cipleship,  some  writers  have,  not  without  reason,  claimed  for 
Philip  the  name  and  honors  of  the  Protoclete,  or  ''^first-called  f^ 
though  Andrew  has  commonly  been  considered  as  best  entitled 
to  this  dignity,  from  his  being  the  first  mentioned  by  name,  actu- 
ally becoming  acquainted  with  Jesus.  Philip  was  so  devoutly 
engaged,  at  once,  in  the  cause  of  his  new  Master,  that  he,  like 
Andrew,  immediately  sought  out  others  to  share  the  blessings  of 
the  discipleship ;  and  soon  after  meeting  one  of  his  friends,  Na- 
thanael,  he  expressed  the  ardor  of  his  faith  in  his  new  teacher,  by 
the  words  in  which  he  invited  him  to  join  in  this  honorable  fellow- 


378  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

ship, — "  We  have  found  him  of  whom  Moses,  in  the  law,  and  all  the 
prophets,  did  write, — Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  son  of  Joseph."  The 
result  of  this  application  will  be  related  in  the  life  of  the  person 
most  immediately  concerned.  After  this,  no  notice  whatever  is 
taken  of  Philip  except  where  incidental  remarks  made  by  him  in 
the  conversations  of  Jesus,  are  recorded  by  John.  Thus,  at  the 
feeding  of  the  five  thousand,  upon  Jesus's  asking  whether  they 
had  the  means  of  procuring  food  for  the  multitude,  Philip  an- 
swered, that  "  two  hundred  pence  would  not  buy  enough  for 
them,  that  every  one  might  take  a  little," — thus  showing  himself 
not  at  all  prepared  by  his  previous  faith  in  Jesus,  for  the  great 
miracle  which  was  about  to  happen  ;  though  Jesus  had  asked  the 
question,  as  John  says,  with  the  actual  design  of  trying  the  extent 
of  his  confidence  in  him.  He  is  afterwards  mentioned  in  the  last 
conversations  of  Jesus,  as  saying  to  him — "  Show  us  the  Father, 
and  it  sufficeth  us," — here,  too,  betraying  also  a  most  unfortunate 
deficiency,  both  of  faith  and  knowledge,  and  implying  also  a  vain 
desire  to  gratify  his  eyes  with  still  more  miraculous  displays  of  the 
divine  power  of  his  Master ;  though  even  in  this  respect,  he  pro- 
bably was  no  worse  off  than  all  the  rest  of  the  disciples,  before 
the  resurrection  of  Jesus. 

Protoclete. — Hammond  claims  this  peculiar  honor  for  Philip,  with  great  zeal. 
(See  his  notes  on  John  i.  43.) 

Of  his  apostleship  not  one  word  is  recorded  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament, for  he  is  no  where  mentioned  in  the  Acts,  except  as  being 
one  of  the  apostles  assembled  in  the  upper  chamber  after  the  as 
cension ;  nor  do  the  epistles  contain  the  slightest  allusion  to  him. 
Some  of  the  most  ancient  authorities  among  the  Fathers,  how- 
ever, are  distinct  in  their  mention  of  some  supposed  circumstances 
of  his  later  life ;  but  most  of  these  accounts  are  involved  in  total 
discredit,  by  the  fact  that  they  make  him  identical  with  Philip  the 
deacon,  whose  active  and  zealous  labors  in  Samaria,  and  along  the 
coast  of  Palestine,  from  Gaza,  through  Ashdod  to  Caesarea,  his 
home,  are  minutely  related  in  the  Acts,  and  have  been  already  al- 
luded to,  in  that  part  of  the  life  of  Peter  which  is  connected  with 
these  incidents.  It  has  always  been  supposed,  with  much  reason, 
in  modern  times,  that  the  offices  of  an  apostle  and  a  deacon  were 
so  totally  distinct  and  different,  that  they  could  never  both  be 
borne  by  one  and  the  same  person  ;  but  the  Fathers,  even  the  very 
ancient  ones,  seem  to  have  had  not  the  slightest  idea  of  any  such 
incompatibility  ;  and  therefore  uniformly  speak  of  Pliihp  the  apos- 


PHILIP.  379 

tie,  as  the  same  person  with  Phihp,  one  of  the  seven  deacons,  who 
is  mentioned  by  Luke,  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  as  having  hved 
at  Caesarea  in  Palestine,  with  his  daughters,  who  were  virgins  and 
prophetesses.  Testimony  more  distinct  than  this,  can  no  where 
be  found,  among  all  the  Fathers,  on  any  point  whatever  ;  and  very 
little  that  is  more  ancient.  Yet  how  does  it  accord  with  the  no- 
tions of  those  who  revere  these  very  Fathers  as  almost  immaculate 
in  truth,  and  in  all  intellectual,  as  well  as  moral  excellence  ?  What 
is  the  evidence  of  these  boasted  Fathers  worth,  on  any  point  in 
controversy  about  apostolic  church  government,  or  doctrine,  or 
criticism,  if  the  modern  notion  of  the  incompatibility  of  the  two 
offices  of  apostle  and  deacon  is  correct  ? 

The  testimony  of  the  Fathers  on  this  point,  is  simply  this.  Eusebius  (Hist.  Ecc. 
III.  31")  quotes  Polycrates,  bishop  of  Ephesus,  who,  in  his  letter  to  Victor,  bishop  of 
Rome,  (written  A.  D.  195,  or  196,)  makes  mention  of  Philip  in  these  exacl  words: 
"  Philip,  who  was  one  of  the  twelve  apostles,  died  in  Hierapolis;"  (in  Phrygia;)  "  and 
so  did  Imo  of  his  daughters,  who  had  grown  old  in  virginity.  And  another  of  his 
daughters,  after  having  passed  her  life  under  the  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  was 
buried  at  Ephesus."  This  certainly  is  a  most  perfect  identification  of  Philip  the 
apostle  with  Philip  the  deacon;  for  it  is  this  latter  person  who  is  particularly  men- 
tioned in  Acts  xxi.  8,  9,  as  "  having  four  daughters  who  did  prophesy."  He  is  there 
especially  designated  as  "  Philip  the  evangelist,  07ie  of  the  seven,"  while  Polycrates 
expressly  declares,  that  this  same  person  "  was  one  of  the  twelve."  Eusebius  also,  in 
the  preceding  chapter,  quotes  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  as  mentioning  Philip  among 
those  apostles  who  were  married,  because  he  is  mentioned  as  having  had  daughters; 
and  Clemens  even  adds  that  these  were  afterwards  married,  which  directly  contra- 
dicts the  previous  .statement  of  Polycrates,  that  three  of  them  died  virgins,  in  old  age 
Yet  Eusebius  quotes  all  these  contradictory  statements,  with  approbation. 

Papias,  (A.  D.  140,)  bishop  of  Hierapolis,  the  very  place  of  the  death  and  burial 
of  Philip,  is  represented  by  Eusebius  as  having  been  well  acquainted  with  the 
daughters  of  Philip,  mentioned  in  Acts,  as  the  virgin  prophetesses.  Papias  savs  that 
he  himself  "  heard  these  ladies  say  that  their  father  once  raised  a  dead  person  to  life, 
in  their  time."  But  it  deserves  notice,  that  Papias,  the  very  best  authority  on  this 
subject,  is  no  where  quoted  as  calling  this  Philip  "  an  apostle ;"  though  Eusebius,  on 
his  own  authority,  gives  this  name  to  the  Philip  of  whom  Papias  speaks.  It  is  there- 
fore reasonable  to  conclude,  that  this  blunder,  betraying  such  a  want  of  familiarity 
with  the  New  Testament  history,  originated  after  the  time  of  Papias,  whose  intimate 
acquaintance  witfi  Philip's  family  would  have  enabled  him  to  say,  at  once,  that  this 
was  the  deacon,  and  not  the  o.postle ;  though  it  is  not  probable  that  he  was  any  less  de- 
plorably ignorant  of  the  scriptures  than  some  of  the  Fathers  were. 

Now  what  can  be  said  of  the  testimony  of  the  Fathers  on  points  v.-here  they  can 
not  refer,  either  to  their  own  personal  observation,  or  to  informants  who  have  seen 
and  heard  what  they  testify  1  The  only  way  in  which  they  can  be  shielded  from  the 
reproach  of  a  gross  blunder  and  a  disgraceful  ignorance  of  the  New  Testament,  is, 
that  they  were  right  in  identifj^ing  these  two  Philips,  and  that  modern  theologians  are 
wrong  in  making  the  distinction.  On  this  dilemma  I  will  not  pretend  to  decide;  for 
though  so  little  reverence  for  the  judgment  and  information  of  the  Fathers  has  been 
shown  in  this  book,  there  does  seem  to  me  to  be  some  reason  for  hesitation  on  this 
point,  where  the  Fathers  ovght  to  have  been  as  well  informed  as  anybody.  They 
must  have  known  surely,  whether,  according  to  the  notions  of  those  primitive  ages  of 
Christianity,  there  was  any  incompatibility  between  the  apostleship  and  the  deacon- 
ship  !  If  their  testimony  is  worth  any  thingon  such  points,  perhaps  ("?)  it  may  weigh  so 
much  on  this,  as  to  cause  a  doubt  whether  they  are  not  right,  and  the  moderns  wrong. 
However,  barely  suggesting  this  query,  without  attempting  a  decision,  as  Luther  says 
— "  I  will  afford  to  other  and  higher  spirits,  occasion  to  reflect." 

Perhaps,  for  the  sake  of  those  who  are  troubled  and  alarmed  at  this  exposure  of 
the  ienorance  and  careles,sness  of  the  Fathers,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  add,  that 
50 


380  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

these  views  and  opinions  of  the  errors  mentioned,  are  not  peculiar  to  the  author  of 

the  Lives  of  the  Apostles,  but  are  perfectly  familiar  to  every  critical  reader  of  the 
Fathers,  or  of  modern  criticisms,  abstracts,  and  annotations  on  these  subjects.  Among 
the  general  decisions  of  modern  critics  against  these  gross  blunders,  none  can  be 
more  satisfactory  than  that  of  the  eminent  Valesius,  in  his  Annotations  on  Eusebius. 
(III.  31.— inr  2,  3,  p.  54,  cd.  Moguntiae.)  To  this  the  doubtful  are  referred,  and  to 
every  modern  criticism  on  the  subject;  for  I  know  of  no  critic,  of  any  authority,  who 
has  prstended  to  deny  that  the  Fathers,  until  the  time  of  Isidore  of  Pelusium,  (A.  D. 
412,)  grossly  erred  in  identifying  the  two  Philips.  It  should  be  remembered  by 
the  over-scrupulous,  that  Valesius  was  an  ardent  and  eminent  member  of  the  Galil- 
ean branch  of  the  Romish  church.  Dr.  Murdock,  in  his  MS.  Lectures,  is  very  de- 
cided. 

This  is  all  the  satisfaction  that  the  brief  records  of  the  inspired 
or  uninspired  historians  of  Christianity  can  give  the  inquirer,  on 
the  hfe  of  this  apostle ; — so  unequal  were  the  labors  of  the  first 
ministers  of  Christ,  and  their  claims  for  notice.  Philip,  no  doubt, 
served  the  purpose  for  which  he  was  called,  faithfully;  but  in  these 
brief  sketches,  there  are  no  traces  of  any  genius  of  a  high  charac- 
ter, that  could  distinguish  him  above  the  thousands  that  are  for- 
gotten, but  whose  labors,  like  those  of  the  minutest  animals  in  a 
mole-hill,  contribute  an  indispensable  portion  to  the  completion  of 
the  mass,  in  whose  mighty  structure  all  their  individual  efforts  are 
swallowed  up  for  ever. 

Some  fragments  of  ancient  tradition  do,  however,  commemorate  the  fact,  that 
Philip  preached  the  gospel  in  Scythia.  (Natalis  Alexand.  I.  viii.  p.  32.)  The  cir- 
cumstance, however  vaguely  noticed,  deserves  respectful  consideration,  from  its  con- 
formity with  the  general  current  of  tradition,  in  respect  to  the  other  apostles.  (See 
Life  of  Andrew,  ad.  fin.') 

And  though  the  ancient  Polycrates  may  have  blundered  griev- 
ously, in  respect  to  the  apostle's  personal  identity,  his  hope  of  the 
glorious  resurrection  of  those  whom  he  supposed  to  have  died  in 
Asia  will  doubtless  be  equally  well  rewarded,  if,  to  the  amazement 
of  the  Fathers,  the  apostle  Philip  should  rise  at  last  from  the  dust 
of  Babylon,  or  the  shades  of  Persia,  while  his  namesake,  the 
evangelist,  shall  burst  from  his  tomb  in  Hierapolis.  "  For,"  as 
Polycrates  truly  says,  "  in  Asia  some  great  lights  have  gone  down, 
that  shall  rise  again  on  that  day  of  the  Lord's  approach,  when 
he  shall  come  from  the  heavens  in  glory,  and  shall  raise  up  all  his 
saints  ; — Philip,  one  of  the  twelve  apostles,  who  sleeps  at  Hierapo- 
lis, with  his  venerable  virgin  daughters, — John,  who  lay  in  the 
bosom  of  the  Lord,  and  who  is  laid  at  Ephesus, — Polycarp,  at 
Smyrna, — Thraseas,  at  Eumenia, — Sagaris,  at  Laodicea, — Papirius 
and  Melito,  at  Sardis — all  await  the  visitation  of  the  Lord  from 
the  heavens,  in  which  he  shall  raise  them  from  the  dead." 


NATHANAEL     B  AR-THOLOME  W. 


HIS  NAME  AND  CALL. 


In  respect  to  this  apostle,  there  occurs  a  primary  question  about 
his  name,  which  is  given  so  differently  in  different  sacred  authori- 
ties, as  to  induce  a  strong-  suspicion  that  the  two  names  refer  to 
two  totally  distinct  persons.  The  reasons  for  applying  the  two 
words,  Nathanael  and  Bartholomew,  to  the  same  person,  are  the 
circumstances, — that  none  of  the  three  first  evangelists  mention 
any  person  named  Nathanael,  and  that  John  never  mentions  the 
name  Bartholomew, — that  Bartholomew  and  Nathanael  are  each 
mentioned  on  these  different  authorities,  among  the  chosen  disciples 
of  Jesus, — that  Bartholomew  is  mentioned  by  the  three  first  evan- 
gelists, on  all  the  lists,  directly  after  Philip,  who  is  by  John  repre- 
sented as  his  intimate  friend,— and  that  Bartholomew  is  not  an 
individual  name,  but  a  word  showing  parentage  merely, — the  first 
syllable  being  often  prefixed  to  Syriac  names,  for  this  purpose  ;  and 
jBar-Tholomew  means  the  "  son  of  Tholomew,"  or  "  Tholomai ;" 
just  as  Bar- Jonah  means  the  "  son  of  Jonah  ;"  nor  was  the  former 
any  more  in  reality  the  personal,  individual  name  of  Nathanael, 
than  the  latter  was  of  Peter ;  but  some  circumstance  may  have 
occurred  to  make  it,  in  this  instance,  often  take  the  place  of  the 
true  individual  name. 

A  few  very  brief  notices  are  given  of  this  apostle  by  John,  who 
alone  alludes  to  him,  otherwise  than  by  a  bare  mention  on  the  list. 
It  is  mentioned  in  his  gospel  that  Nathanael  was  of  Cana,  in  Gali- 
lee, a  town  which  stood  about  half-way  between  lake  Gennesaret 
and  the  Mediterranean  sea  ;  but  the  circumstances  of  his  call  show 
that  he  was  then  with  Philip,  at  or  near  Bethabara.  Philip,  after 
being  summoned  by  Jesus  to  the  discipleship,  immediately  sought 
to  bring  his  friend  Nathanael  into  an  enjoyment  of  the  honors  of  a 
personal  intercourse  with  Jesus,  and  invited  him  to  become  a  fol- 
lower of  the  Messiah,  foretold  tfy-  Moses  and  the  prophets,  who  had 
now  appeared,  as  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  son  of  Joseph.  On  hear- 
ing of  that  mean  place,  as  the  home  of  the  promised  King  of  Israel, 


382  LIV^S  OF  THE   APOSTLES. 

Nathaiiael,  with  great  scorn,  replied,  in  inquiry,  "  Can  any  good 
thing  come  out  of  Nazareth  ?"  To  this  sneering  question,  Phihp 
answered  by  the  simple  proposition,  "  Come  and  see ;" — wisely 
judging  that  no  argument  could  answer  his  friend's  prejudice  so 
well  as  an  actual  observation  of  the  character  and  aspect  of  the 
Nazarene  himself  Nathanael,  accordingly,  persuaded  by  the 
earnestness  of  his  friend,  came  along  with  him,  perhaps,  partly  to 
gratify  him,  but,  no  doubt,  with  his  curiosity  somewhat  moved  to 
know  wiiat  could  have  thus  brought  Philip  into  this  devout  regard 
for  a  citizen  of  that  infamous  town ;  and  he  therefore  readily  accom- 
panied him  to  see  what  sort  of  prophet  could  come  out  of  Nazareth. 
The  words  with  which  Jesus  greeted  Nathanael,  even  before  he 
had  been  personally  introduced,  or  was  prepared  for  any  saluta- 
tion, are  the  most  exalted  testimonial  of  his  character  that  could 
be  conceived,  and  show  at  once  his  very  eminent  qualifications  for 
the  high  honors  of  the  apostleship.  When  Jesus  saw  Nathanael 
coming  to  him,  he  said,  "  Behold  a  true  son  of  Israel,  in  whom  is 
no  guile  !" — manifesting  at  once  a  confidential  and  intimate  know- 
ledge of  his  whole  character,  in  thus  pronouncing  with  such  ready 
decision,  this  high  and  uncommon  tribute  of  praise  upon  him,  as 
soon  as  he  appeared  before  him.  Nathanael,  quite  surprised  at 
this  remarkable  compliment  from  one  whom  he  had  never  seen 
until  that  moment,  and  whom  he  supposed  to  be  equally  ignorant 
of  him,  replied  with  the  inquiry — "  Whence  knowest  thou  me  ?" 
Jesus  answered — "Before  Philip  called  thee,  when  thou  wast  under 
the  fig-tree,  I  saw  thee."  The  fig-trees  of  Palestine,  presenting  a 
wide,  leafy  cover,  and  a  delightful  shade,  were  often  used  in  the 
warm  season  as  places  of  retirement,  either  in  company,  for  con- 
versation, or  in  solitude,  for  meditation  and  prayer,  as  is  shown  in 
numerous  passages  in  the  Rabbinical  writings ;  and  it  was,  doubt- 
less, in  one  of  these  occupations  that  Nathanael  was  engaged,  re- 
moved, as  he  supposed,  from  all  observation,  at  the  time  to  which 
Jesus  referred.  But  the  eye  that  could  pierce  the  stormy  shades  of 
night  on  the  boisterous  waves  of  Galilee,  and  that  could  search  the 
hearts  of  all  men,  could  also  penetrate  the  thick,  leafy  veil  of  the 
fig-tree,  and  observe  the  most  secret  actions  of  this  guileless  Israel- 
ite, when  he  supposed  the  whole  world  to  be  shut  out,  and  gave 
himself  to  the  undisguised  enjoyment  of  his  thoughts,  feelings,  and 
actions,  without  restraint.  Nathafiael,  struck  with  sudden,  but 
absolute  conviction,  at  this  amazing  display  of  knowledge,  gave 
up  all  his  proud  scruples   against  the   despised  Nazarene,  and 


»•   K 


NATHANAEL.  383 

adoringly  exclaimed,  "  Rabbi !  thou  art  the  Son  of  God, — thou  art 
the  King  of  Israel."  Jesus  recognizing  with  pleasure  the  ready- 
faith  of  this  pure-minded  disciple,  replied,  "  Because  I  said  unto 
thee,  '  I  saw  thee  under  the  fig-tree,'  believest  thou  ?  Thou  shalt 
see  yet  greater  things  than  these."  Then  turning  to  Philip  as  well 
as  to  Nathanael,  he  says  to  them  both,  "  I  solemnly  assure  you, 
hereafter  ye  shall  see  heaven  open,  and  the  angels  of  God  ascend- 
ing and  descending  upon  the  Son  of  Man." 

For  numerous  illustrations  of  the  fact  that  the  embowering  shades  of  fig-trees  were 
used  in  the  East,  as  places  of  retirement  and  solitary  meditation,  see  Bloomfield, 
Wetstein,  Kuinoel,  and  Lightfoot.    The  former  are  more  especially  full  on  this  subject. 

On  the  day  but  one  after  this  occurrence,  as  John  records,  Jesus 
was  in  Cana  of  Galilee,  the  residence  of  Nathanael,  and  was  pre- 
sent at  a  wedding  which  took  place  there.  From  the  circumstance 
that  the  mother  of  Jesus  was  there  also,  it  would  seem  likely  that 
it  was  the  marriage  of  some  of  their  family  Jfriends  ;  otherwise  the 
conjecture  might  seem  allowable,  that  the  presence  of  Jesus  and 
his  disciples  on  this  occasion,  was  in  some  way  connected  with 
the  introduction  of  Nathanael  to  Jesus  ;  and  that  this  new  disciple 
may  have  been  some  way  concerned  in  this  interesting  event. 
The  manner  in  which  the  occurrence  is  announced, — it  being  next 
specified,  that  two  days  after  the  occurrences  recorded  in  the  end 
of  the  first  chapter,  Jesus  was  present  at  a  marriage  in  Cana  of 
Galilee, — would  seem  to  imply  very  fairly,  that  Jesus  had  been  in 
some  other  place  immediately  before  ;  and  it  is  probable,  therefore, 
that  he  accompanied  Nathanael  home  from  Bethabara,  which  was 
the  scene  of  his  calling  to  the  discipleship,  along  with  Philip. 
After  this  first  incident,  no  mention  whatever  is  made  of  Nathanael, 
either  under  his  proper  name,  or  his  paternal  appellation,  except 
that  when  the  twelve  were  sent  forth  in  pairs,  he  was  sent  with 
his  friend  Philip,  that  those  who  had  been  summoned  to  the  work 
together,  might  now  go  forth  laboring  together  in  this  high  com- 
mission. One  solitary  incident  is  also  conmiemorated  by  John, 
in  which  this  apostle  was  concerned,  namely,  the  meeting  on  the 
lake  of  Gennesaret,  after  the  resurrection,  where  his  name  is  men- 
tioned among  those  who  went  out  on  the  fishing  excursion  with 
Peter.  His  friend  Philip  is  not  there  mentioned,  but  may  have 
been  one  of  the  "  two  disciples,"  who  are  included  without  their 
names  being  given.  From  this  trifling  circumstance,  some  have 
concluded  that  Nathanael  was  a  fisherman  by  trade,  as  well  as  the 
other  four  who  are  mentioned  with  him  '  and  certainly  the  conjee- 


♦  ft 


384  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

ture  is  reasonable,  and  not  improbable,  except  from  the  circum- 
stance that  his  residence  was  at  Cana,  which  is  commonly  under- 
stood to  have  been  an  inland  town,  and  too  far  from  the  water, 
for  any  of  its  inhabitants  to  follow  fishing  as  a  business.  Other 
idle  and  foolish  conjectures  about  his  occupation  and  rank  might  be 
multiplied  from  most  ancient  and  venerable  authorities ;  but  let  the 
dust  of  ages  sleep  on  the  prosy  guesses  of  the  Gregories,  of  Chry- 
sostom,  Augustin,  and  their  reverential  copyists  in  modern  times. 
There  is  too  much  need  of  room  in  this  book,  for  the  detail  and 
discussion  of  truth,  to  allow  paper  to  be  wasted  on  baseless  conjec- 
tures, or  palpable  falsehoods. 

HIS  APOSTLESHIP. 

There  is  a  dim  relic  of  a  story,  of  quite  ancient  date,  that  after 
the  dispersion  of  the  apostles,  he  went  to  Arabia,  and  preached 
there  till  his  death.  This  is  highly  probable,  because  it  is  well 
known  that  many  of  the  Jews,  more  particularly  after  the  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem,  settled  along  the  eastern  coasts  of  the  Red  sea, 
where  they  were  continued  for  centuries.  Nothing  can  be  more 
reasonable,  then,  than  to  suppose  that  after  the  wasting  fury  of 
invasion  had  desolated  the  city  and  the  land  of  their  fathers,  many 
of  the  Christian  Jews  too,  went  forth  to  seek  a  new  home  in  the 
peaceful  regions  of  Arabia  Felix  ;  and  that  with  them  also  went 
forth  this  true  Israelite  without  guile,  to  devote  the  rest  of  his  life 
to  apostolic  labors,  in  that  distant  country,  where  those  of  his 
wemdering  brethren,  who  had  believed  in  Christ,  would  so  much 
need  the  support  and  counsel  of  one  of  the  divinely  commissioned 
ministers  of  the  gospel.  Those  Israelites  too,  who  still  continued 
unbelievers,  would  present  objects  of  importance,  in  the  view  of 
the  apostle.  All  the  visible  glories  of  the  ancient  covenant  had 
departed  ;  and  in  that  distant  land,  with  so  little  of  the  chilling  in- 
fluence of  the  dogmatical  teachers  of  the  law  around  them,  they 
would  be  the  more  readily  led  to  the  just  appreciation  of  a  spiritual 
faith,  and  a  simple  creed. 

All  the  testimony  -which  antiquity  affords  on  this  point,  is  simply  this : — Eusebins 
(Hist.  Ecc.  V.  10)  says,  in  giving  the  life  of  Pantaenus  of  Alexandria,  (who  lived 
about  A.  D.  180,)  that  this  enterprising  Christian  philosopher  penetrated,  in  his 
researches  and  travels,  as  far  as  to  the  inhabitants  of  India.  It  has  been  shown  by 
Tillemont,  Asseman,  and  Michaelis,  that  this  term,  in  this  connexion,  means  Arabia 
Felix,  one  part  of  whose  inhabitants  were  called  Indians,  by  the  Hebrews,  the  Syrians, 
and  the  early  ecclesiastical  historians.  Eusebius  relates  that  Pantaenus  there  found 
the  gospel  of  Matthew,  in  Hebrew,  and  that  the  tradition  among  these  people  was, 
that  Bartholomew,  one  of  the  twelve  apostles,  had  formerly  preached  there,  and  left 
this  gospel  among  them.  This  tradition  being  only  a  hundred  years  old  when  Pan- 
taenus heard  jt,  ranks  among  those  of  rather  respectable  character. 


NATHANAEL.  385 

This  modern  interpretation  of  the  name  India,  is  also  very  strongly  confirmed  by 
Ae  statements  of  Rufinus  (A.  D.  390^  and  Socrates,  (A.  D.  439.)  The  former  (Hist. 
X.  9)  asserts  that  Bartholomew  preacned  the  gospel  in  Nearer  India,  on  the  borders  of 
Ethiopia.  The  latter  (Hist.  i.  19)  says  the  same.  Nicaeas  ( A.  D.  420)  says  that  Philip 
preached  the  faith  in  Arabia  Felix,  India,  and  Eastern  Ethiopia.  The  fable-mongers 
make  out  a  totally  different  account,  and,  in  their  inventive  ignorance,  carry  him  far  east- 
ward, where  various  stories  subject  him  to  a  variety  of  horrible  martyrdoms.  Some 
assert  that  he  was  martyred  by  flaying  alive  and  beheading,  in  Armenia,  at  the  city 
of  Albanopolis.  Others  say  that  in  extreme  old  age  he  was  martyred,  at  Urbanopolis, 
in  Greater  Armenia,  by  scourging  and  crucifixion.  Others  say,  by  scourging  and 
beheading,    (See  Natalis  Alexander^  Hist.  Ecc.  I.  viii.  p.  32.) 

The  tradition  certainly  appears  authentic,  and  is  a  very  interest- 
ing an3  valuable  fragment  of  early  Christian  history,  giving  a 
trace  of  the  progress  of  the  gospel,  which  otherwise  would  never 
have  been  recognized, — besides  the  satisfaction  of  such  a  reasonable 
story  about  an  apostle  of  whom  the  inspired  narrative  records  so 
little,  although  he  is  represented  in  such  an  interesting  light,  by 
the  account  of  his  introduction  to  Jesus.  Here  he  learned  the 
meaning  of  the  solemn  prophecy  with  which  Jesus  crowned  that 
noble  profession  of  faith.  Here  he  saw,  no  doubt,  yet  greater  to- 
kens of  the  power  of  Christ,  than  in  the  deep  knowledge  of  hidden 
things  then  displayed.  And  here,  resting  at  last  from  his  labors, 
he  departed  to  the  full  view  of  the  glories  there  foretold, — to  "  see 
heaven  opened,  and  the  angels  of  God"  no  longer  "  ascending  and 
descending  upon  the  Son  of  Man,"  in  ministration  and  in  testimony, 
but  falling  before  his  high  throne  in  worship,  adoring  at  his  feet, 
amid  the  unclouded  glories  of  his  triumphs  over  sin  and  death. 


MATTHEW. 


HIS  RANK  AND  NAME. 

In  his  own  gospel,  Matthew  is  not  ranked  immediately  after  the 
preceding  apostle,  but  numbers  himself  eighth  on  the  list,  and 
after  his  associate,  Thomas ;  but  all  the  other  lists  agree  in  giving 
this  apostle  a  place  immediately  after  Nathanael.  The  testimony 
of  others  in  regard  to  his  rank  has  therefore  been  adopted,  in  pre- 
ference to  his  own,  which  was  evidently  influenced  by  a  too 
modest  estimation  of  himself 

In  connexion  with  this  apostle,  as  in  other  instances,  there  is  a 
serious  question  about  his  name  and  individual  identity,  arising 
from  the  different  appellations  under  which  he  is  mentioned  in  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  sacred  record.  In  his  own  gospel,  he  is  refer- 
red to  by  no  other  name  than  his  common  one ;  but  by  Mark  and 
Luke,  the  circumstances  of  his  call  are  narrated,  with  the  details 
almost  precisely  similar  to  those  recorded  of  the  same  occurrence 
by  himself,  and  yet  the  person  thus  called,  (in  the  same  form  of 
words  used  in  summoning  the  other  apostles,)  is  named  Levi,  the 
son  of  Alpheus ;  though  Mark  and  Luke  record  Matthew  by  his 
common  name  among  the  twelve,  in  the  list  of  names.  Some 
have  thought  that  the  circumstance  of  their  mentioning  Matthew 
in  this  manner,  without  referring  at  all  to  his  identity  with  the 
person  named  Levi,  proves  that  they,  too,  had  no  idea  that  the 
former  name  was  applied  to  the  same  person  as  the  latter,  and 
on  the  contrary,  were  detailing  the  call  of  some  other  disciple, — 
perhaps  Jude,  who  also  is  called  by  the  similar  name,  Lebbeus, 
and  is  known  to  have  been  the  son  of  Alpheus.  This  view  is  not 
improbable,  and  is  so  well  supported  by  coinciding  circumstances, 
as  to  throw  great  uncertainty  over  the  whole  matter ;  though  not 
entirely  to  set  aside  the  probabilities  arising  from  the  almost  per- 
fect similarity  between  Matthew's  call,  as  related  by  himself,  and 
the  call  of  Levi,  the  son  of  Alpheus,  as  given  in  the  other  gospels. 

On  the  question  of  Matthew's  identity  with  Levi,  Michaelisis  full.  (Int.  III.  iv.  1.) 
Fabricius  (Biblioth.  Grace.  IV.  vii.  2)  discusses  the  question  quite  at  length,  and  his 


MATTHEW.  387 

annotators  give  abundance  of  references  to  authors,  in  the  notes,  in  addition  to  those 
mentioned  by  himself,  in  the  text. 

HIS  CALL. 

The  circumstances  of  his  call,  as  narrated  by  himself,  are  re- 
presented as  occurring  at  or  near  Capernaum.  "  Jesus,  passing  out 
of  the  city,  saw  a  man  named  Matthew,  sitting  at  the  receipt  of 
custom,  and  he  said  to  him — '  Follow  me.'  And  he  arose,  and 
followed  him."  This  account  shows  Matthew's  occupation,  which 
is  also  known  from  the  title  of  "  the  tax-gatherer,"  annexed  to  his 
name,  in  his  own  list  of  the  apostles.  This  was  an  occupation 
which,  though  unquestionably  a  source  of  great  profit  to  those  em- 
ployed in  it,  and  consequently  as  much  sought  after  as  such  offices 
are  in  these  days,  and  in  this  country,  was  always  connected  with 
a  great  deal  of  popular  odium,  from  the  relation  in  which  they 
stood  to  the  people,  in  this  profitable  business.  The  class  of  col- 
lectors to  which  Matthew  belonged,  in  particular,  being  the  mere 
toll-gatherers,  sitting  to  collect  the  money,  penny  by  penny,  from 
the  unwilling  people,  whose  national  pride  was  every  moment 
wounded  by  the  degrading  foreign  exactions  of  the  Romans,  suf- 
fered under  a  peculiar  ignominy,  and  were  supposed  to  have  re- 
nounced all  patriotism  and  honor,  in  stooping,  for  the  base  pur- 
poses of  pecuniary  gain,  to  act  as  instruments  of  such  a  galling 
form  of  servitude,  and  were  therefore  visited  with  a  universal 
popular  hatred  and  scorn.  A  class  of  men  thus  deprived  of  all 
character  for  honor  and  delicacy  of  feeling,  would  naturally  grow 
hardened,  beyond  all  sense  of  shame  ;  and  this  aggravating  the  usual 
official  impudence  which  characterizes  all  mean  persons  holding  a 
place  which  gives  them  the  power  to  annoy  others,  the  despised 
publicans  would  generally  repay  this  spite,  on  every  occasion, 
which  could  enable  them  to  be  vexatious  to  those  who  came  in 
contact  with  them.  Yet  out  of  this  hated  class,  Jesus  did  not 
disdain  to  take  at  least  one — perhaps  more — of  those  whom  he 
chose  for  the  express  purpose  of  building  up  a  pure  faith,  and  of 
evangelizing  the  world.  No  doubt,  before  the  occasion  of  this 
call,  Matthew  had  been  a  frequent  hearer  of  the  words  of  truth 
which  fell  from  the  divinely  eloquent  lips  of  the  Redeemer, — words 
that  had  not  been  without  a  purifying  and  exalting  eflect  on  the 
heart  of  the  publican,  though  long  so  degraded  by  daily  and  hourly 
familiarity  with  meanness  and  vice.  And  so  weaned  was  his  soul 
from  the  love  of  the  gainful  pursuit  to  which  he  had  been  devoted, 
that  at  the  first  call  fiom  Jesus,  he  arose  from  the  place  of  toll- 


LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

gathering,  and  followed  his  summoner,  to  a  duty  for  which  his  pre- 
vious occupation  had  but  poorly  prepared  him.  With  such  satis- 
faction did  he  renounce  his  old  vocation,  for  the  discipleship  of  the 
Nazarene,  that  he  made  it  a  great  occasion  of  rejoicing,  and  cele- 
brated the  day  as  a  festival,  calling  in  all  his  old  friends  as  well  as 
his  new  ones,  to  share  in  the  hospitable  entertainment  which  he 
spread  for  all  who  could  join  with  him  in  the  social  circle.  Nor 
did  the  holy  Redeemer  despise  the  rough  and  indiscriminate  com- 
pany to  which  the  grateful  joy  of  Matthew  had  invited  him ;  but 
rejoicing  in  an  opportunity  to  do  good  to  a  class  of  people  so  sel- 
dom brought  under  the  means  of  grace,  he  unhesitatingly  sat  down 
to  the  entertainment  with  his  disciples, — Savior  and  sinners,  toll- 
gatherers  and  apostles,  collected  in  one  motley  group,  around 
the  festive  board.  What  a  sight  was  this  for  the  eyes  of  the  proud 
Pharisees  who  were  spitefully  watching  the  conduct  of  the  man 
who  had  lately  taken  upon  himself  the  exalted  character  of  a 
teacher,  and  a  reformer  of  the  law  !  Passing  into  the  house  with 
the  throng  who  entered  at  the  open  doors  of  the  hospitable  Mat- 
thew,— they  saw  the  much-glorified  prophet  of  Nazareth,  sitting 
at  the  social  table  with  a  company  of  odious  custom-house  col- 
lectors, and  half-renegade  receivers  of  tribute,  one  of  whose  honor- 
able fraternity  he  had  just  adopted  into  the  goodly  fellowship  of 
his  disciples,  and  with  whom  he  was  now  eating  and  drinking^ 
as  if  they  were  as  good  as  Pharisees  and  lawyers.  At  this  spec- 
tacle, so  degrading  to  such  a  dignity  as  they  considered  most  be- 
coming in  one  who  aspired  to  be  a  teacher  of  morals  and  religion, 
the  scribes  and  Pharisees  sneeringly  asked  the  disciples  of  Jesus 
— "  Why  eateth  your  Master  with  tax-gatherers  and  sinners  ?" 
Jesus,  hearing  the  malicious  inquiry,  answered  it  in  such  a  tone 
of  irony  as  best  suited  its  impertinence.  "  They  that  are  whole, 
need  not  a  physician,  but  they  that  are  sick.  But  go  ye  and 
learn  what  this  means — '  I  will  have  mercy,  rather  than  sacri- 
fice ;'  for  I  am  not  come  to  call  the  righteous,  but  sinners  to  re- 
pentance." 

HIS  GOSPEL. 

After  the  history  of  his  call,  not  one  circumstance  is  related  re- 
specting him,  either  in  the  gospels,  the  Acts,  or  the  epistles.  In  his 
own  gospel,  he  makes  not  the  slightest  allusion  to  any  thing  either 
said  or  done  by  himself;  nor  does  his  name  anywhere  occur  except 
in  the  apostolic  lists.  Even  the  Fathers  are  silent  as  to  any  other 
important  circumstances  of  his  life,  and  it  is  only  in  the  noble  record 


MATTHEW.  389 

which  he  has  left  of  the  hfe  of  Christ,  in  the  gospel  which  bears  his 
name,  that  any  nionnment  of  his  actions  and  character  can  now  be 
fonnd.  Yet  this  solitary  remaininof  effort  of  his  o^enins  is  of  such 
importance  in  the  history  of  revealed  religion,  that  hardly  the  most 
eminent  of  the  apostles  is  so  often  brought  to  mind,  as  the  evangelist, 
whose  clear,  simple,  bnt  impressive  testimony  to  the  words  and  deeds 
of  his  Lord,  now  stands  at  the  head  of  the  sacred  canon. 

I.  In  what  language  did  Matthew  write  his  Gospel? 
On  the  history  of  this  portion  of  the  Christian  scriptures,  the  testi- 
mony of  the  Fathers,  from  very  early  times,  is  very  decided  in  main- 
taining the  foct,  that  it  was  written  in  the  vernacular  language  of 
Palestine.  The  very  earliest  testimony  on  this  point,  dating-  within 
seventy-five  years  of  the  time  of  Matthew  himself,  expressly  declares 
that  Mattliew  wrote  his  gospel  in  the  Hebrew  language;  and  that 
each  one  interpreted  it  for  himself  as  he  could.  It  is  also  said  on 
somewhat  early  authority,  that  he  wrote  his  gospel  when  about  to 
depart  from  Palestine,  that  those  whom  he  left  behind  him  might 
have  an  authentic  record  of  the  facts  in  the  life  of  Christ.  So  that 
by  these  and  a  great  number  of  other  testimonies,  uniformly  to  the 
same  effect,  the  point  seems  well  established,  that  Matthew  wrote  in 
Hebrew ;  and  that  what  is  now  extant  as  his  gospel,  is  only  a 
translation  into  Greek,  made  in  some  later  age,  by  some  person  un- 
known. 

In  mentioning  the  Hebrew  as  the  original  language  of  the  gospel  of  Matthew,  it 
should  be  noticed,  that  the  dialect  spoken  by  the  Jews  of  the  time  of  Christ  and  his 
apostles,  was  by  no  means  the  language  in  which  the  Old  Testament  was  written, 
and  which  is  commonly  meant  by  this  name  at  present.  The  true  ancient  Hebrew 
had  long  before  become  a  dead  language,  as  truly  so  as  it  is  now,  and  as  much  un- 
known to  the  mass  of  the  people,  as  the  Latin  is  in  Italy,  or  the  Anglo-Saxon  in  Eng- 
land. Yet  the  language  was  still  called  "  the  Hchreio"  as  appears  from  several  pas- 
sages in  the  New  Testament,  where  the  Hebrew  is  spoken  of  as  the  vernacular  lan- 
guage of  the  Jews  of  Palestine.  It  seems  proper  therefore,  to  designate  the  later 
Hebrew  by  the  same  name  which  is  applied  to  it  by  those  who  spoke  it,  and  this  is 
still  among  modern  writers  the  term  used  for  it;  but  of  late,  some,  especially  Hug 
and  his  commentator,  Wait,  have  introduced  the  name  "  Aramaic,"  as  a  distinctive 
title  of  this  dialect,  deriving  this  term  from  Aram,  the  original  name  of  Syria,  and 
the  regions  around,  in  all  which  was  spoken  in  the  time  of  Christ,  this  or  a  similar 
dialect.  This  term,  however,  is  quite  unnecessary;  and  I  therefore  prefer  to  use 
here  the  common  name,  as  above  limited,  because  it  is  the  one  used  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament, and  the  one  in  familiar  use,  not  only  with  common  readers,  but,  as  far  as 
I  know,  with  the  majoiity  of  Biblical  critics. 

Though  the  evidence  that  Matthew  wrote  his  gospel  in  Hebrew,  is  apparently  of 
the  most  uniform,  weighty,  and  decisive  character,  there  have  been  many  among  the 
learned,  within  the  three  last  centuries,  who  have  denied  it,  and  have  brought  the 
best  of  their  learning  and  ability  to  prove  that  the  Greek  gospel  of  Matthew,  which 
is  now  in  the  New  Testament,  is  the  original  production  of  his  pen  ;  and  so  skilfully 
has  this  modern  view  been  maintained,  that  this  has  already  been  made  one  of  the 
most  doubtful  questions  in  the  history  of  the  canon.  In  Germany  more  particularly, 
(but  not  entirely,)  this  notion  has,  since  the  Reformation,  been  .strongly  supported  by 
many  who  do  not  like  the  idea,  that  we  are  in  possession  only  of  a  translation  of  this 
most  important  record  of  sacred  history,  and  that  the  original  is  now  lo.st  for  ever. 
Those  who  have  more  particularly  distinguished  themselves  on  this  .side  of  the  con- 
troversy, are  Erasmus,  Beza,  Le  Clerc,  Maius,  Schroder,  Masch,  Semler,  and  Hug, 
but  the  great  majority  of  critics  still  support  the  old  view. 


390  LIVES    OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

The  earliest  evidence  for  the  Hkbrew  original  of  Matthew's  gospel,  is  Papias  of 
Hierapolis,  (A.  D.  110 — 140,)  nut  long  alter  the  times  of  the  apostles,  and  ac- 
quainted with  many  who  knew  ihem  personally.  Eusebiiis  (li.  E.  III.  39)  quotes  the 
words  of  Pnpias,  (of  which  ilie  orij^inal  is  now  lost,)  wliich  are  exactly  translated 
here:— "  Matthew  ihcrefore  wrote  ihe  divine  words  in  the  Hebrew  language;  and 
every  one  translated  them  as  he  could."  By  which  it  appears  that  in  the  time  of  Pa- 
pias there  was  no  universally  acicnowledged  translation  of  Matthew's  gospel;  but 
that  every  one  was  still  left  to  his  own  private  discretion,  in  giving  the  meaning  in 
Greek  from  the  original  Hebrew.  The  value  of  Papias's  testimony  on  any  point 
connected  with  the  history  of  l.he  apostles,  may  be  best  learned  from  his  own  simple 
and  honest  account  of  liis  opporinnilies  and  efforts  to  inquire  into  their  history  ;  (as 
recorded  by  Eiiscbius  in  a  lormer  p.'irt  of  the  same  chapter.)  "  If  any  person  who 
had  ever  been  acfpininlcd  with  the  elders,  came  into  my  company,  I  inquired  of  them 
the  words  of  the  elders; — what  Andrew  and  Peter  saidl — what  Thomas,  and  James, 
and  John,  and  Matthew,  and  the  other  disciples  of  the  Lord  used  to  say  T' — All  this 
shows  an  inquiring,  zealous  mind,  faithful  in  particulars,  and  ready  in  improving 
opportunities  for  acquiring  historical  knowledge.  Yet  because  in  another  part  of  the 
works  of  Eusebius,  he  is  characterized  as  rather  enthusiastic,  and  very  weak  in  judg- 
ment, more  particularly  in  respect  to  doctrines,  some  moderns  have  attempted  to  set 
aside  his  testimony,  as  worth  nothing  on  this  simple  historical  point,  the  decision  of 
which,  from  the  direct  personal  witness  of  those  who  had  seen  Mauhew  and  read 
his  original  gospel,  no  more  needed  judgment  than  would  the  remembrance  of  Ins  own 
name.  The  argument  offered  to  discredit  Papias  is  this: — "  He  believed  in  a  bodily 
reign  of  the  Messiah  on  the  eanh,  during  the  whole  period  of  the  Millennium,  and 
for  this,  and  some  similar  errors,  is  pronounced  by  Eusebius  'a  man,  in  some  par- 
ticulars, of  very  weak  judgment,'— =-[Ti/r)(lpu  n  n-^upof  -ov  i/.-fiv,  Eusebius  iii.  39.  Hug 
makes  a  verbal  error  in  quoting  this, — substituting  inu'v  for  the  first  word,  and  sup- 
pressing n.]  Therefore,  he  could  not. have  known  in  what  language  Matthew  wrote." 
The  objection  certainly  is  worth  something  against  a  man  who  made  such  errors  as 
Papias,  in  questions  where  any  nice  discrimination  is  necessary,  but  in  a  simple 
effort  of  a  ready  memory,  he  is  as  good  a  witness  as  though  he  had  the  discrimina- 
tion of  a  modern  skeptical  critic.  (In  Michaelis's  Int.  N.  T.,  vol.  III.  c.  W.  §  4,  is  a 
full  discussion  of  Papias's  character  and  testimony,  and  the  objections  to  them.) 
Hug's  misquotation  palpably  betrays  that  the  learned  critic  quoted  from  memory 
merely,  and  implies  a  neglect  of  such  a  fair  examination  as  w^as  necessary  to  do  jus- 
tice to  the  opinion  expressed  by  Eusebius. 

The  second  witness  is  Irenaeus,  (A.  D.  ICO,)  who,  hoAvever,  coupling  his  testimony 
■with  a  demonstrated  falsehood,  destroys  the  value  which  might  be  otherwise  put  upon 
a  statement  so  ancient  as  his.  His  words  are  quoted  by  Eusebius,  (H.  E.,  V.  8.) 
"  Matthew  published  among  the  Hebrews  his  gospel,  written  in  tJieir  men  language, 
(nl  uVia  HiiTMi'  f^iiiXrvrcj,)  while  Peter  and  Paul  were  preaching  Christ  at  Rome,  and  lay- 
ing the  foundations  of  the  church."  This  latter  circumstance  is  no  great  help  to  the 
story,  after  what  has  been  proved  on  this  point  in  the  notes  on  Peter's  life;  bat  the 
critics  do  not  pretend  to  attack  it  on  this  ground.  They  urge  against  it,  that  as  Ire- 
naeus  had  a  great  regard  for  Papias,  and  took  some  facts  on  his  word,  he  probably 
took  this  also  from  him,  with  no  other  authority, — a  gnefs,  which  only  wants  proof, 
to  make  a  very  tolerable  argument.  But  let  Irenaeus  go  for  what  he  is  worth  ;  there 
are  enough  without  him. 

The  third  witness  is  Pantaenus  of  Alexandria,  already  quoted  in  the  note  on  Na- 
thanael's  life,  (p.  384,)  as  having  found  this  Hebrew  gospel  still  in  use,  in  that  lan- 
guage, among  the  Jews  of  Arabia-Felix,  towards  the  end  of  the  second  century. 

The  fourth  witness  isOrigen,  (A.  D.  230,)  whose  words  on  this  point  are  preserved 
only  in  a  quotation  made  by  Eusebius,  (H.  E.,  VI.  2.5,)  who  thus  gives  them  from 
Origen's  commentar}'  on  Matthew.  "  As  I  have  learned  by  tradition  concerning  the 
four  gospels,  which  alone  are  received  without  dispute  by  the  church  of  God  under 
heaven:  the  first  was  written  by  Matthew,  once  a  tax-gatherer,  afterwards  an  apostle 
of  Jesus  Christ,  who  published  it  for  the  benefit  cf  the  Jewish  converts,  having  com- 
posed it  in  the  Hebrew  language, "  &c.  The  term,  "  tradiiion"  (irnoutWis,  f.aradosis,') 
here  evidently  means  something  more  than  floating,  unauthorized  information, 
coming  merely  by  va;j;ue  hearsay ;  for  to  this  source  only  he  refers  all  his  knowledge 
cf  the  fact,  that  "  the  gospel  was  written  by  Matthew;"  so  that,  in  fact,  we  have  as 
good  authority  in  this  place,  for  believing  that  Matthew  wrote  in  Hebrew,  as  we 
have  that  he  wrote  at  all.  The  other  circumstances  specified,  also  show  clearly, 
that  he  did  not  derive  all  his  information  on  this  point  from  Papias,  as  some  have 


MATTHEW.  391 

urged ;  because  this  account  gives  facts  which  that  earlier  Father  did  not  mention, — 
as  that  it  was  written  first,  and  that  it  was  intended  for  the  benefit  of  the  Jewish  converts. 

Later  authorities,  such  as  Aihanasius,  Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  Epiphanius,  Gregory 
of  Nazianzus,  and  others,  might  be  quoted  in  detail,  to  the  same  etfeci;  but  this  gene- 
ral staieincnt  is  sut{icient.  for  this  place.  The'  scholar,  of  course,  will  refer  to  the 
works  on  critical  theology  for  detailed  abstracts  of  these,  as  well  as  the  former  writers. 
Mi'jhaelis  is  very  full,  both  in  extracts  and  discussions.  Hug  also  gives  a  minute 
account  of  the  evidence,  with  the  view  of  refuting  it. 

The  testimony  of  Jerome  (A.  D.  395)  is,  however,  so  full  and  explicit,  and  so 
valuable  from  his  character  as  a  Hebrew  scholar,  that  it  may  well  be  esteemed  of 
liicrher  importance  to  the  question,  than  that  of  some  earlier  writers.  His  words  are 
— "  Matthew  composed  his  gospel  in  Hebrew  letters  and  words,  but  it  is  not  very 
well  known  who  afterwards  translated  it.  Moreover,  the  very  Hebrew  original 
iTJsr.r.F  is  preserved  even  to  this  day,  in  the  library  at  Caesarea,  which  the  martyr 
Pamphilus  most  industriously  collected.  I  also  had  the  opportunity  of  copying  [rfc- 
scribcndi]  this  book  by  means  of  the  Nazareans  in  Beroea,  a  city  of  Syria,  who  use 
this  book."  (Jerome,  Be  scriptoribus  ecclcsiasl.  Vita  Matt.)  Another  passage  from 
the  same  author  is  valuable  testimony  to  the  same  purpose, — "  Matthew  wrote  his  gospel 
z?i  ike  H  brew  language,  principally  for  the  sake  of  those  Jews  who  believed  in  Jesus." 

Now  these  testimonies,  though  coming  from  an  authority  so  late,  are  of  the  highest 
value,  when  his  means  of  learning  the  truth  are  considered.  By  his  own  statement, 
it  appears  that  he  had  actuallij  seen,  and  examined  ihe  original  Hebrew  gospel  of  Mat- 
thew, or  what  was  considered  to  be  such,  as  preserved  in  the  valuable  collections  of 
Pamphilus,  at  a  place  within  the  region  for  which  it  was  first  written.  It  has  been 
urged  that  Jerome  confounded  the  "  gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews,"  an  apocr3'phal 
book,  with  the  true  original  of  Matthew.  But  this  is  disproved,  from  the  circum- 
stance that  Jerome  himself  translated  this  apocryphal  gospel  from  the  Hebrew  into 
Latin,  while  he  says  that  the  translator  of  Matthew  was  unknown.  But  Hug  most 
shamefully  garbles  and  perverts  this  passage,  quoting  only  mere  scraps  of  this, 
and  other  passages  not  connected  with  it, — and  conveying  to  an  ordinary  reader's 
mind  the  impression  that  Jerome  saw  only  the  apocryphal  "  gospel  according  to 
the  Hebrews;"  whereas  Jerome  himself  most  distinctly  declares  that  he  saw  Mat- 
thew's gospel;  and  he  afterwards  translated  the  gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews  as 
a  ditferent  work.     (See  Hug  II.  §  11,  note,  p.  58  of  the  original.) 

In  addition  to  these  authorities  from  the  Fathers,  may  be  quoted  the  statements  ap- 
pended to  the  ancient  Syriac  and  Arabic  versions,  which  distinctly  declare  that  Mat- 
thew wrote  in  Hebrew.     This  was  also  the  opinion  of  all  the  learned  Syrians. 

The  great  argument  with  which  all  this  evidence  is  met,  (besides  discrediting  the 
witnesses,)  is  that  Matthew  ought  to  have  written  in  Greek,  and  therefore  did.  (Mat- 
thaeus  Graece  scribere  debuit.  Schubert.  Diss.  §  24.)  Tliis  sounds  very  strangely, 
that,  without  any  direct  ancient  testimony  to  support  the  assertion,  but  a  great  num- 
ber of  distinct  assertions  against  it,  from  the  very  earliest  Fathers,  moderns  should 
now  pronounce  themselves  better  judges  of  what  Matthew  ought  to  do,  than  those 
who  were  so  near  to  his  time,  and  were  so  well  acquainted  with  his  design,  and  all 
the  circumstances  under  which  it  was  executed.  Yet,  strangely  as  it  sounds,  an  ar- 
gument of  even  this  presumptuous  aspect,  demands  the  most  respectful  consideration, 
more  especially  from  those  who  have  had  frequent  occasion,  on  other  points,  to  no- 
tice the  very  questionable  character  of  the  "  testimony  of  the  Fathers."  It  should  be 
noticed,  however,  that,  in  this  case,  the  argument  does  not  rest  on  a  mere  floating  tra- 
dition, like  many  other  mooted  points  in  early  Christian  history,  but  in  most  of  the 
witnesses,  is  referred  to  direct  personal  knowledge  of  the  facts,  and,  in  some  ca.ses,  to 
actual  inspection  of  the  original. 

It  is  proper  to  notice  the  reasons  for  thinking  that  Matthew  oughl  to  have  written 
in  Greek,  which  have  influenced  such  minds  as  those  of  Erasmus,  Beza,  Ittig,  Leus- 
den,  Spanheim,  Le  Clerc,  Scmler,  Hug,  and  others,  and  which  have  had  a  decisive 
weight  with  such  wonderfully  deep  Hebrew  scholars,  as  Wagenseil,  Lightfoot,  John 
Henry  Michaelis,  and  Reland.  The  amount  of  the  argument  is,  mainly,  that  the 
Greek  was  then  so  widely  and  commonly  spoken  even  in  Palestine,  as  to  be  the  most 
desirable  language  for  the  evangelist  to  u.se  in  preserving  for  the  benefit  of  his  own 
countrymen  the  record  of  the  life  of  Christ.  The  particulars  of  the  highly  elaborate 
and  learned  arguments,  on  which  this  assertion  has  been  rested,  have  filled  volumes, 
nor  can  even  an  abstract  be  allowed  here;  but  a  simple  reference  to  common  facts 
will  do  something  to  show  to  common  readers,  the  prominent  objections  to  the  notion 
of  a  Greek  original.    It  is  perfectly  agreed  that  the  Hebrew  was  the  ordinary  Ian- 


392  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

guage  spoken  by  Christ,  in  his  teachings,  and  in  all  his  usual  intercourse  with  the 
people  around  him.  That  this  language  was  that  in  which  the  Jews  also  commonly 
wrote  and  read  at  that  time,  as  far  as  they  were  able  to  do  either,  in  any  language,  is 
equally  plain.  In  spite  of  all  that  Grecian  and  Roman  conquests  could  do,  the  Jews 
were  slill  a  distinct  and  peculiar  people ;  nor  is  there  any  reason  whatever  to  suppose 
that  they  were  any  less  so  in  language,  than  they  were  in  dress,  manners,  and  gene- 
ral character.  He,  therefore,  who  desired  to  write  any  thing  for  the  benefit  ot  the 
Jews,  as  a  nation,  would  insure  it  altogether  the  best  attention  from  them,  if  it  came 
in  a  form  most  accordant  wiih  their  national  feelings.  They  would  naturally  be  the 
first  persons  whose  salvation  would  be  an  object  to  the  apo.stolic  writers,  as  to  the 
apostolic  ;we«c/ier5;  and  the  feelings  of  the  writer  himself,  Deing  in  some  degree  in- 
fluenced by  love  of  his  own  counirymen,  he  would  aim  first  at  the  direct  spiritual 
benefit  of  those  who  were  his  kindred  according  to  the  flesh.  Among  all  ihe  hi.sioii- 
cal  writings  of  the  New  Testament,  that  there  should  be  not  one  originally  composed 
in  the  language  of  the  people  among  whom  the  Savior  arose,  with  whom  he  lived, 
talked,  and  labored,  and  for  whom  he  died,  would  be  very  strange.  The  fact  that  a 
gospel  in  the  Hebrew  language  was  considered  absolutely  indispensable  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  Jewish  inhabitants  of  Palestine,  is  rendered  perfectly  incontestable  by  tlie 
circumstance  that  those  apocryphal  gospels  which  were  in  common  use  among  the 
heretical  denominations  of  that  region,  were  all  in  Hebrew;  and  the  common  argu- 
ment, that  the  Hebrew^  gospel  spoken  of  by  the  Fathers  was  translated  into  Hebrew 
from  Matthew's  Greek,  is  itself  an  evidence  that  it  was  absolutely  indispensable  that 
the  Jews  should  be  addressed  in  writing,  in  that  language  alone.  The  objection,  that 
the  Hebrew  original  of  Matthew  was  lost  so  soon,  is  easily  answered  by  the  fact,  that 
the  Jews  were,  in  the  course  of  the  few  first  centuries,  driven  out  of  the  land  of  their 
Fathers  so  completely,  as  to  destroy  the  occasion  for  any  such  gospel  in  their  lan- 
guage; for  wherever  they  went,  they  soon  made  the  dialect  of  the  couniry  in  which 
they  lived,  their  only  medium  of  communication,  written  or  spoken. 

Fabricius  may  be  advantageously  consulted  by  the  scholar  for  a  condensed  view 
of  the  question  of  the  original  language  of  Matthew's  gospel,  and  his  references  to 
authorities,  ancient  and  modern,  are  numerous  and  valuable,  besides  those  appended 
by  his  editors. — The  most  complete  argument  ever  made  out  in  defense  of  a  Greelc 
original,  is  that  by  Hug,  in  his  Introduction,  whose  history  of  the  progress  of  Grecian 
influence  and  language  in  Syria  and  Palestine,  is  both  interesting  and  valuable  on 
its  own  account,  though  made  the  inefficient  instalment  of  supporting  an  error.  He 
is  very  ably  met  by  his  English  translator,  Wait,  in  the  introduction  to  the  first 
volume.  A  very  strong  defense  of  a  Greek  original  of  Matthew,  is  also  found  in  a  little 
quarto  pamphlet,  containing  the  thesis  of  aGottingen  student,  on  taking  his  degree  in 
theology,  in  1810.    (Diss.  Grit.  Exeg.  in  serm.  Matt.  &c.   Auct.  Frid.  Gul.  Schubert.) 

II.  What  were  the  Materials  of  Matthew's  Gospel? 

The  first  apostolic  evangelist,  having  been  himself  a  personal 
companion  and  trusted  minister  of  Jesus,  an  eyewitness  of  his  ac- 
tions, and  a  favored  hearer  both  of  his  public  discourses,  and  of  his 
private  instructions  and  prayers,  could  not,  while  the  best  powers  of 
life  and  mind  remained,  have  failed  of  the  most  distinct  impressions 
respecting  the  whole  history  of  the  public  life  of  Jesus  Christ.  The 
period  during  which  the  apostles  were  personally  familiar  with  Jesus, 
probably  not  above  three  years,  was  so  short  that  the  memory  of  an 
active-minded,  observing  man,  could  not  be  overtasked  or  exhausted 
by  the  effort  to  preserve  the  knowledge  of  all  the  main  particulars 
of  the  first  gospel  revelation.  Matthew's  previous  habits  of  mind 
and  occupation  in  life,  moreover,  were  such  as  to  fit  him  in  an  emi- 
nent degree  for  the  work  of  recording  facts,  dates,  places,  and  per- 
sons, with  precision  and  trustworthy  accuracy.  As  a  publican,  or 
collector  of  customs,  in  the  great  thoroughfare  of  the  port  of  Caper- 
naum, he  must  have  acquired  such  habits  of  minute  nersonal  obser- 


MATTHEW.  393 

vation,  is  would  qualify  him  especially  for  the  task  of  noting  and 
recording  all  those  small  details  and  every-day  scenes  of  the  life  of 
Christ,  which  are  graphically  sketched  by  his  pen.  He  was  not 
called  on  for  this  exertion  of  memory  and  powers  of  description, 
until  many  years  after  the  occurrences ;  for  the  apostles  felt  no  espe- 
cial need  of  a  written  record  in  their  original  labors,  which  were 
confined  to  mere  personal  oral  instruction,  either  by  themselves  or 
those  directly  commissioned  by  them.  But  when  the  extension  of 
missionary  fields,  the  multiplication  of  secondary  and  inferior  labor- 
ers, and  the  confusion  of  revolutionary  times  had  deprived  them 
altogether  of  the  means  of  personal  communication  with  the  ma- 
jority of  converts,  the  necessity  of  an  authorized  apostolic  record  of 
the  great  scenes  of  redemption  became  manifest,  and  Matthew  was 
doubtless  moved  to  undertake  the  task  of  leaving  the  first  record  of 
inspiration  for  the  Christians  of  Palestine,  by  the  suggestion,  and 
perhaps  actual  nomination  of  his  brethren ; — his  peculiar  talents,  and 
probably  his  previous  habits,  in  some  measure,  marking  him  as  the 
proper  person  to  undertake  the  task.  The  particular  form  of  expres- 
sion which  he  used  in  giving  the  actions  and  discourses  of  Jesus, 
was  doubtless,  in  most  instances,  that  which  had  already  become  the 
style  of  the  gospel  narrative,  as  so  often  repeated  by  the  apostles  in 
their  ministrations  in  Jerusalem,  and  from  this  established  form  of 
presenting  the  facts,  he  would  seldom  feel  disposed  to  depart.  This 
becomes  an  important  means  of  explaining  the  minute  verbal  coin- 
cidences between  the  different  evangelists,  and  will  be  noticed  in  re- 
ference to  this,  as  the  subject  of  those  coincidences  comes  up  in  the 
lives  of  the  other  gospel  writers. 

This  point  has  been  made  the  subject  of  more  discussion  and  speculation,  within 
the  last  fifty  years,  among  the  critical  and  exegetical  theologians  of  Europe,  than 
any  other  subject  connected  with  the  New  Testament.  Those  who  wish  to  see  the 
interesting  details  of  the  modes  of  explaining  the  coincidences  between  the  three  first 
evangelists,  may  find  much  on  this  subject  in  Michaelis's  Introduction  to  the  N.  T., 
and  especially  in  the  translation  by  Bishop  Marsh,  who,  in  his  notes  on  Vol.  III.  of 
Michaelis,  has,  after  a  very  full  discussion  of  all  previous  views  of  the  origin  of  the 
gospels,  gone  on  to  build  one  of  the  most  ingenious  speculations  on  this  point  that 
was  ever  conceived  on  any  subject,  but  which,  in  its  very  complicated  structure,  will 
present  a  most  insuperable  objection  to  its  adoption  by  the  vast  majority  of  even  his 
critical  readers;  and  accordingly,  though  he  has  received  universal  praise  for  the 
great  learning  and  ingenuity  displayed  in  its  formation,  he  has  found  few  supporters, 
— perhaps  none.  His  views  are  fully  examined  and  fairly  discussed,  by  the  anony- 
mous English  translator  of  Dr.  F.  Schleiermacher's  Commentary  on  Luke,  in  an  in- 
troductory history  of  all  the  German  speculations  on  this  subject  with  which  he  has 
prefaced  that  work.  The  historical  sketch  there  given  of  the  progress  of  opinion  on 
the  sources  and  materials  of  the  first  three  gospels,  is  probably  the  most  complete 
account  of  the  whole  matter  that  is  accessible  in  English,  and  displays  a  very  minute 
acquaintance  with  the  German  theologians.  Hug  is  also  very  full  on  this  subject, 
and  also  discusses  the  views  of  Marsh  and  Michaelis.  Hug's  translator.  Dr.  Wait^ 
has  giv^en,  in  an  introduction  to  the  first  volume,  a  very  interesting  account  of  these 
critical  controversies,  and  has  large  references  to  many  German  writers,  not  referred 
to  by  his  author.  Bertholdt  and  Bolten,  in  particular,  are  amply  quoted  and  disputed 
by  Wait.  Bloomfield  also,  in  the  prefaces  to  the  first  and  second  volumes  of  his 
Critical  Annotations  on  the  N.  T.,  gives  much  on  the  subject  that  can  hardly  be  found 
any  where  else  by  a  mere  English  reader.  Large  references  might  be  made  to  the 
■\^orks  of  the  original  German  writers ;  but  it  would  require  a  very  protracted  state- 


394  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

ment,  and  -would  be  useless  to  nearly  all  readers,  because  those  to  whom  these  rare 
and  deep  treasures  of  sacred  knowledge  are  accessible,  are  doubtless  better  able  to 
give  an  account  of  them  than  I  am.  It  may  be  worth  while  to  mention,  however, 
that  of  all  those  statements  of  the  facts  on  this  subject  with  which  I  am  acquainted, 
none  gives  a  more  satisfactory  view,  than  a  little  Latin  monograph,  in  a  quarto  of 
eighty  pages,  written  by  H.  W.  Halfeld,  (a  Gotlingen  theological  student,  and  a  pupil 
of  Eichhorn,  for  whose  views  he  has  a  great  partiality,)  for  the  Royal  premium.  Its 
title  is — *'  Commentatio  de  origine  quatuor  evangeliorum,  et  de  eorum  canonica  auc- 
toritate."  (Giittingen,  1790.)  The  BibliolhecaGraeca  of  Fabricius  (Harles's  edition 
with  notes)  contains,  in  the  chapters  on  the  gospels,  very  rich  references  to  the  learned 
authors  on  these  points.  Lardner,  in  his  History  of  the  Apostles  and  Evangelists, 
takes  a  learned  view  of  the  question — "  whether  either  of  the  three  evangelists  had 
seen  the  others'  writings."  This  he  gives  after  the  lives  of  all  four  of  the  evangelists, 
and  it  may  be  referred  to  for  a  very  full  abstract  of  all  the  old  opinions  upon  the 
question.  Few  of  these  points  have  any  claim  for  a  discussion  in  this  book,  but  some 
things  may  very  properly  be  alluded  to,  in  the  lives  of  the  other  evangelists,  where 
a  reference  to  their  resemblances  and  common  sources,  will  be  essential  to  the  com- 
pleteness of  the  narrative. 

III.  At  what  time  did  Matthew  write  his  Gospel? 

This  is  a  question  on  which  the  records  of  antiquity  afford  no 
light,  that  can  be  trusted  ;  and  it  is  therefore  left  to  be  settled  entirely 
by  internal  evidence.  There  are  indeed  ancient  stories,  that  he 
wrote  it  nine  years  after  the  ascension, — that  he  wrote  it  fifteen 
years  after  that  event, — that  he  wrote  it  while  Peter  and  Paul  were 
preaching  at  Rome, — or  when  he  was  about  leaving  Palestine,  &.C., 
all  which  are  about  equally  valuable.  The  results  of  the  examina- 
tions of  modern  writers,  who  have  labored  to  ascertain  the  date,  have 
been  exceedingly  various,  and  only  probabilities  can  be  stated  on 
this  most  interesting  point  of  gospel  history.  The  most  probable 
conjecture  on  this  point  is  one  based  on  the  character  of  certain  pas- 
sages in  Christ's  prophecy  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  which  by 
their  vividness  in  the  evangelist's  record,  may  be  fairly  presumed 
to  have  been  written  down  when  the  crisis  in  Jewish  affairs  was 
highest,  and  most  interesting ;  and  when  the  perilous  condition  of 
the  innocent  Christians  must  have  been  a  matter  of  the  deepest 
solicitude  to  the  apostles, — so  much  as  to  deserve  a  particular  pro- 
vision, by  a  written  testimony  of  the  impending  ruin.  A  reference 
made  also  to  a  certain  historical  fact  in  Christ's  prophecy,  which  is 
known  on  the  testimony  of  Josephus,  the  Jewish  historian,  to  have 
happened  about  this  time,  affords  another  important  ground  for  fixing 
the  date.  This  is  the  murder  of  Zachariah,  the  son  of  Barachiah, 
whom  the  Jews  slew  between  the  temple  and  the  altar.  He  relates 
that  the  ferocious  banditti,  who  had  possessed  themselves  of  the  strong 
places  of  the  city,  tyrannized  over  the  wretched  inhabitants,  execu- 
ting the  most  bloody  murders  daily,  among  them,  and  killing,  upon 
the  most  mifounded  accusations,  the  noblest  citizens.  Among  those 
thus  sacrificed  by  these  bloody  tyrants,  Josephus  very  minutely  nar- 
rates the  murder  of  Zachariah,  the  son  of  Baruch,  or  Baruchus,  a 
man  of  one  of  the  first  families,  and  of  great  wealth.  His  indepen- 
dence of  character  mid  freedom  of  speech,  denoimcing  the  base 
tyranny  under  which  the  city  groaned,  soon  made  him  an  object  of 


^ 

«5^ 


MATTHEW.  395 

mortal  hatred  to  the  military  rulers  ;  -and  his  wealth  also  constituted 
an  important  incitement  to  his  destruction.  He  was  therefore  seized, 
and  on  tlie  baseless  charge  of  plotting  to  betray  the  city  into  the 
hands  of  Vespasian  and  the  Romans,  was  brouglit  to  a  trial  before  a 
tribunal  constituted  by  themselves,  from  the  elders  of  the  people,  in 
the  temple,  which  they  had  profaned  by  making  it  their  strong  hold. 
The  righteous  Zachariah,  knowing  that  his  doom  was  irrevocably 
sealed,  determined  not  to  lay  aside  his  freedom  of  speech,  even  in 
this  desperate  pass ;  and  when  brought  by  his  iniquitous  accusers 
before  the  elders  who  constituted  the  tribunal,  in  all  the  eloquent 
energy  of  despair,  after  refuting  the  idle  accusations  against  him,  in 
few  words,  he  turned  upon  his  accusers  his  just  indignation,  and 
burst  out  into  the  most  bitter  denunciations  of  their  wickedness  and 
cruelty,  mingling  with  these  complaints,  lamentations  over  the  deso- 
late and  miserable  condition  of  his  ruined  country.  The  ferocious 
Zealots,  excited  to  madness  by  his  dauntless  spirit  of  resistance,  in- 
stantly drew  their  swords,  and  threateningly  called  out  to  the  judges 
to  condemn  him  at  once.  But  even  the  instruments  of  their  power 
were  too  much  moved  by  the  heroic  innocence  of  the  prisoner,  to 
consent  to  this  unjust  doom ;  and,  in  spite  of  these  threats,  acquitted 
him  at  once.  The  Zealots  then  burst  out,  at  once,  into  fury  against 
the  judges,  and  rushed  upon  them  to  punish  their  temerity,  in  de- 
claring themselves  willing  to  die  with  him,  rather  than  imjustly  pro- 
nounce sentence  upon  him.  Two  of  the  fiercest  of  the  ruffians, 
seizing  Zachariah,  slew  him  in  the  middle  of  the  temple^  insulting 
his  last  agonies,  and  immediately  hurled  his  warm  corpse  over  the 
terrace  of  the  temple,  into  the  depths  of  the  valley  below. 

This  was,  most  evidently,  the  horrible  murder  to  which  Jesus  re- 
ferred in  his  prophecy.  Performed  thus,  just  on  the  eve  of  the  last, 
utter  ruin  of  the  temple  and  the  city,  it  is  the  only  act  that  could  be 
characterized  as  the  crowning  iniquity  of  all  the  blood  unrighteously 
shed,  from  the  earliest  times  downwards.  It  has  sometimes  been 
supposed  by  those  ignorant  of  this  remarkable  event,  that  the 
Zachariah  here  referred  to,  was  Zachariah,  son  of  Jehoiada,  who, 
in  the  reign  of  Joash,  king  of  Judah,  was  stoned  by  the  people,  at 
the  command  of  the  king,  in  the  outer  court  of  the  temple.  But 
there  are  several  circumstances  connected  with  that  event,  which 
render  it  impossible  to  interpret  the  words  of  Jesus  as  referring 
merely  to  that,  although  some  of  the  coincidences  are  truly  amazing. 
That  Zachariah  was  the  son  of  Jehoiada^ — this  was  the  son  of  Ba- 
ruch^  or  Barachiah  ; — that  Zachariah  was  slain  in  the  outer  court, — 
this  Avas  slain  "  in  the  midst  of  the  temple" — that  is,  "  between  the 
temple  and  the  altar."  Besides,  Jesus  evidently  speaks  of  this  Zach- 
ariah as  a  person  yet  to  come.  "  Behold,  I  send  to  you  propliets, 
and  wise  men,  and  writers ;  and  some  of  them  you  loill  kill  and 
crucify ;  and  some  of  them  you  shall  scourge  and  persecute ;  that 
upon  you  may  come  all  the  righteous  blood  shed  upon  the  earth. 


396  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

from  the  blood  of  righteous  Abel  to  the  blood  of  Zachariah,  the  son 
of  Barachiah,  whom  ye  slew  between  the  temple  and  the  altar.  All 
these  things  shall  come  upon  this  generation."  It  is  true  that  here, 
the  writer,  in  recording  the  prophecy,  now  referring  to  its  fulfilment, 
turns  to  the  Jews,  charging  it  upon  them  as  a  crime  already  past, 
when  he  writes,  though  not  at  the  time  when  the  Savior  spoke  ;  and 
it  is  therefore,  by  a  bold  change  of  tense,  that  he  represents  Jesus 
speaking  of  a  future  event,  as  past.  But  the  whole  point  of  the  dis- 
course plainly  refers  to  future  crimes,  as  well  as  to  future  punish- 
ment. The  multitude  who  heard  him,  indeed,  no  doubt  considered 
him  as  pointing,  in  this  particular  mention  of  names,  only  to  a  past 
event ;  and  notwithstanding  the  difference  of  minor  circumstances, 
probably  interpreted  his  words  as  referring  to  the  Zachariah  men- 
tioned in  2  Chronicles,  who  was  stoned  for  his  open  rebukes  of  the 
sins  of  king  and  people ; — a  conclusion,  moreover,  justified  by  the 
previous  words  of  Jesus.  He  had  just  been  denouncing  upon  them 
the  sin  of  their  fathers,  as  the  murderers  of  the  prophets,  whose 
tombs  they  w^ere  now  so  ostentatiously  building ;  and  if  this  wonder- 
ful accomplishment  of  his  latter  words  had  not  taken  place,  it  might 
reasonably  be  supposed,  that  he  spoke  of  these  future  crimes  only  to 
show  that  their  conduct  would  soon  justify  his  imputation  to  them 
of  their  fathers'  guilt ;  that  they  would,  during  that  same  generation, 
murder  similar  persons,  sent  to  them  on  similar  divine  errands,  and 
thus  become  sharers  in  the  crime  of  their  fathers,  who  slew  Zacha- 
riah, the  son  of  Jehoiada,  in  the  outer  temple.  But  here  now  is  the 
testimony  of  the  impartial  Josephus,  a  Jew, — himself  a  contempo- 
rary learner  of  all  these  events,  and  an  eyewitness  of  some  of  them, 
who,  without  any  bias  in  favor  of  Christ,  but  rather  some  prejudice 
against  him, — in  this  case,  too,  without  the  knowledge  of  any  such 
prophecy  spoken  or  recorded, — gives  a  clear,  definite  statement  of  the 
outrageous  murder  of  Zachariah,  the  son  of  Baruch  or  Barachiah, 
who,  as  he  says,  exactly,  was  "  slain  in  the  middle  of  the  temple," — 
that  is,  "half-way  between  the  temple-courts  and  the  altar."  He 
mentions  it,  too,  as  the  last  bloody  murder  of  a  righteous  man  for 
proclaiming  the  guilt  of  the  wicked  people ;  and  it  therefore  very 
exactly  corresponds  to  the  idea  of  the  crime,  which  was  "  to  fill  up 
the  measure  of  their  iniquities."  This  event,  thus  proved  to  be  the 
accomplishment  of  the  prophecy  of  Jesus,  and  being  shown,  more- 
over, to  have  been  expressed  in  this  peculiar  form,  with  a  reference 
to  the  recent  occurrence  of  the  murder  alluded  to, — is  therefore  a 
most  valuable  means  of  ascertaining  the  date  of  this  gospel.  Jose- 
phus dates  the  murder  of  Zachariah  in  the  month  of  October,  in  the 
thirteenth  year  of  the  reign  of  Nero,  which  corresponds  to  A.  D.  66. 
The  Apostle  Matthew,  then,  must  have  written  after  this  time ;  and 
it  must  be  settled  by  other  passages,  hov>  long  after  he  recorded  the 
prophecy. 

The  passage  containing  the  prophecy  of  the  death  of  Zachariah,  is  in  Matthew 


MATTHEW.  397 

xxiii.  35;  and  that  of  "the  abomination  of  the  desolation,"  is  in  xxiv.  15.  The  pas- 
sage referred  to,  as  describing  the  death  of  Zachariah  the  son  of  Jehoiada  is  in 
2  Chronicles,  xxiv.  17—2-3. 

This  interesting  event  is  recorded  by  Josephus;  (Hist,  of  Jew.  War,  IV.  v.  4;)  and 
is  one  of  the  numerous  instances  which  show  the  vast  benefit  which  the  Christian 
student  of  the  New  Testament  may  derive  from  the  interesting  and  exact  accounts 
of  the  Jewish  historian. 

Another  remarkable  passage  occurring  in  the  prophecy  of  Jesus 
to  his  disciples,  respecting  the  ruin  of  the  temple,  recorded  by  Mat- 
thew immediately  after  the  discourse  to  the  multitude,  just  given, 
affords  reasonable  ground  for  ascertaining  this  point  in  the  history  of 
this  gospel.  When  Jesus  was  solemnly  forewarning  Peter,  Andrew, 
James,  and  John,  of  the  utter  ruin  of  the  temple  and  city,  he  men- 
tioned to  them,  at  their  request,  certain  signs,  by  which  they  might 
know  the  near  approach  of  the  coming  judgment  upon  their  coun- 
try, and  might  thus  escape  the  ruin  to  which  the  gfuilty  were  doomed. 
After  many  sad  predictions  of  personal  suffering,  which  must  befall 
them  in  the  service,  he  distinctly  announced  to  them  a  particular 
event,  by  the  occurrence  of  which  they  might  know  that  "  the  end 
was  come,"  and  might  then,  at  the  warning,  flee  from  the  danger  to 
a  place  of  safety.  "  When  ye  therefore  shall  see  the  abomination  of 
desolation,  spoken  of  by  Daniel  the  prophet,  [ichoso  readeth,  let 
him  understand.)  then  let  them  that  are  in  Judea,  flee  to  the  moun- 
tains." This  parenthetical  expression  is  evidently  thrown  in  by  Mat- 
thew, as  a  warning  to  his  readers,  of  an  event  which  it  behoved  them 
to  notice,  as  a  token  of  a  danger  which  they  must  escape.  The  ex- 
pression vv'-as  entirely  local  and  occasional,  in  its  character,  and  could 
never  have  been  made  a  part  of  the  discourse  by  Jesus ;  but  the 
writer  himself,  directing  his  thoughts  at  that  moment  to  the  circum- 
stances of  the  time,  called  the  attention  of  his  Christian  countrymen 
to  the  warning  of  Jesus,  as  something  which  they  must  understand 
and  act  upon  immediately.  The  inquiry  then  arises  as  to  the  mean- 
ing of  the  expression  used  by  Jesus  in  his  prophecy.  "  The  abomi- 
nation of  desolation  spoken  of  by  Daniel  the  prophet,  as  standing  in 
the  holy  place,"  unquestionably  refers  to  the  horrible  violation  of  the 
sanctity  of  the  holy  places  of  the  temple,  by  the  banditti,  styling 
themselves  "  Zealots  for  their  country,"  who  taking  possession  of  the 
sanctuary,  called  in  the  savage  Idumeans.  a  heathen  people,  who  not 
only  profaned  the  temple,  l)y  their  unholy  presence,  but  defiled  it 
with  various  excesses,  committing  there  a  horrible  massacre,  and 
flooding  its  pavements  with  blood.  This  was  the  abomination  to 
which  both  Daniel  and  Matthew  referred,  and  which  the  latter  had 
in  mind  when  he  mentioned  it  to  his  brethren  to  whom  he  wrote,  as 
the  sign  wliich  theij  in  reading  shnidd  iinderstand,  and  upon  the 
warning,  flee  to  the  mountains.  These  horrible  polluting  excesses 
are  the  only  events  recorded  in  the  history  of  the  times,  which  can 
with  such  certainty  and  justice  be  pronounced  the  sad  omens,  to 
which  Jesus  and  his  evangelist  referred.     They  are  known  to  have 


398  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

occurred  just  before  the  death  of  Zachariah,  and  therefore  also  show 
this  gospel  to  have  been  written  after  the  date  above  fixed  for  that 
event.  That  it  must  have  been  written  before  the  last  siege  of  Jeru- 
salem, is  furthermore  manifest  from  the  fact,  that  in  order  to  have  the 
elfect  of  a  warnings  it  must  have  been  sent  to  those  in  danger  before 
the  avenues  of  escape  from  danger  were  closed  up,  as  they  certainly 
were  after  Titus  had  fully  encompassed  Jerusalem  with  his  armies, 
and  after  the  ferocious  Jewish  tyrants  had  made  it  certain  death  for 
any  one  to  attempt  to  pass  from  Jerusalem  to  the  Roman  camp.  To 
have  answered  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  intended,  then,  it  must 
have  been  written  at  some  period  between  the  murder  of  Zachariah, 
which  was  in  the  winter  of  the  year  G6,  and  the  march  of  Titus  from 
Galilee  to  Jerusalem,  before  which  place  he  pitched  his  camp  in  the 
month  of  March,  in  A.  D.  70.  The  precise  point  of  time  in  these 
three  years  it  is  impossible  to  fix ;  but  it  was,  very  probably,  within 
a  short  time  after  the  commission  of  the  bloody  crimes  to  which  he 
refers  ;  perhaps  in  the  beginning  of  the  year  67. 

This  view  of  these  passages  and  the  circumstauces  to  which  they  refer,  with  all 
the  arguments  which  support  the  inferences  drawn  from  them,  may  be  found  in 
Hug's  Introduction,  (Vol.  II.  §  4. J  He  dales  Matthew's  gospel  much  later  than  most 
writers  do;  it  being  commonly  supposed  to  have  been  written  in  ihe  year  41,  or  in 
the  year  61.  Michaelis  makes  an  attempt  to  reconcile  these  conjectures,  by  supposing 
that  it  was  written  in  Hebrew  by  Matihew,  in  A.  D.  41,  and  translated  in  Gl.  But 
this  is  a  mere  guess,  for  which  he  does  not  pretend  to  assign  a  reason,  and  only  says 
that  he  "  can  see  no  impropriety  in  supposing  .so."    (Introd.  III.  iv.  1,  2.) 

Eichhorn  suggests,  that  a  rea.son  for  concluding  that  Matthew  wrote  his  gospel  a 
long  time  after  the  events  which  he  relates,  is  implied  in  the  expression  used  in  chap. 
xxvii.  8,  and  xxviii.  15.  "  It  is  so  called,  to  this  day" — "  It  is  commonly  reported,  la 
this  day" — are  expressions  which,  to  any  reader,  convey  the  idea  of  many  years  in- 
tervening between  the  incidents  and  the  time  of  their  narration.  In  xxvii.  15,  also, 
the  explanation  which  he  gives  of  the  custom  of  releasing  a  prisoner  to  the  Jews  on 
the  feast  day,  implies  that  the  custom  had  been  so  long  out  of  date,  as  to  be  probably 
forgotten  by  most  of  his  readers,  unless  their  memories  were  refreshed  by  this  dis- 
tinct explanation. 

IV.    With  what  special  design  was  this  Gospel  written? 

The  circumstances  of  the  times,  as  alluded  to  under  the  last  in- 
quiry, afford  much  light  on  the  immediate  oliject  which  Matthew 
had  in  view,  in  writing  his  gospel.  It  is  true,  that  common  readers 
of  the  Bible  seldom  think  of  it  as  any  thing  else  than  a  mere  com- 
plete revelation  made  to  all  men,  to  lead  them  in  the  w^ay  of  truth 
and  salvation ;  and  few  are  prepared  for  an  inquiry  vv^hich  shall  talce 
each  portion  of  the  scriptures  by  itself,  and  follow  it  through  all  its 
individual  history,  to  the  very  source, — searching  even  into  the  im- 
mediate and  temporary  purpose  of  the  inspired  writers.  Indeed,  very 
many  never  think  or  know,  that  the  historical  portions  of  tlic  ¥^<iw 
Testament  were  written  with  any  other  design,  than  to  furnish  to 
believers  in  Christ,  through  all  ages,  in  all  countries,  a  complete  and 
distinct  narrative  of  the  events  of  the  history  of  the  foundation  of 
their  religion.     But  such  a  notion  is  perfectly  discordant,  not  only 


MATTHEW.  399 

with  the  reasonable  results  of  an  accurate  examination  of  these 
writings,  in  all  their  parts,  but  with  the  uniform  and  decided  testi- 
mony of  all  the  Fathers  of  the  Christian  church,  who  may  be  safely 
taken  as  important  and  trusty  witnesses  of  the  notions  prevalent  in 
their  times,  about  the  scope  and  original  design  of  the  apostolic  re- 
cords. And  though,  as  to  the  minute  particulars  of  the  history  of 
the  sacred  canon,  their  testimony  is  worth  little,  yet  on  the  general 
question,  whether  the  apostles  wrote  with  only  a  universal  reference, 
or  also  with  some  special  design  connected  with  their  own  age  and 
times,— the  Fathers  are  as  good  authority  as  any  writers  that  ever 
lived  could  be,  on  the  opinions  generally  prevalent  in  their  own  day. 
In  tliis  particular  case,  however,  very  little  reference  can  be  made  to 
external  historical  evidence,  on  the  scope  of  Matthew's  gospel ;  be- 
cause very  few  notices,  indeed,  are  found,  of  its  immediate  object, 
among  the  works  of  the  early  writers.  But  a  view  of  the  circum- 
stances of  the  times,  before  referred  to,  will  illustrate  many  things 
connected  with  the  plan  of  the  work,  and  show  a  peculiar  force  in 
many  passages,  that  would  otherwise  be  little  appreciated. 

It  appears,  on  the  unimpeachable  testimony  of  the  historians  of 
those  very  times — of  Josephus,  who  was  a  Jew,  and  of  Tacitus  and 
Suetonius,  who  were  Romans — that  both  before  and  during  the  civil 
disturbances  that  ended  in  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  there  was  a 
general  impression  among  the  Jews,  that  their  long-foretold  Savior 
and  national  restorer,  the  Messzah-king,  would  soon  appear,  and  in 
the  power  of  Ood,  lead  them  on  to  a  certain  triumph  over  the  seem- 
ino-ly  invincible  hosts,  which  even  the  boundless  strength  of  Rome 
could  send  against  them.  In  the  expectation  of  the  establishment 
of  his  glorious  dominion,  under  which  Israel  should  more  than  re- 
new the  honors  and  the  power  of  David  and  Solomon,  they,  without 
fear  of  the  appalling  consequences  of  their  temerity,  entered  upon 
the  hopeless  struggle  for  independence ;  and  according  to  the  testi- 
mony of  the  above-mentioned  historians,  this  prevalent  notion  did 
much,  not  only  to  incite  them  to  the  contest,  but  also  to  sustain  their 
resolution  under  the  awful  calamities  which  followed.  The  revolt 
thus  fully  beorm,  drew  the  whole  nation  together  into  a  perfect  union 
of  feeling  and  interest ;  all  sharing  in  the  popular  fanaticism,  became 
Jews  again,  whereby  the  Christian  faith  must  have  lost  not  a  few  of 
its  professors. 

In  these  circumstances,  and  while  such  notions  were  prevalent, 
Matthew  wrote  his  sketch  of  the  life,  teachings,  and  miracles  of 
Jesus ;  and  throughout  the  whole  of  his  narrative  makes  constant 
references,  where  the  connexion  can  suggest,  to  such  passages  in  the 
ancient  holy  books  of  the  Hebrews,  as  were  commonly  supposed  to 
describe  the  character  and  destiny  of  the  Messiah.  Tracing  out  in 
all  these  lineaments  of  ancient  prophecy,  the  complete  picture  of  the 
Restorer  of  Israel,  he  thus  proved,  by  a  comparison  with  the  actual  life 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  that  this  was  the  person  whose  course  through- 


400  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

out  had  been  predicted  by  the  ancient  prophets.     In  this  way,  he 
directly  attacked  the  groundless  hopes,  which  the  fanatical  rebels  had 
excited,  showing,  as  he  did,  that  he  for  whom  they  looked  as  the 
Deliverer  of  Israel  from  bondage,  had  already  come,  and  devoted  his 
life  to  the  disenthralment  and  salvation  of  his  people  from  their  sins. 
A  distinct  and  satisfactory  proof,  carried  on  through  a  chain  of  his- 
torical evidence  to  this  effect,  would  answer  the  purpose  as  fully  as 
the  written  truth  could  do,  of  overthrowing  the  baseless  imposition 
with  which  the  impudent  Zealots  were  beguiling  the  hopes  of  a 
credulous  people,  and  leading  them  on,  willingly  deceived,  to  their 
utter  ruin.     In  this  book,  containing  a  clear  prediction  of  the  de- 
struction of  the  temple  and  Holy  city,  and  of  the  whole  religious  and 
civil  organization  of  the  Jewish  nation,  many  would  find  the  re- 
vealed truth,  making  them  wise  in  the  way  of  salvation,  though  for 
a  time,  all  efforts  might  seem  in  vain ;  for  the  literal  fulfilment  of 
these  solemn  prophecies  thus  previously  recorded,  afterwards  ensu- 
ing, the  truth  of  the  doctrines  of  a  spiritual  faith  connected  with 
these  words  of  prediction,  would  be  strongly  impressed  on  those 
whom  the  consummation  of  their  country's  ruin  should  lead  to  a 
consideration  of  the  errors  in  which  they  had  been  long  led  astray. 
These  prophecies  promised,  too,  that  after  all  these  schemes  of  worldly 
triumph  for  the  name  and  race  of  Israel,  had  sadly  terminated  in  the 
utter,  irretrievable  ruin  of  temple  and  city,— -and  when  the  cessation 
of  festivals,  and  the  taking  away  of  the  daily  sacrifice,  had  left  the 
Jew  so  few  material  and  formal  objects  to  hang  his  faith  and  hopes 
on, — the  wandering  ones  should  turn  to  the  pure  spiritual  truths, 
which  would  prove  the  best  consolation  in  their  hopeless  condition, 
and  own,  in  vast  numbers,  the  name  and  faith  of  him,  whose  sorrowful 
life  and  sad  death  were  but  too  mournful  a  type  of  the  coming  woes 
of  those  who  rejected  him.     Acknowledging  the  despised  and  cruci- 
fied Nazarene  as  the  true  prophet  and  the  long  foretold  Messiah-king 
of  afflicted  Judah,  the  heart-broken,  wandering  sons  of  Israel,  should 
join  themselves  to  that  oft-preached  heavenly  kingdom  of  virtue  and 
truth,  whose  only  entrance  was  through  repentance  and  humility. 
Hence  those  numerous  quotations  from  the  Prophets,  and  from  the 
Psalms,  which  are  so  abundant  in  Matthew,  and  by  which,  even  a 
common  reader  is  able  to  distinguish  the  peculiar,  definite  object  that 
this  writer  has  in  view : — to  show  to  the  Jews,  by  a  minute  detail, 
and  a  frequent  comparison,  that  the  actions'of  Jesus,  even  in  the 
most  trifling  incidents,  corresponded  with  those  ancient  passages  of 
the  scriptures,  which  foreshadowed  the  Messiah.     In  this  particular, 
his  gospel  is  clearly  distinguished  from  the  others,  which  are  for  the 
most  part  deficient  in  this  distinct  unity  of  design ;  and  where  they 
refer  to  the  grand  object  of  representing  Jesus  as  the  Messiah, — the 
Son  of  God, — they  do  it  in  other  modes,  which  show  that  it  was  for 
more  general  purposes,  and  directed  to  the  conversion  of  Gentiles 
rather  than  Jews.     This  is  the  case  with  John,  who  plainly  makes 


MATTHEW.  401 

this  an  essential  object  in  his  grand  scheme ;  but  lie  combines  the 
establishment  of  this  great  truth,  with  the  more  immediate  occasions 
of  subverting  error  and  checking  the  progress  of  heretical  opinions 
that  aimed  to  detract  from  the  divine  prerogatives  of  Jesus.  But 
John  deals  very  little  in  those  pointed  and  apt  references  to  the  testi- 
mony of  the  Hebrew  scriptures,  which  so  distinguish  the  writings  of 
Matthew ;  he  evidently  apprehends  that  those  to  whom  he  writes,  will 
be  less  affected  by  appeals  of  that  kind,  than  by  proofs  drawn  from 
his  actions  and  discourses,  and  by  the  testimony  of  the  great,  the 
good,  and  the  inspired,  among  those  who  saw  and  heard  him.  The 
work  of  Matthew  was,  on  the  other  hand,  plainly  designed  to  bring 
to  the  faith  of  Jesus,  those  who  were  already  fully  and  correctly  in- 
structed in  all  that  related  to  the  divinely  exalted  character  of  the 
Messiah,  and  only  needed  proof  that  the  person  proposed  to  them  as 
the  Redeemer  thus  foretold,  was  in  all  particulars  such  as  the  unerr- 
ing word  of  ancient  prophecy  required.  Besides  this  object  of  con- 
verting the  unbelieving  Jews,  its  tendency  was  also  manifestly  to 
strengthen  and  preserve  those  who  were  already  professors  of  the 
faith  of  Jesus  ;  and  such,  through  all  ages,  has  been  its  mighty  scope, 
enlightening  the  nations  with  the  clearest  historical  testimony  ever 
borne  to  the  whole  life  and  actions  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  rejoicing  the 
millions  of  the  faithful  with  the  plainest  record  of  the  events  that  se- 
cured their  salvation. 

The  substance  of  this  view  of  the  scope  of  Matthew's  gospel  is  given  by  Hug ;  and 
to  him  belongs  the  merit  of  originating  it  in  its  present  distinctness.  (Hug's  Intro- 
duction, II.  §  6.) 

One  of  the  most  ancient  accounts  which  antiquity  has  preserved 
of  Matthew's  life,  after  he  ceases  to  be  mentioned  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament, is — that  "  he  wrote  his  gospel  in  the  language  of  his  coun- 
try, at  the  time  when,  having  before  preached  to  the  Hebrews,  he 
was  about  to  go  to  others."  No  very  ancient  writer  gives  any 
account  of  the  direction  in  which  he  then  journeyed  ;  but  there  is 
no  occasion  to  doubt  that  he  followed  the  general  eastward  course 
of  the  Galilean  apostles  within  the  bounds  of  the  Parthian  empire. 
With  this  general  view  all  the  narrations  of  those  comparatively 
modern  writers  who  give  any  account  of  the  apostles,  happily  co- 
incide. Asiatic  Ethiopia,  Parthia,  and  Persia,  are  all  the  countries 
mentioned  as  the  scene  of  his  missionary  labors,  but  statements  so 
vague  and  unauthorized,  afford  little  satisfaction  to  the  inquirer. 

Ethiopia. — The  earliest  testimony  on  this  point,  in  any  ecclesiastical  history,  is  that 
of  Socrates,  (A.  D.  425,)  a  Greek  writer,  who  says  only,  that  "  when  the  apostles  di- 
vided the  heathen  world,  by  lot,  among  themselves, — to  Matthew  was  allotted  Ethio- 
pia." This  is  commonly  supposed  to  mean  Nubia,  or  the  country  directly  south  of 
Egypt.  But  this  common  error  arises  from  that  profound  ignorance  of  the  true  ap- 
plication of  ancient  geographical  terms,  which  so  generally  prevails  among  those  who 


402  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

ought  to  know  better,  and  which  makes  so  much  trouble  to  a  critical  investigation 
Ethiopia  was  a  term  very  commonly  applied  to  all  the  desert  regions  of  Asia,  west  and 
south  of  the  Euphrates,  and  includes  most  of  Arabia.  Rulnus  (A.  D.  390)  is  the 
earliest  who  states  Ethiopia  to  have  been  Matthew's  field.  (Book  X.)  Socrates 
(A.  D.  439)  says  the  same.  (Hist.  I.  19.)  Paulinus  (A.  D,  393)  says  that  he  died 
among  the  Parthians.  (Carra.  26.)  Heracleon  is  quoted  by  Clemens  Alexandrinus, 
(A.  D.  200,)  as  saying  that  Matthew  died,  not  by  any  martyrdom,  but  in  peace. 
(Stromat.  4.)  The  calendar  of  the  emperor  Basil  agrees  to  this.  The  monks  and 
martyrologists,  however,  have  a  fable  of  his  martyrdom  by  fire.  The  common  Greek 
calendar  of  the  saints  is  the  earliest  authority  for  this,  naming  the  sixteenth  of  No- 
vember as  the  day  of  his  martyrdom.  Nicephorus  Callistus  has  a  story  that  the  fire 
kindled  for  Matthew's  destruction  was  extinguished  at  his  prayers,  and  that  he  at  last 
died  in  peace.  (Hist.  Ecc.  II.  41.)  Florus,  tJsuardus,  Ado,  and  the  other  Latin  fable- 
mongers,  agree  that  he  died  by  martyrdom.  (Natalis  Alexander,  Hist.  Ecc.  I.  viii.  8.) 
There  is  also  a  curious  little  narrative  of  the  life  of  Matthew,  preserved  in  Arabic, 
edited  by  Kirstenius,  which,  after  stating  among  the  details  of  his  early  life  that  he  was 
born  at  Nazareth,  in  Galilee,  his  father  Ducu  and  his  mother  Karutia  being  of  the 
tribe  of  Issachar, — mentions  further,  that  after  preaching  the  gospel  tnvelve  years  in 
Judea,  he  next  journeyed  eastward  into  Asiatic  Ethiopia,  and  there  suffered  martyr- 
dom at  the  city  of  Naddaver,  or,  as  other  accounts  say,  at  Hierapolis,  in  Parthia. — It 
is  certainly  an  interesting  fact,  that  among  the  Arabians  themselves,  inhabitants  of 
the  very  region  in  a  part  of  which  Matthew  is  supposed  to  have  labored,  such  a  story 
should  have  been  preserved  concerning  him;  and  though  no  faith  whatever  can 
safely  be  put  in  the  statements,  they  show  that  there  was  an  ancient  belief  that  he 
actually  lived  in  the  country  named.  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  the  earliest  Father 
who  pretends  to  give  any  account  of  Matthew's  life,  says,  that  he  was  sparing  in  his 
diet,  and  used  nothing  as  food  but  seeds,  berries,  and  pulse.  (Paed.  ii.  1.)  On  what 
authority  this  trifling  circumstance  is  stated  by  a  writer  so  long  after  the  apostolic 
times  as  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  it  is  impossible  to  say ;  but  the  most  insignificant 
statement  which  is  not  absolutely  absurd,  relating  to  the  life  of  an  apostle  of  whose 
history  Christian  antiquity  has  left  so  little,  is  worth  the  notice  of  the  apostolic  his- 
torian.   (See  Cave.  Hist.  Lit.  p.  13.) 

But  no  such  idle  invention,  or  dim  traditionary  story,  can  add 
any  thing  to  the  interest  which  this  apostohc  writer  has  secured 
for  himself,  by  his  noble  Christian  record.  Not  even  an  authentic 
history  of  miracles  and  martyrdom,  could  increase  his  enduring 
greatness.  The  tax-gatherer  of  Galilee  has  left  a  monument,  on 
which  cluster  the  combined  honors  of  a  literary  and  a  holy  fame, 
— a  monument  which  insures  him  a  \^ider,  more  lasting,  and  far 
higher  glory,  than  the  noblest  achievments  of  the  Grecian  or  Latin 
writers,  in  his  or  any  age,  could  acquire  for  them.  Not  Herodotus 
nor  Livy, — not  Demosthenes  nor  Cicero, — not  Homer  nor  Virgil 
— can  find  a  reader  to  whom  the  despised  Matthew's  simple  work 
is  not  familiar ;  nor  did  the  highest  hope  or  the  proudest  concep- 
tion of  the  brilliant  Horace,  when  exulting  in  the  extent  and  dura- 
bility of  his  fame,  equal  the  boundless  and  eternal  range  of  Mat- 
thew's honors.  What  would  Horace  have  said,  if  he  had  been 
told  that  among  the  most  despised  of  those  superstitious  and  bar- 
barian Jews,  whom  his  own  writings  show  to  have  been  prover- 
bially scorned,  would  arise  one,  within  thirty  or  forty  years,  who, 
degraded  by  his  vocation,  even  below  his  own  countrymen's 
standard  of  respectability,  would,  by  a  simple  record  in  humble 


MATTHEW.  403 

prose,  first  written  in  an  uncultivated  and  soon-forgotten  dialect, 
and  afterwards  perpetuated  only  through  the  misty  medium  of  a 
nameless  translation,  "  complete  a  monument  more  enduring  than 
brciss, — more  lofty  than  the  pyramids, — outlasting  all  the  storms 
of  revolution  and  of  disaster, — all  the  course  of  ages  and  the 
flight  of  time  ?"  Yet  such  was  the  result  of  the  unpretending 
eflbrt  of  Matthew ;  and  it  is  not  the  least  among  the  miracles  of 
the  religion  whose  foundation  he  commemorated  and  secured,  that 
such  a  wonder  in  fame  should  have  been  achieved  by  it. 

53 


THOMAS,   DIDYMUS. 


The  second  name  of  this  apostle  is  only  the  Greek  translation 
of  the  former,  which  is  the  Syriac  and  Hebrew  word  for  a  "  twin- 
brother,"  from  which,  therefore,  one  important  circumstance  may 
be  safely  inferred  about  the  hirth  of  Thomas,  though,  unfortu- 
nately, beyond  this,  antiquity  bears  no  record  whatever  of  his  cir- 
cumstances previous  to  his  admission  into  the  apostolic  fraternity. 

Nor  is  the  authentic  history  of  the  apostles,  much  more  satis- 
factory in  respect  to  subsequent  parts  of  Thomeis's  history,  A 
very  few  brief  but  striking  incidents,  in  which  he  was  particularly 
engaged,  are  specified  by  John  alone,  who  seems  to  have  been  dis- 
posed to  supply,  by  his  gospel,  some  characteristic  account  of  seve- 
ral of  the  apostles,  who  had  been  noticed  only  by  name,  in  the 
writings  of  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke.  Those  in  particular  who 
receive  this  peculiar  notice  from  him,  are  Andrew,  Philip,  Na- 
thanael,  Thomas,  and  John  himself, — of  all  whom,  as  well  as  of 
Peter,  are  thus  learned  some  interesting  matters,  which,  though 
apparently  so  trivial,  do  much  towards  giving  a  distinct  impression 
of  some  of  the  leading  traits  in  their  characters.  Among  those 
facts  thus  preserved  respecting  Thomas,  however,  there  is  not  one 
which  gives  any  account  of  his  parentage,  rank  in  life,  or  previ- 
ous occupation  ;  nor  do  any  other  authentic  sources  bring  any 
more  facts  to  view  on  these  points.  The  only  conclusion  pre- 
sented even  by  conjecture,  about  his  early  history,  is,  that  he  was 
a  publican,  like  Matthew, — a  notion  which  is  found  in  some  of  the 
Fathers, — grounded,  no  doubt,  altogether  on  the  circumstance,  that 
in  all  the  gospel  lists,  he  is  paired  with  Matthew,  as  though  there 
were  some  close  connexion  between  them.  This  is  only  a  con- 
jecture, and  one  with  even  a  more  insignificant  basis  than  most 
trifling  speculations  of  this  sort,  and  therefore  deserving  no  regard 
whatever.  Of  the  three  incidents  commemorated  by  John,  two, 
at  least,  are  such  as  to  present  Thomas  in  a  light  by  no  means 
advantageous  to  his  character  as  a  ready  and  zealous  believer  in 
Jesus  ;  but  on  both  these  occasions  he  is  represented  as  expressing 


THOMAS.  405 

opinions  which  prove  him  to  have  been  very  slow,  not  only  in 
believing,  but  in  comprehending  spiritual  truths.  The  first  inci- 
dent is  that  mentioned  by  John  in  his  account  of  the  death  of 
Lazarus,  where  he  describes  the  effect  produced  on  the  disciples 
by  the  news  of  the  decease  of  their  friend,  and  by  the  declaration 
made  at  the  same  time  by  Jesus,  of  his  intention  to  go  into  Judea 
again,  in  spite  of  all  the  mortal  dangers  to  which  he  was  there 
exposed  by  the  hatred  of  the  Jews,  who,  enraged  at  his  open  de- 
clarations of  his  divine  character  and  origin,  were  determined  to 
punish  with  death,  one  who  advanced  claims  which  they  pro- 
nounced absolutely  blasphemous.  This  deadly  hatred  they  had 
so  openly  expressed,  that  Jesus  himself  had  thought  it  best  to  re- 
tire awhile  from  that  region,  and  to  avoid  exposing  himself  to  the 
fatal  effects  of  such  malice,  until  the  other  great  duties  of  his 
earthly  mission  had  been  executed,  so  as  to  enable  him,  at  last,  to 
proceed  to  the  bloody  fulfilment  of  his  mighty  task,  with  the  as- 
surance that  he  had  finished  the  work  which  his  Father  gave  him 
to  do. 

But  in  spite  of  the  pressing  remonstrances  of  his  disciples,  Jesus 
expressed  his  firm  resolution  to  go,  in  the  face  of  all  mortal  dan- 
gers, into  Judea,  there  to  complete  the  divine  work  which  he  had 
only  begun.  Thomas,  finding  his  Master  determined  to  encounter 
the  danger,  which,  by  once  retreating  from  it  for  a  time,  he  had 
acknowledged  to  be  imminent,  resolved  not  to  let  him  go  on  alone ; 
and  turning  to  his  fellow-disciples,  said — "  Let  us  also  go,  that  we 
may  die  with  him."  The  proposal  thus  decidedly  made,  shows  a 
noble  resolution  in  Thomas,  to  share  all  the  fortunes  of  him  to 
whom  he  had  joined  himself,  and  presents  his  character  in  a  far 
more  favorable  light  than  the  other  passages  in  which  his  conduct 
is  commemorated.  While  the  rest  were  fearfully  expostulating  on 
the  peril  of  the  journey,  he  boldly  proposed  to  his  companions  to 
follow  unhesitatingly  the  footsteps  of  their  Master,  whithersoever 
he  might  go, — thus  evincing  a  spirit  of  far  more  exalted  devotion 
to  the  cause 

The  view  here  taken  differs  from  the  common  interpretation  of  the  passage,  but  it 
is  the  view  which  has  seemed  best  supported  by  the  whole  tenor  of  the  context,  as 
may  be  decided  by  a  reference  to  the  passage  in  its  place,  (John  xi.  16.)  The  evi- 
dence on  both  views  can  not  be  better  presented  than  in  Bloomfield's  note  on  this 
passage,  which  is  here  extracted  entire. 

"  Here  again  the  commentators  differ  in  opinion.  Some,  as  Grotius,  Poole,  Ham- 
mond, Whitby,  and  others,  apply  the  airov  to  Lazarus,  and  take  it  as  equivalent  to 
let  us  go  and  die  together  with  him.'  But  it  is  objected  by  Maldonati  and  Lampe, 
that  Lazarus  was  already  dead;  and  die  like  him  they  could  not,  because  a  violent 
death  was  the  one  in  Thomas's  contemplation.    But  these  arguments  seem  inconclu-  ■ 


406  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

sive.  It  may  with  more  justice  be  objected  that  the  sense  seems  scarcely  natural.  I 
prefer,  with  many  ancient  and  modern  interpreters,  to  refer  the  aimv  to  Jesus,  '  let  us 
go  and  die  with  him.'  Maldonati  and  Doddridge  regard  the  words  as  indicative  of 
the  most  affectionate  attachment  to  our  Lord's  person.  But  this  is  going  into  the  other 
extreme.  It  seems  prudent  to  bold  a  middle  course,  with  Calvin,  Tarnovius,  Lyser, 
Bucer,  Lampe,  and  (as  it  should  appear)  Tittman.  Thomas  could  not  dismiss  the 
idea  of  the  imminent  danger  to  which  both  Jesus  and  they  would  be  exposed,  by 
going  into  Judea;  and  with  characteristic  bluntness,  and  some  portion  of  ill  humor 
(though  with  substantial  attachment  to  his  Master's  person,)  he  exclaims — '  Since 
our  Master  will  expose  himself  to  such  imminent,  and,  as  it  seems,  unnecessary 
danger,  let  us  accompany  him,  if  it  be  only  to  share  his  fate.'  Thus  there  is  no  oc- 
casion, with  Markland  and  Foster,  apud  Bowyer,  to  read  the  words  interrogatively." 
(Blootnfield's  Annotations,  vol.  III.  p.  426,  427.) 

In  John's  minute  account  of  the  parting  discourses  of  Christ  at 
the  Last  Supper,  it  is  mentioned  that  Jesus,  after  speaking  of  his 
departure,  as  very  near,  in  order  to  comfort  his  disciples,  told  them, 
he  was  going  "  to  prepare  a  place  for  them,  in  his  Father's  house, 
where  were  many  mansions."  Assuring  them  of  his  speedy  re- 
turn to  bring  them  to  these  mansions  of  rest,  he  said  to  them — 
"  Whither  I  go  ye  know,  and  the  way  ye  know,"  But  so  lost,  for 
the  time,  were  all  these  words  of  instruction  and  counsel,  that  not 
one  of  his  followers  seems  to  have  rightly  apprehended  the  force 
of  this  remark ;  and  Thomas  was  probably  only  expressing  the 
general  doubt,  when  he  replied  to  Jesus,  in  much  perplexity  at  the 
language — "  Lord,  we  know  not  whither  thou  goest ;  and  how  can 
we  know  the  way  ?"  Jesus  replied — "  I  am  the  way,  the  truth, 
and  the  life  :  no  man  comes  to  the  Father  but  by  me."  But  equally 
vain  was  this  new  illustration  of  the  truth.  The  remark  which 
Philip  next  made,  begging  that  they  might  have  their  curiosity 
gratified  by  a  sight  of  the  Father,  shows  how  idly  they  were  all 
still  dreaming  of  a  worldly,  tangible,  and  visible  kingdom,  and 
how  uniformly  they  perverted  all  the  plain  declarations  of  Jesus, 
to  a  correspondence  with  their  own  pre-conceived,  deep-rooted  no- 
tions. Nor  was  this  miserable  error  removed,  till  the  descent  of 
that  Spirit  of  Truth,  which  their  long-suffering  and  ever  watchful 
Lord  invoked,  to  teach  their  still  darkened  souls  the  things  which 
they  would  not  now  see,  and  to  bring  to  their  remembrance  all 
which  they  now  so  little  heeded. 

The  remaining  incident  respecting  this  apostle,  which  is  re- 
corded by  John,  further  illustrates  the  state  of  mind  in  which  each 
new  revelation  of  the  divine  power  and  character  of  Jesus  found 
his  disciples.  None  of  them  expected  his  resurrection ; — none 
would  really  believe  it,  until  they  had  seen  him  with  their  own 
eyes.  Thomas  therefore  showed  no  remarkable  skepticism,  when, 
hearing  from  the  others,  that  one  evening,  when  he  was  not  pre- 


THOMAS.  407 

sent,  Jesus  had  actually  appeared  alive  among  them,  he  declared 
his  absolute  unbelief, — protesting,  that  far  from  suffering  him- 
self to  be  as  lightly  deceived  as  they  had  been,  he  would  give  no 
credit  to  any  evidence  but  that  of  the  most  unquestionable  charac- 
ter,— that  of  seeing  and  touching  those  bloody  marks  which  would 
characterize,  beyond  all  possibility  of  mistake,  the  crucified  body 
of  Jesus.  "  Except  I  shall  see  in  his  hands  the  print  of  the  nails, 
and  put  my  finger  into  the  print  of  the  nails,  and  thrust  my  hand 
into  his  side,  I  will  not  believe."  After  eight  days,  the  disciples 
were  again  assembled,  and  on  this  occasion  Thomas  was  with 
them.  While  they  were  sitting,  as  usual,  with  doors  closed  for 
fear  of  the  Jews,  Jesus  again,  in  the  same  sudden  and  mysterious 
manner  as  before,  appeared  all  at  once  in  the  midst,  with  his 
solemn  salutation — "  Peace  be  with  you  !"  Turning  at  once  to 
the  unbelieving  disciple,  whose  amazed  eyes  now  for  the  first  time 
fell  on  the  body  of  his  risen  Lord,  he  said  to  him — "  Thomas  ! 
Put  thy  finger  here,  and  see  my  hands ;  and  put  thy  hand  here, 
and  thrust  it  into  my  side ;  and  be  not  faithless,  but  believing." 
The  stubbornly  skeptical  disciple  was  melted  at  the  sight  of  these 
mournful  tokens  of  his  Redeemer's  dying  agonies,  and  in  a  burst 
of  new,  exalted  devotion,  he  exclaimed — "  My  Lord  !  and  my  God  !" 
The  pierced  hands  and  side  showed  beyond  all  question  the  body 
of  his  "  Lord ;"  and  the  spirit  that  could,  of  itself,  from  such  a 
death,  return  to  perfect  life,  could  be  nothing  else  than  "  God," 
The  reply  of  Jesus  to  this  expression  of  faith  and  devotion,  con- 
tained a  deep  reproach  to  this  slow-believing  disciple,  who  would 
take  no  evidence  whatever  of  the  accomplishment  of  his  Master's 
dying  words,  except  the  sight  of  every  tangible  thing  that  could 
identify  his  person.  "  Thomas  !  because  thou  has  seen  me,  thou 
hast  believed :  blessed  are  they,  who  though  not  seeing,  yet  be- 
lieve." 

"  Put  thy  finger  here." — The  phrase  seems  to  express  the  graphic  force  of  the  origi- 
nal, much  more  justly  than  the  common  translation — "  reach  hither  thy  hand."  The 
adverb  of  place,  JiiJe,  gives  the  idea  of  the  very  place  where  the  wounds  had  been 
made,  and  brings  to  the  reader's  mind  the  attitude  and  gesture  of  Jesus,  with  great 
distinctness.  The  adverb  "  here"  refers  to  the  print  of  the  nails ;  and  Jesas  holds  out 
his  hand  to  Thomas,  as  he  says  these  words,  telling  him  to  put  his  finger  into  the 
wound. 

Not  seeing,  yet  believe. — This  is  the  form  of  expression  best  justified  by  the  indefi- 
niteness  of  the  Greek  aorists,  (especially  in  the  participle,  as  is  the  case  with  the  first 
of  the  verbs  here,)  whose  very  name  implies  this  unlimiiedness  in  respect  to  time. 
The  limitation  to  the  past,  implied  in  the  common  translation,  is  by  no  means  required 
by  the  original ;  but  it  is  left  so  vague,  that  the  actioQ  may  be  referred  to  the  present 
and  the  future  also. 

Thomas  is  also  barely  mentioned  in  the  last  chapter  of  John's 


408  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

gospel,  among  those  who  went  out  with  Peter  on  the  fishing 
excursion  upon  the  lake,  during  which  they  met  with  Jesus  ; 
but  beyond  this,  the  writings  of  the  New  Testament  give  not  the 
least  account  of  Thomas,  and  his  subsequent  history  can  only  be 
uncertainly  traced  in  the  dim  and  dark  stories  of  tradition,  or  in 
the  contradictory  records  of  the  Fathers.  Different  accounts  state 
that  he  preached  the  gospel  in  Parthia, — Media, — Persia, — Ethio- 
pia,— and  at  last,  India.  A  great  range  of  territories  is  thus  spread 
out  before  the  investigator,  but  the  traces  of  the  apostle's  course 
and  labors  are  both  few  and  doubtful.  Those  of  the  Fathers 
who  mention  his  journeys  into  these  countries,  give  no  particulars 
whatever  of  his  labors  ;  and  all  that  is  now  believed  respecting 
these  things,  is  derived  from  other,  and  perhaps  still  more  uncer- 
tain sources. 

India  is  constantly  asserted  by  the  Fathers,  from  the  beginning 
of  the  third  century,  to  have  very  early  received  the  gospel,  and 
this  apostle  is  named  as  the  person  through  whom  this  evangeli- 
zation was  effected  ;  but  this  evidence  alone  would  be  entitled  to 
very  little  consideration,  except  from  the  circumstance,  that  from 
an  early  period,  to  this  day,  there  has  existed  in  India  a  large  body 
of  Christians,  who  give  themselves  the  name  of  "  St.  Thomas's 
Christians,"  of  whose  antiquity  proofs  are  found  in  the  testimony, 
both  of  very  ancient  and  very  modern  travelers.  They  still  retain 
many  traditions  of  the  person  whom  they  claim  as  their  founder, — 
of  his  place  of  landing, — the  towns  he  visited, — the  churches  he 
planted, — his  places  of  residence  and  his  retreats  for  private  devo- 
tion,— the  very  spot  of  his  martyrdom,  and  his  grave.  A  tradition, 
however,  floating  down  unwritten  for  fifteen  centuries,  cannot  be 
received  as  very  good  evidence  ;  and  the  more  minute  such  stories 
are  in  particulars,  the  more  suspicious  they  are  in  their  character 
for  truth.  But  in  respect  to  the  substance  of  this,  it  may  well  be 
said,  that  it  is  by  no  means  improbable,  and  is  in  the  highest  de- 
gree consistent  with  the  views  already  taken,  in  former  parts  of 
this  work,  of  the  eastward  course  of  the  apostles,  after  the  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem.  The  great  body  of  them  taking  refuge  at 
Babylon,  within  the  limits  of  the  great  Parthian  empire,  the  more 
adventurous  might  follow  the  commercial  routes  still  farther  east- 
ward, to  the  mild  and  generally  peaceful  nations  of  distant  India, 
whose  character  for  civilization  and  partial  refinement  was  such 
as  to  present  many  facilities  for  the  introduction  and  wide  diffusion 
of  the  gospel  among  them.     These  views,  in  connexion  with  the 


THOMAS.  409 

great  amount  of  respectable  evidence  from  various  other  sources, 
make  the  whole  outline  of  the  story  of  Thomas's  labors  in  India 
very  possible,  and  even  highly  probable. 

The  earliest  evidence  among  the  Fathers  that  has  ever  been  quoted  on  this  point, 
is  that  of  Pantaenus,  of  Alexandria,  whose  visit  to  what  was  then  called  India,  has 
been  mentioned  above,  (page  384 ;)  but,  as  has  there  been  observed,  the  investiga- 
tions of  Michaelis  and  others,  have  made  it  probable  that  Arabia-Felix  was  the  coun- 
try there  intended  by  that  name.  The  first  distinct  mention  made  of  any  eastward 
movement  of  Thomas,  that  can  be  found,  is  by  Origen,  who  is  quoted  by  Eusebius, 
(Hist.  Ecc,  III.  1,)  as  testifying,  that  when  the  apostles  separated  to  go  into  all  the 
Avorld,  and  preach  the  gospel,  Parthia  was  assigned  to  Thomas ;  and  Origen  is  repre- 
sented as  appealing  to  the  common  tradition,  for  the  proof  of  this  particular  fact.  Je- 
rome speaks  of  Thomas,  as  preaching  the  gospel  in  Media  and  Persia.  In  another 
passage  he  specifies  India,  as  his  field ;  and  in  this  he  is  followed  by  most  of  the  later 
writers, — Ambrose,  Nicephorus,  Baronius,  Natalis,  &c.  Chrysostom  (orat.  in  xii. 
apost.)  says  that  Thomas  preached  the  gospel  in  Ethiopia.  As  the  geography  of  all 
these  good  Fathers  seems  to  have  been  somewhat  confused,  all  these  accounts  may 
be  considered  very  consistent  with  each  other.  Media  and  Persia  were  both  in  the 
Parthian  empire ;  and  all  very  distant  countries,  east  and  south,  were,  by  the  Greeks, 
vaguely  denominated  India  and  Ethiopia ;  just  as  all  the  northern  unknown  regions 
of  Asia  were  generally  called  Scylhia. 

Natalis  Alexander  sums  up  all  the  accounts  given  by  the  Fathers,  by  saying,  that 
Thomas  preached  the  gospel  to  the  Parthians,  Medes,  Persians,  Brachmans,  Indians, 
and  the  other  neighboring  nations,  subject  to  the  empire  of  the  Parthians.  He  quotes 
as  his  authorities,  besides  the  above-mentioned  Fathers, — Sophronius,  (A.  D.  390,) 
Gregory  Nazianzen,  (A.  D.  370,)  Ambrose,  (A.  D.  370,)  Gaudentius,  (A.  D.  387.) 
The  author  of  the  imperfect  work  on  Matthew,  (A.  D.  5G0,)  says,  that  Thomas  found 
in  his  travels  the  three  Magi,  who  adored  the  infant  Jesus,  and  having  baptized  them, 
associated  them  with  him,  in  his  apostolic  labors.  Theodoret,  (A.  D.  423,)  Gauden- 
tius, Asterius,  (A.  D.  320,)  and  others,  declare  Thomas  to  have  died  by  martyrdom. 
Sophronius  (A.  D.  390)  testifies  that  Thomas  died  at  Calamina,  in  India.  This  Ca- 
lamina  is  now  called  iVIalipur,  and  in  commemoration  of  a  tradition,  preserved,  as 
we  are  told,  on  the  spot,  to  this  effect,  the  Portuguese,  when  they  set  up  their  dominion 
in  India,  gave  it  the  name  of  the  city  of  St.  Thomas.  The  story  reported  by  the  Por- 
tuguese travelers  and  historians  is,  that  there  was  a  tradition  current  among  the 
people  of  the  place,  that  Thomas  was  there  martyred,  by  being  thrust  through  with  a 
lance.    (Natalis  Alexander,  Hist.  Ecc,  vol.  IV.  pp.  32,  33.) 

A  new  weight  of  seemingly  valuable  testimony  has  been  added  to  all  this,  by  the 
statements  of  Dr.  Claudius  Buchanan,  who,  in  modern  times,  has  traced  out  all  these 
traditions  on  the  spot  referred  to,  and  has  given  a  very  full  account  of  the  "  Chris- 
tians of  St.  Thomas,"  in  his  "  Christian  researches  in  India."  But  it  is  perfectly 
manifest  from  Dr.  Buchanan's  own  statements,  that  these  Christians  of  St.  Thomas 
must  have  derived  their  faith  from  some  other  than  an  apostolic  source.  The  fact 
that  they  maintain  the  Nestorian  heresy,  gives  strong  reason  for  supposing  that 
Christianity  was  not  propagated  among  them  till  after  the  time  of  Nestorius,  (A.  D. 
428.)  Ttiey  also  have  in  all  their  churches  the  picture  of  the  Virgin  Mary  and  the 
child  Jesus, — a  circumstance  which  still  farther  condemns  their  pretensions;  for 
what  Protestant  is  willing  to  believe  that  an  apostolic  founder  could  nave  countenan- 
ced a  superstition  so  nearly  approaching  to  idolatry!  Still,  though  we  may  justly 
deny  that  these  Christians  derive  their  true  origin  from  Thomas  the  apostle,  the  mere 
fact  that  his  name  is  preserved  with  such  peculiar  reverence  in  the  East  to  this  day, 
is  an  agreeable  confirmation  of  the  general  ancient  testimony  of  the  fact  that  Thomas 
journeyed  far  eastward  after  the  great  dispersion.  The  bare  selection  of  his  name, 
as  a  plausible  claim  to  an  apostolic  foundation,  implies  the  certainty,  or  at  least  the 
general  belief,  that  he  did  labor  within  or  near  the  boundaries  of  India. 

On  this  evidence  may  be  founded  a  rational  belief,  though  not 
an  absolute  certainty,  that  Thomas  actually  did  preach  the  gospel 
in  distant  eastern  countries,  and  there  met  with  such  success  as 


410  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

to  leave  the  lasting  tokens  of  his  labors,  to  preserve  through  a 
course  of  ages,  in  united  glory,  his  own  name  and  that  of  his 
Master.  In  obedience  to  His  last  earthly  command,  he  went  to 
teach  "  nations  unknown  to  Caesar,"  proclaiming  to  them  the  mes- 
sage of  divine  love, — solitary  and  unsupported,  save  by  the  presence 
of  Him,  who  had  promised  to  "  be  with  him  always,  even  to  the 

END  OF  the  world." 


JAMES,    THE    LITTLE; 

THE  SON  OF  ALPHEUS. 


HIS  NAME. 


It  will  be  observed,  no  doubt,  by  ail  readers,  that  the  most  im- 
portant inquiry  suggested  in  the  outset  of  many  of  these  apostolic 
biographies,  is  about  the  name  and  personal  identification  of  the 
individual  subject  of  each  life.  This  difficulty  is  connected  with 
peculiarities  of  those  ancient  times  and  half-refined  nations,  that 
may  not,  perhaps,  be  very  readily  appreciated  by  those  who  have 
been  accustomed  only  to  the  definite  nomenclature  of  families  and 
individuals,  which  is  universally  adopted  among  civilized  nations  at 
the  present  day.  With  all  the  refined  nations  of  European  race, 
the  last  part  of  a  person's  name  marks  his  family,  and  is  supposed 
to  have  been  borne  by  his  father,  and  by  his  ancestors,  from  the 
time  when  family  names  were  first  adopted.  The  former  part  of 
his  name,  with  equal  definiteness,  marks  the  individual,  and  gene- 
rally remains  fixed  from  the  time  when  he  first  received  his  name. 
Whenever  any  change  takes  place  in  any  part  of  his  appellation, 
it  is  generally  done  in  such  a  formal  and  permanent  mode,  as  never 
to  make  any  occasion  for  confusion  in  respect  to  the  individual, 
among  those  concerned  with  him.  But  no  such  decisive  limitation 
of  names  to  persons,  prevailed  among  even  the  most  refined  nations 
of  the  apostolic  age.  The  name  given  to  a  child  at  birth,  indeed, 
was  very  uniformly  retained  through  life  ;  but  as  to  the  other  parts 
of  his  appellation,  it  was  taken,  according  to  circumstances,  chance, 
or  caprice,  from  the  common  name  of  his  father, — from  some  per- 
sonal peculiarity, — from  his  business, — from  his  general  charac- 
ter,— or  from  some  particular  incident  in  his  life.  The  name 
thus  acquired,  to  distinguish  him  from  others  bearing  his  former 
name,  was  used  either  in  connexion  with  that,  or  without ;  and 
sometimes  two  or  more  such  distinctive  appellations  belonged  to 
the  same  man,  all  or  any  of  which  were  used  together  with  the 
former,  or  separate  from  it,  without  any  definite  rule  of  applica- 
tion.    To  those  acouainted  with  the  individual  so  variously  named, 


412  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

and  contemporary  with  him,  no  confusion  was  made  by  this  mul- 
tiphcity  of  words  ;  and  when  any  thing  was  recorded  respecting 
him,  it  was  done  with  the  perfect  assurance,  that  all  who  then 
knew  him,  would  find  no  difficulty  in  respect  to  his  personal 
identity,  however  he  might  be  mentioned.  But  in  later  ages, 
when  the  personal  knowledge  of  all  these  individual  distinctions 
has  been  entirely  lost,  great  difficulties  necessarily  arise  on  these 
points, — difficulties  which,  after  tasking  historical  and  philological 
criticism  to  the  highest  efforts,  in  order  to  settle  the  facts,  are,  for 
the  most  part,  left  in  absolute  uncertainty.  Thus,  in  respect  to 
the  twelve  apostles,  it  will  be  noticed,  that  this  confusion  of  names 
throws  great  doubt  over  many  important  questions.  Among  some 
of  them,  too,  these  difficulties  are  partly  owing  to  other  causes. 
Their  names  were  originally  given  to  them,  in  the  peculiar  lan- 
guage of  Palestine  ;  and  in  the  extension  of  their  labors  and  fame, 
to  people  of  different  languages,  of  a  very  opposite  character,  their 
names  were  forced  to  undergo  new  distortions,  by  being  variously 
translated,  or  changed  in  termination  ;  and  many  of  the  original 
Hebrew  sounds,  in  consequence  of  being  altogether  unpronounce- 
able by  Greeks  and  Romans,  were  variously  exchanged  for  softer 
and  smoother  ones,  which,  in  their  dissimilar  forms,  would  lose 
almost  all  perceptible  traces  of  identity  with  each  other,  or  with 
the  original  word. 

These  difficulties  are  in  no  case  quite  so  prominent  and  serious 
as  in  regard  to  the  apostle  who  is  the  subject  of  this  particular 
biography.  Bearing  the  same  name  with  the  elder  son  of  Zebedee, 
he  was  of  course  necessarily  designated  by  some  additional  title, 
to  distinguish  him  from  the  other  great  apostle  James.  This  title 
was  not  always  the  same,  nor  was  it  uniform  in  its  principle  of 
selection.  On  all  the  apostolic  lists,  he  is  designated  by  a  reference 
to  the  name  of  his  father,  as  is  the  first  James.  As  the  person 
first  mentioned  by  this  name  is  called  James,  the  son  of  Zebedee, 
the  second  is  called  James,  the  son  of  Alpheus  ;  nor  is  there,  in  the 
enumeration  of  the  apostles  by  Matthew,  Mark,  or  Luke,  any  refer- 
ence to  another  distinctive  appellation  of  this  James.  But  in  one 
passage  of  Mark's  account  of  the  crucifixion,  it  is  mentioned,  that 
among  the  women  present,  was  Mary,  the  mother  of  James  the 
Little,  and  of  Joses,  In  what  sense  this  word  little  is  applied, — 
whether  of  age,  size,  or  dignity, — it  is  utterly  impossible  to  ascer- 
tain at  this  day ;  for  the  original  word  is  known  to  have  been  ap- 
plied to  persons,  in  every  one  of  these  senses,  even  in  the  New 


JAMES  THE  LITTLE.  413 

Testament,  But,  however  this  may  be,  a  serious  question  arises, 
whether  this  James  the  Little  was  actually  the  same  person  as  the 
James,  called,  on  the  apostolic  lists,  the  son  of  Alpheus.  In  the 
corresponding  passage  in  John's  gospel,  this  same  Mary  is  called 
Mary  the  wife  of  Clopas  ;  and  by  Matthew  and  Mark,  the  same 
James  is  mentioned  as  the  brother  of  Joses,  Juda,  and  Simon.  In 
the  apostolic  lists  given  by  Luke,  both  in  his  gospel  and  in  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles,  Juda  is  also  called  "  the  brother  of  James  ;" 
and  in  his  brief  general  epistle,  the  same  apostle  calls  himself  "  the 
brother  of  James."  In  the  beginning  of  the  epistle  to  the  Gala- 
tians,  Paul,  describing  his  own  reception  at  Jerusalem,  calls  him 
"  James  the  brother  of  our  Lord  ;"  and  by  Matthew  and  Mark  he, 
with  his  brothers,  Joses,  Juda,  and  Simon,  is  also  called  the  brother 
of  Jesus.  From  all  these  seemingly  opposite  and  irreconcilable 
statements,  arise  three  inquiries,  which  can,  it  is  believed,  be  so 
answered,  as  to  attribute  to  the  subject  of  this  article  every  one  of 
the  circumstances  connected  with  James,  in  these  different  stories. 

James  the  Little. — This  adjective  is  here  applied  to  him  in  the  positive  degree,  be- 
cause it  is  so  in  the  original  Greek,  ('lavaj/Sos  6  //iKpuj,  Mark  xv.  40,)  and  this  expres- 
sion, too,  is  in  accordance  with  English  forms  of  expression.  The  comparative 
form,  "James,  the  Lew,"  seems  to  have  originated  in  the  Latin  Vulgate,  "Jacobus 
Minor,"  which  may  be  well  enough  in  that  language ;  but  in  English,  there  is  no 
reason  why  the  original  word  should  not  be  literally  and  faithfully  expressed.  The 
Greek  original  of  Mark  calls  him  "  James,  the  Little"  which  implies  simply,  that  he 
was  a  little  man;  whether  little  in  size,  or  age,  or  dignity,  every  one  is  left  to  guess 
for  himself; — but  it  is  more  accordant  with  usage,  in  respect  to  such  names,  in 
those  times,  to  suppose  that  he  was  a  short  man,  and  was  thus  named  to  distinguish 
him  from  the  son  of  Zetaedee,  who  was  probably  taller.  The  term  thus  applied  by 
Mark,  would  be  understood  by  all  to  whom  he  wrote,  and  implied  no  disparagement 
to  his  mental  eminence.  But  the  term  applied,  in  the  sense  of  a  smaller  dignily,  is 
so  slighting  to  the  character  of  James,  who,  to  the  last  day  of  his  life,  maintained,  ac- 
cording to  both  Christian  and  Jewish  history,  the  most  exalted  fame  for  religion  and 
intellectual  worth, — that  it  must  have  struck  all  who  heard  it  thus  used,  as  a  term 
altogether  unjust  to  his  true  eminence.  His  weight  of  character  in  the  counsels  of 
the  apostles,  soon  after  the  ascension,  and  the  manner  in  which  he  is  alluded  to  in 
the  accounts  of  his  death,  make  it  very  improbable  that  he  was  younger  than  the 
other  James. 

First :  Was  James  the  son  of  Alpheus  the  same  person  as  James 
the  son  of  Clopas  7  The  main  argument  for  the  identification  of 
these  names,  rests  upon  the  similarity  of  the  consonants  in  the 
original  Hebrew  word  which  represents  them  both,  and  which,  ac- 
cording to  the  fancy  of  a  writer,  might  be  represented  in  Greek, 
either  by  the  letters  of  Alpheus  or  of  Clopas.  This  proof,  of 
course,  can  be  fully  appreciated  only  by  those  who  are  familiar 
with  the  power  of  the  letters  of  the  Oriental  languages,  and  know 
the  variety  of  modes  in  which  they  are  frequently  given  in  the 
Greek,  and  other  European  languages.    The  convertibility  of  cer- 


414  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

tain  harsh  sounds  of  the  dialects  of  southwestern  Asia,  into  either 
hard  consonants,  or  smooth  vowel  utterances,  is  sufficiently  well 
known  to  Biblical  scholars,  to  make  the  change  here  supposed  ap- 
pear perfectly  probable  and  natural  to  them.  It  will  be  observed 
by  common  readers,  that  all  the  consonants  in  the  two  words  are 
exactly  the  same,  except  that  Clopas  has  a  hard  C,  or  K,  in  the 
beginning,  and  that  Alpheus  has  Ijie  letter  P  aspirated  by  an  H. 
following  it.  Now,  both  of  these  differences  can,  by  a  reference 
to  the  original  Hebrew  word,  be  shown  to  be  only  the  results  of 
the  different  modes  of  expressing  the  same  Hebrew  letters ;  and 
the  words  thus  expressed  may,  by  the  established  rules  of  etymo- 
logy, be  referred  to  the  same  Oriental  root.  These  two  names, 
then,  Alpheus  and  Clopas,  may  be  safely  assigned  to  the  same 
person ;  and  Mary  the  wife  of  Clopas  and  the  mother  of  James 
the  Little,  and  of  Joses,  was,  no  doubt,  the  mother  of  him  who  is 
called  "  James  the  son  of  Alpheus." 

Clopas  and,  Alpkeus. — It  should  be  noticed,  that  in  the  common  translation  of  the 
New  Testament,  the  former  of  these  two  words  is  very  absurdly  expressed  by  Cleo- 
phas,  whereas  the  original  (John  xix.  25)  is  simply  KXwiras,  (Clopas.)  This  is  a 
totally  different  name  from  Cleopas,  (Luke  xxiv.  18,  KAcdn'o?,)  which  is  probably 
Greek  in  its  origin,  and  abridged  from  Cleopaler,  (KAfOTnirpof,)  just  as  Amipas  Irora 
Antipater,  Alexas  from  Alexander,  Artemas  from  Arlevionius,  and  many  other  similar 
instances,  in  which  the  Hellenizing  Jews  abridged  the  terminations  of  Greek  and 
Roman  words,  to  suit  the  genius  of  the  Hebrew  tongue.  But  Clopas,  being  very  dif- 
ferently spelt  in  the  Greek,  must  be  traced  to  another  source;  and  the  circumsinnces 
which  connect  it  with  the  name  Alpheus,  suggesting  that,  like  that,  it  might  have  a 
Hebrew  origin,  directs  the  inquirer  to  the  original  form  of  that  word.  The  Hebrew 
•'ss'jn  (hhalphai)  may  be  taken  as  the  word  from  which  both  are  derived;  each  being 
such  an  expression  of  the  original,  as  the  different  writers  might  choose  for  its  fair 
representation.  The  first  letter  in  the  word,  r,,  {hhaith,)  has  in  Hebrew  two  enlirely 
distinct  sounds;  one  a  strong  gnttural  H,  and  the  other  a  deeply  aspirated  KH. 
These  are  represented  in  Arabic  by  two  different  letters,  but  in  Hebrew,  a  single 
character  is  used  to  designate  both ;  consequently  the  names  which  contain  this  leiier, 
may  be  represented  in  Greek  and  other  languages,  by  two  different  letters,  according 
as  they  were  pronounced;  and  where  the  original  word  which  contained  it,  was 
sounded  differently,  by  different  persons,  under  different  circumstances,  varvitig  its 
pronunciation  with  the  times  and  the  fashion,  even  in  the  same  word,  it  would  be  dif- 
ferently expressed  in  Greek.  Any  person  familiar  with  the  peculiar  changes  made 
in  those  Old  Testament  names  which  are  quoted  in  the  New,  will  easily  apprehend 
the  possibility  of  such  a  variation  in  this.  Thus,  in  Stephen's  speech,  (Acts  vii.) 
Haran  is  called  Charran ;  and  other  changes  of  the  same  sort  occur  in  the  same  chap- 
ter. The  name  Anna,  (Luke  ii.  36,)  is  the  same  with  Hannah,  (1  Samuel  i.  2 ;)  which 
in  the  Hebrew  has  this  same  strongly  aspirated  H,  that  begins  the  word  in  question, 
— and  the  same,  too,  which  in  Acts  vii.  2,  4,  is  changed  into  the  strong  Gicek  Ch; 
while  all  its  harshness  is  lost,  and  the  whole  aspiration  removed,  in  Anna.  These  in- 
stances, taken  out  of  many  similar  ones,  may  justify  to  common  readers,  the  seem- 
ingly great  change  of  letters  in  the  beginning  of  Alpheus  and  Clopas.  The  other 
changes  of  vowels  are  of  no  account,  since  in  the  Oriental  languages  particularly, 
these  are  not  fixed  parts  of  the  word,  but  mere  modes  of  uttering  the  consonants,  and 
vary  throughout  the  verbs  and  nouns,  in  almost  every  inflexion  these  parts  of  speech 
undergo.  These,  therefore,  are  not  considered  radical  or  essential  parts  of  the  word, 
and  are  never  taken  into  such  consideration  in  tracing  a  word  from  one  language  to 
another, — the  consonants  being  the  -^ixed  parts  on  which  etymology  depends.  I'he 
change  also  from  the  aspirate  Ph,  to  the  smooth  mute  P,  is  also  so  very  common 


JAMES  THE  LITTLE.  416 

in  the  Oriental  languages,  and  even  in  the  Greek,  that  it  need  not  be  regarded  in 
identifying  the  word. 

The  learned  Matthew  Poole  confirms  this  view,  as  well  as  the  great  Lightfoot,  in 
observing  that  in  the  Hebrew  Talmudists  the  word  iflVn  {h/ialpAai)  often  occurs,  and 
IS  capable  of  variation  in  the  reading,  either  into  Alphaeus  or  Clopas.  Lightfoot 
insists  that  the  same  person  is  meant, — the  different  evangelists  merely  presenting 
two  forms  of  the  same  name.  (See  both  Poole  and  Lightfoot,  on  Matt.  x.  3,  and 
Luke  xxiv.  18.) 

Taking  into  consideration  then,  the  striking  and  perfect  affinities  of  the  two  words, 
and  adding  to  these  the  great  body  of  presumptive  proofs,  drawn  from  the  other  cir- 
cumstances that  show  or  suggest  the  identity  of  persons, — and  noticing,  moreover, 
the  circumstance,  that  while  Slatthew,  Mark,  and  Luke,  speak  of  Alpheus,  they  never 
speak  of  Clopas, — and  that  John,  who  alone  uses  the  name  Clopas,  never  mentions 
Alpheus, — it  seems  very  reasonable  to  adopt  the  conclusion,  that  the  last  evangelist 
means  the  same  person  as  the  former. 

Second :  Was  James  the  son  of  Alpheus  the  same  person  as 
"  James,  the  brother  of  our  Lord  ?"  An  affirmative  answer  to  this 
question  seems  to  be  required  by  the  fact,  that  Mary  the  wife  of 
Clopas  is  named  as  the  mother  of  James  and  Joses  ;  and  elscAvhere, 
James  and  Joses,  and  Juda  and  Simon,  are  called  the  brothers  of 
Jesus.  It  should  be  understood  that  the  word  "  brother"  is  used 
in  the  scriptures  often,  to  imply  a  relationship  much  less  close  than 
that  of  the  children  of  the  same  father  and  mother.  "  Cousins" 
are  called  "  brothers"  in  more  cases  than  one,  and  the  Oriental 
mode  of  maintaining  family  relationship  closely  through  several 
generations,  made  it  very  common  to  consider  those  who  were  the 
children  of  brothers^  as  being  themselves  brothers  ;  and  to  those 
familiar  with  this  extension  of  the  term,  it  would  not  necessarily 
imply  any  thing  more.  In  the  case  alluded  to,  all  those  to  whom 
the  narratives  and  other  statements  containing  the  expression — 
"  James,  the  brother  of  our  Lord,"  were  first  addressed,  being  well 
acquainted  with  the  precise  nature  of  this  relationship,  would  find 
no  difficulty  whatever  in  such  a  use  of  words.  The  nature  of  his 
relationship  to  Jesus  seems  to  have  been  that  of  cousin,  whether 
by  the  father's  side  or  mother's  is  very  doubtful.  By  John,  indeed,"* 
Mary  the  wife  of  Clopas  is  called  the  sister  of  the  mother  of 
Jesus  ;  but  it  will  seem  reasonable  enough  to  suppose, — since  two 
sisters,  daughters  of  the  same  parents,  could  hardly  bear  the  same 
name, — that  Mary  the  mother  of  James,  must  have  been  only  the 
sister-in-law  of  the  mother  of  Jesus,  either  the  wife  of  her  brother, 
or  the  sister  of  her  husband ;  or,  in  perfect  conformity  with  this 
use  of  the  term  "  sister,"  she  may  have  been  only  a  cousin  or_, 
some  such  relation. 

The  third  question  which  has  been  originated  from  these  va- 
rious statements, — whether  James,  the  brother  of  Jesus  and  the 
author  of  the  epistle,  was  an  apostle, — must,  of  course,  be  an- 


416  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

swered  in  the  affirmative,  if  the  two  former  points  have  been  cor- 
rectly settled. 

All  the  opinions  on  these  points  are  fully  given  and  discussed  by  Michaelis,  in  his 
Introduction  to  the  epistle  of  James.  He  stales  five  different  suppositions  which 
have  been  advanced  respecting  the  relationship  borne  to  Jesus  by  those  who  are  in 
the  New  Testament  called  his  brothers.  1.  That  they  were  the  sons  of  Joseph,  by 
a  former  wife.  2.  That  they  were  the  sons  of  Joseph,  by  Mary  the  mother  of  Jesus. 
3.  That  they  were  the  sons  of  Joseph  by  the  widow  of  a  brother,  to  whom  he  was 
obliged  to  raise  up  children  according  to  the  laws  of  Moses.  4.  That  this  deceased 
brother  of  Joseph,  to  whom  the  laws  required  him  to  raise  up  issue,  was  Alpheus. 
5.  That  they  were  brothers  of  Christ,  not  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  but  in  a 
more  lax  sense,  namely,  in  that  of  cousin,  or  relation  in  general,  agreeably  to  the 
usage  of  this  word  in  the  Hebrew  language.  (Gen.  xiv.  16;  xiii.  8;  xxix.  12,  15; 
2  Sam.  xix.  12;  Num.  viii.  26;  xvi.  10;  Neh.  iii.  1.)  This  opinion,  which  has  been 
here  adopted,  was  first  advanced  by  Jerome,  and  has  been  very  generally  receiv'ed 
since  his  time ;  though  the  first  of  the  five  was  supported  by  the  most  ancient  of  the 
Fathers.  Michaelis  very  clearly  refutes  all,  except  the  first  and  the  fifth,  between 
which  he  does  not  decide ;  mentioning,  however,  that  though  he  had  been  early 
taught  to  respect  the  latter  as  the  right  one,  he  had  since  become  more  favorable  to 
the  first. 

The  earhest  statement  made  concerning  these  relations  of  Jesus, 
is  by  John,  who,  in  giving  an  account  of  the  visit  made  by  Jesus 
to  Jerusalem,  at  the  feast  of  the  tabernacles,  mentions,  that  the 
brethren  of  Jesus  did  not  believe  in  him,  but,  in  a  rather  sneering 
tone,  urged  him  to  go  up  to  the  feasl,  and  display  himself,  that  the 
disciples  who  had  formerly  there  followed  him,  might  have  an  op- 
portunity vto  confirm  their  faith  by  the  sight  of  some  new  miracle 
done  by  him.  Speaking  to  him  in  a  very  decidedly  commanding 
tone,  they  said — "  Depart  hence,  and  go  into  Judea,  that  thy  dis- 
ciples also  may  see  the  works  that  thoii  doest.  For  there  is  no 
man  that  does  any  thing  in  secret,  while  he  himself  seeks  to  be 
widely  known  ;  if  thou  do  these  things,  show  thyself  to  the  world." 
The  whole  tenor  of  this  speech  shows  a  spirit  certainly  very  far 
from  a  just  appreciation  of  the  character  of  their  divine  brother ; 
and  the  base,  sordid  motives,  which  they  impute  to  him  as  ruling 
principles  of  action,  were  little  less  than  insults  to  the  pure,  high 
spirit,  which  lifted  him  so  far  above  their  comprehension.  The 
reply  which  Jesus  made  to  their  taunting  address,  contained  a  de- 
cided rebuke  of  their  presumption  in  thus  attacking  his  motives. 
"  My  time  is  not  yet  come,  but  yours  is  always  ready.  The  world 
can  not  hate  you,  but  me  it  hates,  because  I  testify  of  it  that  its 
works  are  evil.  Go  ye  up  to  this  feast ;  but  I  am  not  going  yet ; 
for  my  time  is  not  yet  fully  come."  They  might  always  go  where 
mere  inclination  directed  them,  nor  was  there  any  occasion  to  refer 
to  any  higher  object.  But  a  mighty  scheme  was  connected  with 
his  movements,  to  which  he  directed  every  action.  In  his  great 
work,  he  had  already  exposed  himself  to  the  hatred  of  the  wicked, 


JAMES  THE  LITTLE.  417 

and  his  movements  were  now  checked  by  a  regard  to  the  proper 
time  for  exposing  himself  to  it ;  and  when  that  time  should  come, 
he  would  unhesitatingly  meet  the  results. 

By  a  passage  in  Mark's  gospel,  it  appears  also,  that  at  the  first 
beginning  of  the  ministry  of  Jesus,  his  relations  generally  were 
so  little  prepared  for  a  full  revelation  of  the  character  and  destiny 
of  him  with  whom  they  had  long  lived  familiarly  as  a  brother 
and  an  intimate,  that  they  viewed  with  the  most  disagreeable  sur- 
prise and  astonishment,  his  remarkable  proceedings,  in  going  from 
place  to  place  with  his  disciples, — neglecting  the  business  to  which 
he  had  been  educated,  and  deserting  his  family  friends, — preach- 
ing to  vast  throngs  of  wondering  people,  and  performing  strange 
works  of  kindness  to  those  who  seemed  to  have  no  sort  of  claim 
on  his  attention.     Distressed  at  these  strange  actions,  they  could 
form  no  conclusion  about  his  conduct,  that  seemed  so  reasonable 
and  charitable,  as  that  he  was  beside  himself,  and  needed  to  be 
confined,  to  prevent  him  from  doing  mischief  to  himself  and  others, 
by  his  seemingly  extravagant  and  distracted  conduct.     ''  And  they 
came  out  to  lay  hold  on  him,  for  they  said — H$.  is  beside  himself  " 
With  this  very  purpose,  as  it  seems,  his  brothers  and  family  rela- 
tions had  come  to  ufge  and  persuade  him  back  to  their  home,  if 
possible,  and  stood  without,  utterly  unable  to  get  near  him,  on  ac- 
count of  the  throngs  of  hearers  and  beholders  that  had  beset  him. 
They  were  therefore  obliged  to  send  him  word,  begging  him  to 
stop  his  discourse  and  come  out  to  them,  because  they  wanted  to 
see  him.     The  request  was  therefore  passed  along  from  mouth  to 
mouth,  in  the  crowd,  till  at  last  those  who  sat  next  to  Jesus  com- 
municated the  message  to  him  : — "  Behold  thy  mother  aJid  thy 
brethren  stand  without,  desiring  to  speak  with  thee."     Jesus  fully 
apprehending  the  nature  of  the  business  on  which  their  ill-discern- 
ing regard  had  brought  them  thither,  only  suspended  the  train  of 
his  discourse  to  make  such  a  remark  as  would  impress  all  with 
the  just  idea  of  the  value  which  he  set  upon  earthly  affections, 
which  were  liable  to  operate  as  hindrances  to  him  in  the  great 
work  to  which  he  had  been  devoted ;  and  to  convince  them  how 
much  higher  and  stronger  was  the  place  in  his  affections  held  by 
those  who  had  joined  themselves  to  him  for  life  and  for  death,  to 
promote  the  cause  of  God,  and  to  do  with  him  the  will  of  his 
Father  in  heaven, — in  the  striking  language  of  inquiry,  he  said — 
"  Who  is  my  mother  or  my  brethren  ?"     Then  looking  with  an 
expression  of  deep  affection  around,  on  those  who  sat  near  him, 


418  LIVES  OF  THE   APOSTLES. 

he  said — "  Behold  my  mother  and  my  brethren  !  For  whosoevei 
shall  do  the  will  of  God,  the  same  is  my  brother,  and  my  sister, 
and  mother."  It  appears  by  this  remark,  as  well  as  by  another 
passage,  that  he  had  not  only  brothers,  but  sisters,  who  lived  at 
Nazareth  at  that  time,  and  were  well  known  as  his  relations.  No 
mention  however  is  any  where  made  of  his  father ;  so  that  it  would 
appear  that  Joseph  was  now  dead. 

This  remarkable  faithlessness  on  the  part  of  the  brothers  of 
Jesus,  may  be  thought  to  present  an  insuperable  difficulty  in  the 
way  of  the  supposition  that  any  of  them  could  have  been  number- 
ed with  the  apostles.  But  great  as  seems  to  have  been  their  error, 
it  hardly  exceeded  many  that  were  made  by  his  most  select  fol- 
lowers, even  to  the  time  of  his  ascension.  All  the  apostles  may  be 
considered  to  have  been  in  a  great  measure  unbelievers,  until  the 
descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit, — for  until  that  time,  on  no  occasion  did 
one  of  them  manifest  a  true  faith  in  the  words  of  Jesus.  Times 
almost  without  number,  did  he  declare  to  them  that  he  should  rise 
from  the  dead ;  but  notwithstanding  this  assertion  was  so  often 
made  to  them  in  the  most  distinct  and  solemn  manner,  not  one  of 
them  put  the  slightest  confidence  in  his  words,  or  believed  that  he 
would  ever  appear  to  them  again  after  his  crucifixion.  Not  even 
the  story  of  his  resurrection,  repeatedly  and  solemnly  attested  by 
the  women  and  others,  could  overcome  their  faithlessness  ;  so  that 
when  the  risen  Lord,  whose  words  they  had  so  little  heeded,  came 
into  their  presence,  moved  with  a  just  and  holy  anger,  "  he  up- 
braided them  with  their  unbelief  and  hardness  of  heart,  because 
they  believed  not  those  who  had  seen  him  after  he  was  risen."  So 
that  his  brothers,  at  this  early  period,  cannot  be  considered  any 
worse  off  than  the  rest  of  those  who  knew  and  loved  him  best ; 
and  if  any  are  disposed  to  oppose  the  view  that  his  brethren  were 
apostles,  by  quoting  the  words  of  John,  that  "  neither  did  his 
brethren  believe  in  him,"  a  triumphant  retort  may  be  found  in  the 

fact,  that  NEITHER  DID  HIS  APOSTLES  BELIEVE   IN  HIM. 

There  were,  however,  other  "  brothers"  of  Jesus,  besides  those 
who  were  apostles.  By  Matthew  and  Mark  is  also  mentioned 
Joses,  who  is  no  where  mentioned  as  an  apostle ;  and  there  may 
have  been  others  still,  whose  names  are  not  given ;  for,  in  the 
account  given,  in  the  first  chapter  of  Acts,  it  is  recorded  that, 
besides  all  the  eleven  apostles,  there  were  also  assembled  in  the 
upper  room,  Mary  the  mother  of  Jesus,  and  his  brethren.  It  is 
very  likely,  that  Jesus  may  have  had  several  other  cousins,  who 


JAMES  THE  LITTLE.  419 

followed  his  fortunes,  though  they  were  not  considered  by  him, 
qualified  to  rank  among  his  chosen  apostles.  But  a  very  promi- 
nent objection  to  the  notion  that  they  were  the  children  of  his 
mother,  with  whom  they  are  mentioned  in  such  close  connexion, 
is,  that  when  Jesus  was  on  the  cross,  he  commended  her  to  the^ 
care  of  John,  his  beloved  disciple,  as  though  she  were  destitute  of 
any  immediate  natural  protector  ;  and  certainly,  if  she  had  at  that 
time  several  sons  living,  who  were  full-grown,  she  could  not  have 
needed  to  be  intrusted  thus  to  the  kindness  of  one  who  claimed  no 
relationship  whatever  to  her  ;  but  would,  of  course,  have  been 
secure  of  a  home,  and  a  comfortable  support,  so  long  as  her  sons 
could  have  worked  for  her.  These  also  may  have  been  those 
brethren  who  did  not  believe  in  him,  and  who  considered  him  be- 
side himself,  though  there  seems  no  good  reason  to  except  any  of 
those  who  are  mentioned  by  Matthew  and  Mark,  as  his  brethren, — 
James,  Juda,  Joses,  and  Simon. 

Beyond  these  allusions  to  him,  in  connexion  with  others,  the 
gospels  take  no  notice  whatever  of  this  apostle ;  and  it  is  only  in 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  and  some  of  the  epistles  of  Paul,  that  he 
is  mentioned  with  any  great  distinctness.  In  all  those  passages  in 
the  apostolic  writings,  where  he  is  referred  to,  he  is  presented  as  a 
person  of  high  standing  and  great  importance,  and  his  opinions  are 
given  in  such  a  manner  as  to  convey  the  impression  that  they  had 
great  weight  in  the  regulation  of  the  apostolic  doings.  This  is 
particularly  evident  in  the  only  passage  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
where  his  words  are  given,  which  is  in  the  account  of  the  con- 
sultation at  Jerusalem  about  the  great  question  of  communion  be- 
tween the  circumcised  and  uncircumcised.  On  this  occasion. 
James  is  mentioned  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  evident  that  he 
was  considered  the  most  prominent  among  those  who  were  zealous 
for  the  preservation  of  the  Mosaic  forms,  and  to  have  been  by  all 
such,  regarded  in  the  light  of  a  leader,  since  his  decision  seems  to 
have  been  esteemed  by  them  as  a  sort  of  law  ;  and  the  perfect  ac- 
quiescence of  even  the  most  troublesome,  in  the  course  which  he 
recommended,  is  a  proof  of  his  predominant  influence.  The  tone 
and  style  of  the  address  itself  also  imply  that  the  speaker  thought 
he  had  good  reason  to  believe  that  others  were  looking  to  him  in 
particular,  for  the  decision  which  should  regulate  their  opinions 
on  this  doubtful  question.  After  Simon  Peter,  as  the  great  chief 
of  the  apostles,  had  first  expressed  his  opinion  on  the  question 
under  discussion,  and  had  referred  to  his  own  inspired  divine 

55 


420  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

revelations  of  the  will  of  God  in  respect  to  the  Gentiles,  Paul  and 
Barnabas  next  gave  a  full  account  of  their  operations,  and  of  the 
signs  and  wonders  with  which  God  had  followed  their  labors. 

After  the  full  exposition  made  by  Paul  and  Barnabas,  of  all 
their  conduct,  James  arose  to  make  his  reply  in  behalf  of  the  close 
adherents  of  Mosaic  forms,  and  said, — "  Men  and  brethren  !  listen 
to  me.  Simeon  has  set  forth  in  what  manner  God  did  first  con- 
descend to  take  from  the  heathen  a  people  for  his  name.  And 
with  this,  all  the  words  of  the  prophets  harmonize,  as  it  is  written, 
— '  After  these  things  I  will  turn  back,  and  will  rebuild  the  fallen 
tabernacle  of  David  ;  I  will  both  rebuild  its  ruins  and  erect  it 
again,  in  order  that  the  rest  of  mankind  may  seek  out  the 
Lord,  together  with  all  the  heathen  who  are  called  by  my 
name,  saith  the  Lord  who  made  all  things.'  '  Well  known  to  God 
are  all  his  works  from  eternity.'  So  I  think  that  we  ought  not 
to  make  trouble  for  those  who  have  turned  from  the  heathen  to 
God  ,•  but  that  we  should  direct  them  to  refrain  from  things  that 
have  been  offered  unto  idols,  and  from  fornication,  and  from  what 
has  been  strangled,  and  from  blood.  For  Moses  has,  from  ancient 
generations,  in  these  cities,  those  who  make  him  known, — his  law 
being  read  every  sabbath  day."  This  opinion,  formed  and  deliver- 
ed in  a  truly  Christian  spirit  of  compromise,  seems  to  have  had  the 
effect  of  a  permanent  decision  ;  and  the  great  leader  of  the  rigid 
Judaizers,  having  thus  renounced  all  opposition  to  the  adoption  of 
the  converted  heathen  into  full  and  open  Christian  communion^ 
though  without  the  seals  of  the  Mosaic  covenant, — all  those  who 
had  originated  this  vexatious  question  ceased  their  attempts  to 
distract  the  harmony  of  the  apostles ;  and  the  united  opinions  of 
the  great  apostolic  chief,  who  had  first  opened  the  gates  of  Christ's 
kingdom  to  the  heathen,  and  of  the  eminent  defender  of  Mosaic 
forms,  so  silenced  all  discussion,  that  thenceforth  these  opinions, 
thus  fully  expressed,  became  the  common  law  of  the  Christian 
churches,  throughout  the  world,  in  all  ages. 

This  address  of  James  (Acts  xv.  13 — 21)  may  justly  be  pronounced  the  most  ob- 
scure passage  of  all  that  can  be  found  in  the  New  Testament,  of  equal  length, — 
almost  every  verse  in  it  containing  some  point,  which  has  been  made  the  subject  of 
dispute.  Sehdttgen  (quoted  by  Bloomfield)  thus  analyzes  this  discourse  : — "  It  con- 
sists of  three  parts  ; — the  Exordium,  (ver.  13,)  in  Avhich  ihe  speaker  uses  a  form  of 
expression  calculated  to  secure  the  good-will  of  his  auditors ; — the  SlatcTnent.  (verses 
16 — 18,)  containing  also  a  confirmation  of  it  from  the  prophets,  and  the  reason  ; — the 
Proposition,  (verses  19,  20,)  that  the  Gentiles  are  not  to  be  compelled  to  Judaism,  but 
are  only  to  abstain  from  certain  things  particularly  offensive  to  the  spirit  of  the  Mo- 
saic institutions." 

Simeon,  (ver.  14.)  This  peculiar  form  of  Peter's  first  name,  has  led  some  to  sup- 
pose that  he  could  not  be  the  person  meant,  since  he  is  mentioned  in  all  other  nana- 


JAMES  THE  LITTLE.  421 

lives  by  the  name  of  Simon.  Wolf  imagines  that  Simon  Zelotes  must  have  been 
the  person  thus  distinguished,  though  all  the  difficulties  are  the  same  in  his  case  as 
in  Peter's.  But  Simeon  (Dv/jcwi/)  and  Simon  are  the  same  name,  the  latter  being  only 
an  abridged  form,  better  suited  to  the  inflexions  of  the  Greek  than  ihe  former.  Peter 
himself,  in  the  beginning  of  his  second  epislle,  announces  his  own  name  in  this  form, 
though  in  the  first,  he  gives  it  in  the  usual  way, — thus  showing  that  both  forms  were 
used  indilfercntly.  This  preference  of  the  full  Hebrew  form  may  have  been  meant 
to  be  characteristic  of  James,  who  seems  to  have  been  in  general  very  zealous  for  the 
minute  observance  of  ancient  Jewish  usages  in  all  things. 

Has  condescended  to  take.  Common  trans.  "  did  visit  them  to  take,"  dec.  This  much 
clearer  translation  is  justified  by  the  meaning  which  Bretschneider  has  given  to 
sTriff/v-tTTry/mi,  {cp^is/ccptomai,)  beiiigne  voluit,  &c.,  for  which  he  quotes  the  Greek  of  the 
Alexandrine  version  of  the  Old  Testament. 

Harmonize,  (verse  15.)  The  original  {cTVfKjxovovatv,  sumphonousin)  refers  in  the 
same  manner  as  this  word  does  to  the  primary  idea  of  accordance  in  so%tnd,  {sym- 
phoni/,)  and  thence  by  a  metonymy  is  applied  to  agreement  in  general.  This  pas- 
sage of  prophecy  is  quoted  by  James  from  Amos  ix.  11,  12,  and  accords,  in  the  con- 
struction which  he  puts  upon  it,  much  better  with  the  Alexandrine  Greek  version, 
than  with  the  original  Hebrew  or  the  common  translations.  The  prophet  (as  Kuinoel 
observes)  is  describing  the  felicity  of  the  golden  age,  and  declares  that  the  Jews  will 
subdue  their  enemies  and  all  nations,  and  that  all  will  worship  Jehovah.  Now  this, 
James  accommodates  to  the  present  purpose,  and  applies  to  the  propagation  of  the  gos- 
pel among  the  Gentiles,  ana  their  reception  into  the  Christian  community.  (See  Ro- 
senmuller,  Acts  xv.  15,  for  a  very  full  exegesis  of  this  passage.) 

Well  himcn  to  God  are  all  his  works.  These  words  have  been  made  the  subject  of 
a  great  deal  of  inquiry  among  commentators,  who  have  found  some  difficulties  in 
ascertaining  their  connexion  with  the  preceding  part  of  the  discourse.  Various  new 
and  unauthorized  renderings  of  the  words  have  been  proposed,  but  have  been  gene- 
rall}'  rejected.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  force  of  the  passage  is  considerably  illustrated 
by  throwing  the  whole  emphasis  of  the  sentence  upon  the  word  "all," — "Known 
unto  God  are  all  his  works  from  the  beginning  of  ages."  James  is  arguing  on  the 
equal  and  impartial  grace  of  God,  as  extended  not  only  to  the  Jews,  but  also  to  the 
Gentiles; — not  to  one  nation  merely,  but  to  all  his  creatures.  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord 
who  makes  (or  does)  all  things."  The  original  Hebrew  of  the  prophecy,  indeed, 
does  not  contain  this,  but  that  is  itself  a  circumstance  which  shows  that  James  had  a 
particular  object  in  this  a-ccomviodation  of  the  words  to  this  form  and  purpose. 

So  I  think,  cf-c.  (verse  19.)  Hammond  and  others  have  attempted  to  find  in  the 
original  of  this  verb  {kqIvm,  krino)  a  peculiar  force,  implying  that  James  announced 
his  decision  with  a  kind  of  judicial  emphasis,  in  the  character  of  "  Bishop  of  Jeru- 
salem." The  groundlessness  of  this  translation  is  shown  by  Bloomfield's  numerous 
references  to  classical  authority  for  the  simple  meaning  of"  thiuk."  The  difficulties 
in  the  twentieth  verse  are  so  numerous  and  weighty,  and  have  been  made  the  subject 
of  such  protracted  and  minute  discussions  by  all  the  great  commentators,  that  it  would 
be  vain  to  attempt  any  account  of  them  here. 

The  great  eminence  of  James  among  the  apostles  is  very  fully 
shown  in  several  incidental  allusions  made  to  him  in  other  pas- 
sages of  the  apostolic  writings.  Thus  when  Peter,  after  his  mi- 
raculous release  from  prison,  came  to  the  house  of  Mary  the  mother 
of  John  Mark,  he,  at  departing  from  the  Christians  there  assem- 
bled, told  them  to  tell  James  and  the  brethren  ;  implying,  of  course, 
that  James  was  altogether  the  most  prominent  person  among  them, 
and  might  justly  be  considered  chief  apostle  in  the  absence  of 
Peter ;  and  that  to  him  any  message  intended  for  all,  might  be  ap- 
propriately first  addressed.  In  the  same  way  did  the  angel,  at  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus,  distinguish  Peter  among  all  the  apostles, 


422  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

mentioning  him  alone  by  name,  as  the  individual  person  to  whom 
the  divine  message  was  to  be  delivered. 

But  no  where  is  his  eminence  among  the  apostles  so  strongly- 
marked,  as  in  Paul's  account  of  his  own  visits  to  Jerusalem,  and 
the  incidents  connected  with  them.  He  there  mentions  "  James, 
the  brother  of  our  Lord,"  in  such  terms  as  to  show  that  he  must 
have  been  one  of  the  apostles ;  thus  adding  a  valuable  confirma- 
tion to  the  testimony  above  adduced  in  favor  of  this  very  point, 
that  James,  the  brother  of  Jesus,  was  an  apostle,  Paul's  words 
are — "  Other  of  the  apostles  (besides  Peter)  saw  I  none,  except 
James,  the  Lord's  brother ;"  an  expression  which  all  analogy  re- 
quires to  be  construed  into  a  clear  assertion  that  this  James  was 
an  apostle.  In  speaking  of  the  second  visit,  fourteen  years  after, 
Paul  also  bears  a  noble  testimony  to  the  enfiinence  of  James,  and, 
what  is  remarkable,  gives  him  the  very  first  place  among  those 
three  whom  he  mentions  by  name.  He  says — "  When  James,  Ce- 
phas, and  John,  who  seemed  to  be  pillars,  perceived  the  grace  that 
was  given  to  me,  they  gave  to  me  and  Barnabas  the  right  hand  of 
fellowship."  This  very  peculiar  arrangement  of  these  three  great 
names  has  seemed  so  strange  to  the  more  stubborn  Papists,  that 
they  can  not  believe  that  the  Cephas  here  mentioned  in  the  second 
place,  is  their  great  idol,  Peter ;  and  many  of  them  have  main- 
tained, in  long  arguments,  that  he  was  not  Peter, — a  notion  which 
might  seem  plausible  at  first  glance,  from  the  circumstance,  that 
throughout  his  whole  narrative,  Paul  has  been  speaking  of  Peter 
by  the  common  Greek  form  of  his  surname,  while  in  this  particu- 
lar passage,  he  uses  the  original  Hebrew  word,  Cephas.  But  this 
verbal  change  is  of  no  consequence  whatever,  except  as  showing 
that  in  this  connexion  there  was  something  which  suggested  a 
preference  of  the  Hebrew  name,  while  mentioning  him  along  with 
the  two  other  great  apostolic  chiefs,  James  and  John.  And  even 
this  very  peculiar  promotion  of  James  to  the  first  place,  is  easily 
explained  by  a  consideration  of  the  subject  in  connexion  with 
which  these  personages  are  mentioned.  James  was  unquestion- 
ably the  great  leader  of  the  sticklers  for  Mosaic  forms ;  and  he  is 
therefore  the  most  important  person  to  be  quoted  in  reference  to 
Paul's  reception,  while  the  dissensions  about  circumcision  were 
raging.  Peter,  on  the  other  hand,  being  himself  the  great  cham- 
pion of  open  Gentile  communion,  from  his  having  been  himself 
the  first  of  all  men  to  bring  them  under  the  gospel,  was,  of  course, 
understood  to  be  a  favorer  of  Paul's  views  of  the  noble  catholic 


JAMES  THE  LITTLE.  423 

extension  of  Christianity ;  and  his  name  was  therefore  of  really- 
less  importance  in  Paul's  statement,  than  the  name  of  James,  who 
was  every  where  known  as  the  head  of  the  circumcision  party,  and 
being  mentioned  as  having  shown  such  respect  to  Paul,  would 
make  it  evident  that  the  two  Hellenist  apostles  were  taken  into 
favor  by  all  parties,  and  heartily  commended  to  the  great  work  of 
evanorelizins:  the  heathen. 

The  especially  watchful  zeal  of  James,  for  the  preservation  of 
Mosaic  forms,  is  very  distinctly  implied  in  another  passage  of  the 
same  epistle.  He  had,  in  a  nobly  considerate  spirit  of  compromise, 
agreed  that  it  was  best  to  receive  all  Gentile  converts  as  Christian 
brethren,  though  they  conformed  only  very  partially  to  the  Mosaic 
institutions.  It  was  perfectly  a  matter  of  common  sense,  to  every 
reasonable  man,  that  the  progress  of  the  gospel  would  be  greatly 
hindered,  and  almost  brought  to  a  stand,  among  the  heathen,  if  a 
minute  adherence  to  all  the  corporeal  observances  of  the  Levitical 
code,  were  required  for  Christian  communion ;  and  James,  though 
profoundly  reverencing  all  the  requirements  of  his  national  reli- 
gion, was  too  wise  to  think  of  imposing  all  these  rituals  upon 
those  whose  whole  habits  would  be  at  war  with  the  observance  of 
them,  though  in  heart  and  in  life  they  might  be  fully  fitted  to  ap- 
preciate and  enjoy  the  blessings  of  Christ's  spiritual  covenant.  He 
therefore  distinctly  expressed  his  accordance  with  Peter,  in  these 
general  principles  of  Christian  policy,  yet,  as  subsequent  events 
show,  he  was  by  no  means  disposed  to  go  to  all  lengths  with  the 
more  zealous  chief  of  the  apostles,  in  his  readiness  to  renounce,  in 
his  own  person,  all  the  peculiarities  of  Jewish  habits ;  and  seems 
to  have  still  maintained  the  opinion,  that  the  original,  pure  Hebre\v 
apostles,  should  live  in  the  most  scrupulous  observance  of  their 
religious  exclusiveness,  towards  those  whom  the  Levitical  law 
would  pronounce  unclean,  and  too  much  polluted  with  various 
defilements,  to  be  the  familiar  associates  of  a  truly  religious  Jew. 
This  sentiment  of  James  appears  to  have  been  well  known  to 
Peter,  who,  conscious  of  the  peculiar  rigidity  of  his  great  apostolic 
associate,  on  these  points,  wisely  sought  to  avoid  all  occasions  of 
needlessly  exciting  complaints  and  dissensions  among  the  chief 
ministers  of  the  word  of  truth.  For  this  reason,  as  has  already 
been  narrated  in  his  life,  when  he  was  at  Antioch,  though  during 
the  first  part  of  his  residence  there,  he  had,  without  the  slightest 
scruple,  gone  familiarly  and  frequently  into  the  company  of  the 
unbelieving  Gentiles,  eating  and  drinking  with  them,  without  re- 


424  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

gard  to  any  liability  to  corporeal  pollutions,  that  were  against  the 
rules  of  Lcvitical  purity, — yet  when  some  persons  came  down 
from  Jerusalem,  from  James,  he  entirely  withdrew  himself,  all  at 
once,  witliin  the  strict  bounds  of  Mosaic  observances.  Perhaps 
these  visitors  from  James  had  been  specially  instructed  by  him 
to  note  the  demeanor  of  Peter,  and  to  see  whether,  in  his  zeal 
for  removing  all  obstruction  out  of  the  way  of  the  Gentile  con- 
verts, he  might  not  forget  what  was  due  to  his  own  character  as  a 
descendent  of  Abraham,  and  a  disciple  of  him  who  so  faithfully 
fulfilled  all  tl:^  righteousness  of  the  law.  However  this  might  be, 
Peter's  actions  plainly  expressed  some  dread  of  offending  James, 
and  those  who  came  from  him ;  else  he  certainly  would  not  have 
refrained,  in  this  remarkable  manner,  from  a  course  of  conduct, 
which  he  had  before  followed  unhesitatingly,  as  though  he  had 
not  the  slightest  doubt  of  its  perfect  moral  propriety ;  and  the  con- 
clusion is  reasonable,  that  he  now  changed  his  demeanor,  only 
from  views  of  expediency,  and  a  regard  to  the  jealous  sensitive- 
ness of  his  great  associate,  on  points  of  Levitical  law. 

HIS  APOSTOLIC  OFFICE. 

From  these  and  other  passages,  implying  a  great  eminence  of 
James  in  the  direction  of  the  plans  of  evangelization,  it  is  evident, 
that,  in  the  absence  of  Peter,  he  must  have  been  the  most  import- 
ant person  among  the  apostles  at  Jerusalem ;  and  after  the  perma- 
nent removal  of  the  commissioned  apostolic  chief,  to  other  and 
wider  fields  of  action,  his  rank,  as  principal  person  among  all  the 
ministers  of  Christ  in  Jerusalem,  must  have  been  very  decidedly 
established.  From  this  circumstance  has  originated  the  notion 
that  he  was  "  bishop  of  Jerusalem  ;"  and  this  is  the  title  with  which 
the  later  Fathers  have  attempted  to  decorate  him, — as  if  any  honor 
whatever  could  be  conferred  on  an  apostle,  by  giving  him  the  title 
of  a  set  of  inferior  ministers  appointed  by  the  original  commis- 
sioned preachers  of  Christ,  to  be  merely  their  substitutes  in  the  in- 
struction and  management  of  those  numerous  churches  which 
could  not  be  blessed  by  the  presence  of  an  apostle,  and  to  be  their 
successors  in  the  supreme  earthly  administration  of  the  affairs  of 
the  Christian  community,  when  the  great  founders  had  all  been 
removed  from  their  labors,  to  their  rest.  How  nearly  the  duties 
performed  by  James  corresponded  to  the  modern  episcopal  func- 
tion, it  is  utterly  impossible  to  say,  for  the  simple  reason  that  not 
the  slightest  record  of  his  actions  is  left,  to  which  references  can 


JAMES  THE  LITTLE.  425 

be  made,  on  this  interesting  question.  That  he  was  the  most  emi- 
nent of  the  apostles  resident  at  Jerusalem  is  quite  clear ;  and  that 
by  him,  under  these  circumstances,  were  performed  the  great  pro- 
portion of  the  pastoral  duties  among  the  believers  in  that  city,  may 
be  most  justly  supposed ;  and  his  influence  over  Christian  con- 
verts would  by  no  means  be  limited  by  the  walls  of  the  Holy  city. 
In  his  apostolic  functions,  he,  of  course,  became  known  to  all  re- 
sorting to  that  place ;  and  his  faithful  and  eminent  ministry  in  the 
capital  of  the  Jewish  religion  would  extend  not  only  his  fame,  but 
the  circle  of  his  personal  acquaintances,  throughout  all  parts  of 
the  world,  from  which  pilgrims  came  to  the  great  annual  festivals 
in  Jerusalem.  His  immense  apostolic  diocese,  therefore,  could  not 
be  very  easily  bounded,  nor  was  it  defined  with  any  exactness,  to 
prevent  it  from  running  into  the  limits  of  those  divisions  of  the 
fields  of  duty,  in  which  Peter,  Paul,  John,  and  others,  had  been 
more  especially  laboring.  His  influence  among  the  Jews  in  gene- 
ral, (whether  believers  in  Christ  or  not,)  would  from  various  ac- 
counts, appear  to  have  been  greater  than  that  of  any  other  apostle ; 
and  this,  combined  with  the  circumstances  of  his  location,  would 
seem  to  entitle  him  very  fairly  to  the  rank  and  character  of  the 
apostle  of  the  "  dispersion."  This  was  a  term  transferred  from 
the  abstract  to  the  concrete  sense,  and  was  applied  in  a  collective 
meaning  to  the  great  body  of  Jews  in  all  parts  of  the  world, 
through  which  they  were  scattered  by  chance,  choice,  or  ne- 
cessity. 

Bishop  of  Jerusalem. — The  first  application  of  this  title  to  James,  that  appears  on 
record,  is  in  Eusebius,  who  quotes  the  still  older  authority  of  Clemens  Alexandrinus. 
(Hist.  Ecc,  II.  1.)  The  words  of  Eusebius  are,  "  Then  James,  who  was  called  the 
brother  of  our  Lord,  because  he  was  the  son  of  Joseph,  and  whom,  on  account  of  his 
eminent  virtue,  those  of  ancient  times  sumamed  the  Just,  is  said  to  have  first  held 
the  chair  of  the  bishopric  of  Jerusalem.  Clemens,  in  the  sixth  book  of  his  Institutes, 
distinctly  confirms  this.  For  he  says  that '  after  the  Savior's  ascension,  although  the 
Lord  had  given  to  Peter,  James,  and  John,  a  rank  before  all  the  rest,  yet  they  did  not 
therefore  contend  among  themselves  for  the  first  distinction,  but  chose  James  the  Jnst, 
to  be  bishop  of  Jerusalem.'  And  the  same  writer,  in  the  seventh  book  of  the  same 
work,  says  these  things  of  him,  besides:  '  To  James  the  Just,  and  John,  and  Peter, 
did  the  Lord,  after  the  resurrection,  grant  the  knowledge,  (the  gnosis,  or  knowledge 
of  mysteries,)  and  these  imparted  it  to  the  other  disciples.' " 

In  judging  of  the  combined  testimony  of  these  two  ancient  writers,  it  should  be  ob- 
served, that  it  is  not  by  any  means  so  ancient  and  direct  as  that  of  Polycrates,  on  the 
identity  of  Philip  the  apostle,  and  Philip  the  deacon,  which  the.se  very  Fathers  quote 
with  assent.  Nor  can  their  opinion  be  worth  any  more  in  this  case  than  in  the  other. 
On  no  point,  where  a  knowledge  of  the  New  Testament,  and  a  sound  judgment,  are 
the  only  guides,  can  the  testimony  of  the  Fathers  be  considered  of  any  value  what- 
ever; for  the  most  learned  of  them  betray  a  wonderful  ignorance  of  the  Bible  in 
their  writings;  nor  can  the  mo.st  acute  of  them  compare,  for  sense  and  judgment, 
with  the  most  ordinary  of  modern  commentators.  The  whole  course  of  Patristic 
theology  affords  abundant  instances  of  the  very  low  powers  of  these  writers,  for  the 
discrimination  of  truth  and  falsehood.    The  science  of  historical  criticism  had  no 


426  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

existence  among  them — nor  indeed  is  there  any  reason  why  they  should  be  consider- 
ed persons  of  any  hislorifcal  authority,  except  so  far  as  they  can  refer  directly  to  the 
original  sources,  and  to  the  persons  immediately  concerned  in  the  events  which  they 
record.  On  all  matters  of  less  unexceptionable  authority,  where  their  testimony  does 
not  happen  to  contradict  known  truth  or  common  sense,  all  that  can  be  said  in  their 
favor  is,  that  the  thing  thus  reported  is  not  improbable ;  but  all  supplements  to  the  ac- 
counts given  in  the  New  Testament,  unless  they  refer  directly  to  eye-witnesses,  may 
be  pronounced  very  suspicious  and  wholly  uncertain.  In  this  case,  Eusebius's  opinion 
that  James,  the  brother  of  our  Lord,  was  the  son  of  Joseph,  is  worth  no  more  than 
that  of  the  latest  commentator  ;  because  he  had  no  more  historical  aids  than  the  wri- 
ters of  these  days.  Nor  is  the  story  of  Clemens,  that  James  was  bishop  of  Jerusalem, 
worth  any  more ;  because  he  does  not  refer  to  any  historical  evidence. 

HIS  EPISTLE. 

Noticing  some  peculiar  circumstances  in  the  condition  of  his 
countrymen,  throughout  this  wide  dispersion,  the  apostle  addressed 
t  to  them  a  written  exhortation,  suited  to  their  spiritual  necessities. 
In  the  opening,  he  announces  himself  simply  by  the  title  of  "  James, 
the  servant  of  Jesus  Christ,"  not  choosing  to  ground  any  claim  for 
theic  respect  or  obedience  on  the  accidents  of  birth  or  relationship, 
but  on  the  mere  character  of  one  devoted  to  the  cause  of  Christ  for 
life  and  for  death, — and  entitled,  by  the  peculiar  commission  of  his 
Lord,  to  teach  and  direct  his  followers  in  his  name.  In  consequence 
of  this  omission  of  the  circumstance  of  relationship,  a  query  has  been 
even  raised  whether  the  author  of  this  epistle  could  really  be  the 
same  person  as  the  brother  of  Jesus.  But  a  trifle  of  this  kind  can 
never  be  allowed  to  have  any  weight  in  the  decision  of  such  a  ques- 
tion. He  directs  himself,  in  general  terms,  to  all  the  objects  of  his 
extended  apostolic  charge ; — "  to  the  twelve  tribes  that  are  in  the 
Dispersion." 

A  brief  review  of  the  contents  of  the  epistle  will  furnish  the  best 
means  of  ascertaining  its  scope  and  immediate  object,  and  will  also 
afford  just  ground  for  tracing  the  connexion  between  the  design  ol 
the  apostle  and  the  remarkable  events  in  the  history  of  those  limes, 
which  are  recorded  by  the  other  writers  of  that  age.  He  first  urges 
them  to  persevere  in  faith,  without  wavering  or  sinking  under  all  the 
peculiar  difficulties  then  pressing  on  them ;  and  refers  them  to  God 
as  the  source  of  that  wisdom  which  they  need  for  their  direction. 
From  him  alone  all  good  proceeds  ;  but  no  sin,  nor  temptations  to 
sin.  The  cause  of  that,  lies  in  man  himself:  let  him  not  then  blas- 
phemously ascribe  his  evil  dispositions,  nor  the  occasions  of  their 
development,  to  God;  but  seeking  wisdom  and  strength  from  above, 
let  him  resist  the  tempter : — blessed  is  the  man  that  thus  endures 
and  withstands  the  trial.  He  next  points  out  to  them  the  utter 
worthlessness  of  all  the  distinctions  of  rank  and  wealth  among  those 
professing  the  faith  of  Jesus.  Such  base  respect  of  persons  on  the 
score  of  accidental  worldly  advantages,  is  denounced,  as  being  foreign 
to  the  spirit  of  Christianity.  True  religion  requires  something:  more 
than  a  profession  of  faith  ;  its  substance  and  its  signs  are  the  ener- 
getic and  constant  practice  of  virtuous  actions,  and  it  allows  no  dis- 


JAMES  THE  LITTLE. 


4sr 


pensations  or  excuses  to  any  one.  He  next  dwells  especially  on  the 
high  responsibilities  of  those  who  assume  the  office  of  teaching. 
The  tongue  requires  a  most  watchful  restraint,  lest  passion  or  haste 
pervert  the  advantages  of  eminence  and  influence,  into  the  base  in- 
struments of  human  wrath.  The  true  manifestations  of  religious 
knowledge  and  zeal,  must  be  in  a  spirit  of  gentleness,  forbearance, 
and  love, — not  in  the  expressions  of  hatred,  nor  in  cursing.  But  of 
this  pure,  heavenly  spirit,  their  late  conduct  had  shown  them  to  be 
lamentably  destitute.  Strifes,  tumults,  and  bitter  denuQciations,  had 
betrayed  their  un-Christian  character.  They  needed,  therefore,  to 
seek  humbly  this  meek  spirit  from  God,  and  not  proudly  to  assume 
the  prerogatives  of  judgment  and  condemnation,  which  belonged  to 
Him  alone.  His  condemnation  was  indeed  about  to  fall  on  their 
country.  With  most  peculiar  ruin  would  it  light  on  those  now 
reveling  in  their  ill-gotten  riches,  and  rejoicing  in  the  vain  hope  of  a 
perpetual  prosperity.  But  let  the  faithful  persevere,  cheered  by  the 
memory  of  the  bright  examples  of  the  suffering  pious  of  other  days, 
and  by  the  hope  of  the  coming  of  their  Lord,  whose  appearance  in 
glory  and  judgment  would  soon  crown  their  fervent  prayers.  Mean- 
while, supported  by  this  assurance,  let  them  continue  in  a  virtuous 
course,  watching  even  their  words,  visiting  the  sick  in  charity  and 
mercy,  and  all  exhorting  and  instructing  each  other  in  the  right  way. 
The  peculiar  difficulties  of  the  times  here  referred  io,  are — a  state 
of  bloody  intestine  commotion,  disturbing  the  peace  of  society,  and 
desolating  the  land  with  hatred,  contention,  and  murder ; — a  great 
inequality  of  condition,  in  respect  to  property, — soniB  amassing  vast 
wealth  by  extortion,  and  abusing  the  powers  and  privileges  thereby 
afforded,  to  the  purposes  of  tyranny, — condemning  and  killing  the 
just ; — a  perversion  of  laws  for  the  gratification  of  private  spite  ; — 
and  every  where  a  great  occasion  for  good  men  to  exercise  patience 
and  faith,  relying  upon  God  alone  for  the  relief  of  the  community 
from  its  desperate  calamities.  But  a  prospect  was  a.ready  presented 
of  a  consummation  of  these  distracting  troubles,  in  ihe  utter  ruin  of 
the  wicked  ;  a  change  in  the  condition  of  things  was  about  to  occur, 
which  would  bring  poverty  and  distress  upon  the  haughty  oppres- 
sors, who  had  heaped  treasure  together  only  for  the  last  days.  The 
brethren,  therefore,  had  but  a  little  time  to  wait  for  tJie  coming  of  the 
Lord.  Both  of  these  two  latter  expressions  point  very  clearly  at  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem, — for  this  is  the  reference  which  these  terms 
had,  in  those  days,  among  the  Christians.  Jesus  had  promised  his 
chosen  disciples,  that  their  generation  should  not  pass  away,  till  all 
those  awful  calamities  which  he  denounced  on  the  Jewish  state, 
should  be  fulfilled;  and  for  this  event  all  his  suffering  followers  were 
now  looking,  as  the  seal  of  the  truth  of  Christ's  word.  Searching  in 
the  history  of  the  times,  a  few  years  previous  to  that  final  desolation, 
it  is  found  in  the  testimony  of  impartial  writers,  that  these  were  the 
too  faithful  details  of  the  evils  which  then  raged  in  Palestine.  "  For, 
56 


428  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

under  Felix,  and  again  under  Fortius  Festus,  desperate  patriots 
marched  through  the  country,  in  whole  bodies,  and  forcibly  tore 
away  with  them  the  inhabitants  of  open  places,  and  if  they  would 
not  follow  them,  set  fire  to  the  villages,  and  enacted  bloody  scenes. 
They  even  made  their  appearance  in  the  capital  and  at  the  feasts, 
where  they  mixed  among  the  crowd  of  people,  and  committed  many 
secret  assassinations  with  concealed  weapons.  As  to  that  which 
regards  the  external  circumstances  and  the  civil  condition  of  the 
Jews  and  Jewish  Christians,  they  were  far  from  being  agreeable. 
The  praetors,  under  all  manner  of  pretexts,  made  extortions,  and 
abused  their  legal  authority  for  the  sake  of  enriching  themselves  ;  a 
person  was  obliged  to  purchase  with  money  his  liberation  from  their 
prisons,  as  well  as  his  safety  and  his  rights  ;  he  might  even  purchase 
a  license  to  commit  crimes.  In  this  state,  under  these  circumstances, 
and  in  this  degree  of  civil  disorder,  the  author  might  probably  have 
regarded  his  countrymen  ;  for,  although  he  wrote  to  the  whole  world, 
yet  his  native  land  passed  more  immediately  before  his  eyes." 

For  the  sources,  and  for  the  minuter  proofs  and  illustrations  of  these  views,  see 
Hug's  Introduction,  as  translated  by  Wait,  vol.  II.  §§  148,  159— §§  163,  168,  of  the 
original. 

In  the  immediate  consideration  of  all  these  present  iniquities  and 
coming  desolations,  he  wrote  to  prepare  the  believing  Jews,  in  Pales- 
tine more  particularly,  but  also  throughout  the  world,  for  the  over- 
whelming consummation  of  their  nation's  destiny.  Terrible  as 
would  be  this  doom  to  the  v/icked,  and  mournful  as  would  be  these 
national  desolations  to  all,  the  righteous  should  find  consolations  in 
the  peaceful  establishment  of  the  spiritual  kingdom  of  their  Lord, 
over  the  ruins  of  the  dominion  of  his  murderers, — of  those  who  had 
"  condemned  aid  killed  the  just  One,  though  he  did  not  resist  them." 
But  in  all  these  awful  signs,  should  the  faithful  see  the  forewarned 
coming  of  the  Son  of  Man ;  and  as  he  himself  told  his  chosen 
apostles,  "  then  should  they  lift  up  their  heads  ;  for  their  redemption 
drew  nigh." 

Besides  these  external  troubles,  there  were  others  of  a  different 
character,  arising  and  existing  solely  among  those  who  professed  the 
religion  of  Christ.  The  instructions  given  by  Paul,  in  reference  to 
the  absolute  necessity  of  faith,  and  the  insufiiciency  of  a  mere  formal 
routine  of  religious  duties,  had  been  most  grossly  perverted  into  a 
warrant  for  the  all-sufficiency  of  a  mere  belief,  as  the  means  of  sal- 
vation ; — an  error  by  no  means  limited  in  its  mischievous  existence, 
to  the  days  of  the  apostles,  but  so  comfortable  to  the  minds  of  mere 
religious  formalists,  in  all  ages  of  Christianity,  that  a  new  revelation, 
like  that  here  made  by  James,  though  directly  repeated  through  every 
century  of  the  Christian  era,  would  be  equally  vain,  for  the  preven- 
tion or  the  remedy  of  this  never-dying  heresy.  All  the  words  of 
James  on  the  subject  of  faith  and  works,  are  evidently  aimed  at  the 
refutation  of  those  who  had  taken  advantage  of  the  opinions  which 


JAMES  THE  LITTLE.  429 

Paul  had  expressed,  on  the  same  subjects ;  but  which  were  expressed 
with  a  totally  dilferent  reference,  being  stated  not  generally  nor  ab- 
stractly, but  in  application  to  some  particular  dogmatic  errors. 
James,  after  distinctly  condemning  those  whom  Peter  calls  the  "  un- 
learned and  unstable,  who  thus  wrested  to  their  own  destruction  the 
things  hard  to  be  understood  in  the  writings  of  Paul,"  next  attacks 
certain  persons  who,  without  being  authorized  or  qualified,  had  as- 
sumed the  station  and  responsibility  of  religious  teachers.  Many 
persons  taking  up  the  office  of  instructors  in  this  manner,  had  caused 
great  confusion,  by  using  tbeir  hasty  tongues,  in  mere  polemic  and 
denunciatory  discourse,  condemning  and  cursing,  in  unmeasured 
terms,  those  who  differed  from  them  in  opinion.  These  he  rebukes, 
as  thus  "  giving  occasion  for  offense  and  error  to  all ;"  and  sets  forth 
the  character  of  that  true  wisdom  which  comes  from  above,  and  which 
is  peaceable,  "  sowing  the  fruit  of  righteousness  in  peace." 

Many  teachers. — In  order  to  understand  this  reference,  it  should  be  noticed,  that 
the  vioxA  masters,  in  the  common  translation  of  chap.  iii.  verse  1,  of  this  epistle,  is 
not  to  be  taken  in  the  common  modern  sense,  but  in  that  of  "  religious  teachers." 
The  original  is  not  Kipioi,  {Kurioi,)  "  Lords,"  "  Masters," — but  SiiaaKuXoi,  {didaskaloi,') 
"  Teachers."  The  translators  probably  intended  it  only  in  the  latter  sense  ;  for  the 
word  "  Master"  really  has  that  meaning  in  such  connexions,  in  good  authors  of  that 
age;  and  even  at  this  day,  in  England,  the  same  usage  of  the  word  is  very  common, 
though  almost  unknown  in  this  country,  except  in  compound  technical  terms. 

HIS  DEATH. 

The  epistle  was  probably  the  last  great  act  of  his  life.  No  re- 
cord, indeed,  of  any  of  his  labors,  except  this  living  instance,  exists 
of  his  later  years  ;  but  there  is  certain  ground  for  supposing  that 
his  residence  in  Jerusalem  was  characterized  by  a  steady  course  of 
apostolic  labors,  in  the  original  sphere  of  action,  to  which  the 
twelve  had  first  confined  themselves  for  many  years.  When,  by 
the  special  calls  of  God,  in  providences  and  in  revelations,  one  and 
another  of  the  apostles  had  been  summoned  to  new  and  distant 
fields,  east,  west,  north,  and  south,  "  preaching  repentance  and  re- 
mission of  sins,  in  his  name,  among  all  nations,  beginning  at  Je- 
rusalem," and  bearing  witness  of  his  works,  thence,  through  Judea, 
and  Samaria,  and  unto  the  uttermost  part  of  the  earth,"  there  was 
still  needed  one,  who,  highly  "  indued  with  power  from  on  high," 
might  remain  in  that  city  to  which  all  the  sons  of  Israel,  through- 
out the  world,  looked  as  the  fountain  of  religious  light.  There  too 
was  the  scene  of  the  first  great  triumphs  of  •  the  Christian  faith,  as 
well  as  of  the  chief  toils,  the  trials,  and  the  death  of  the  great 
founder  himself.  All  these  circumstances  rendered  Jerusalem  still 
an  important  post  to  the  apostles  ;  and  they  therefore  left  on  that 
station  the  apostle,  whose  steady  courage  in  the  cause  of  Christ, 


430  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

and  blameless  yet  jealous  conformity  to  the  law  of  Moses,  fitted 
him  at  once  for  the  bold  maintenance  of  his  Master's  commission, 
and  for  the  successful  advancement  of  the  gospel  among  the  faith- 
ful believers  of  the  ancient  covenant.  Thus  James  continued  at 
Jerusalem  throughout  his  life,  being  kept  at  this  important  station, 
perhaps  on  account  of  his  age,  as  well  as  for  his  fitness  in  other 
respects ;  as  there  is  some  reason  to  think  that  he  was  older  than 
those  more  active  apostles  who  assumed  the  foreign  departments 
of  the  work.  His  great  weight  of  character,  as  evinced  in  the 
council  of  the  apostles,  and  by  the  fear  which  Peter  showed  of  of- 
fending him,  very  naturally  gives  the  idea  of  a  greater  age  than 
that  of  the  other  apostles  ;  and  this  notion  is  furthermore  confirmed 
by  the  circumstance  that  the  brethren  of  Jesus,  among  whom  this 
apostle  was  certainly  included,  are  mentioned  as  assuming  an  au- 
thority over  their  divine  relation,  and  claiming  a  right  to  control 
and  direct  his  motions,  which  could  never  have  been  assumed,  ac- 
cording to  the  established  order  of  Jewish  families,  unless  they  had 
been  older  than  he.  It  is  therefore  a  rational  supposition,  that 
James  was  one  of  the  oldest,  perhaps  the  oldest,  of  the  apostles ; 
and  at  any  rate  he  appears  to  have  been  more  advanced  in  life 
than  any  of  those  who  are  characterized  with  suificient  distinctness 
to  offer  the  means  of  conjecture  on  this  point. 

The  last  mention  made  of  James  in  New  Testament  history,  is 
in  the  account  given  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  of  Paul's  last 
visit  to  Jerusalem,  where  it  is  mentioned,  that  on  the  day  after  his 
arrival,  he,  with  his  companions,  visited  James,  and  to  him  and 
the  elders  made  a  report  of  his  acts  and  adventures  among  the 
Gentiles.  No  other  apostle  is  named  in  this  account,  nor,  indeed, 
does  it  appear  that  any  other  was  then  in  Jerusalem,  James  and 
the  elders  being  the  supreme  Christian  council ;  and  the  mention 
of  his  name  alone  implies  that  he  was  the  most  eminent  person 
among  the  Christians,  and  their  undoubted  head. 

This  account  is  in  Acts  xxi.  18.  The  advice  given  by  James  and  the  elders  to 
Paul,  about  conforming  to  the  observances  of  the  Mosaic  law,  is  also  highly  charac- 
teristic of  this  apostle. 

From  the  high  charge  of  this  great  central  apostolic  station,  in 
which  he  had,  through  a  course  of  more  than  twenty-five  years, 
accumulated  the  ripe  honors  of  a  "  righteous"  name  upon  his 
hoary  head,  James  was  now  called  to  end  a  career,  which  so  much 
resembled  that  of  the  ancient  prophets,  by  a  death  equally  assimi- 
lated to  the  bloody  fate  to  which  so  many  of  them  had  been  doomed 


I 


JAMES  THE  LITTLE.  431 

by  the  subjects  of  their  reproofs.  His  high  standing  among  the 
Christians,  and  the  pecuUar  favor  and  reverence  with  which  he  was 
regarded  even  by  the  Jews,  on  account  of  his  steady  and  consist- 
ent devotion  to  all  the  observances  of  the  Mosaic  law,  conspired  to 
mal^e  hini  an  object  to  the  dignitaries  of  Judaism,  whose  hatred  for 
Christianity  and  its  preachers  had  by  no  means  abated  by  observing 
its  truimphant  extension.  James,  whose  rigid  moral  and  religious 
exactness  had  procured  him  among  the  people  the  name  of  "  the 
JUST,"  was  now  left  alone  in  the  apostleship  at  Jerusalem,  and  on 
him  therefore  was  concentrated  all  the  hatred  which  the  Jewish 
chiefs  bore  to  the  faith  and  the  followers  of  Jesus.  But  the  reli- 
gious tolerance  enjoyed  under  the  Roman  sway,  long  prevented 
the  gratification  of  the  spirit  of  persecution ;  yet  the  spite  of  the 
opposers  of  Jesus  was  nourished  and  transmitted  through  many 
years,  until  some  peculiar  opportunity  should  present  itself  to  an 
active  persecuting  mind,  and  afford  the  occasion  and  means  of 
revenge. 

In  the  year  60  of  the  Christian  era,  Festus,  governor  of  Judea, 
having  died,  there  occurred  a  brief  interval,  between  his  death 
and  the  arrival  of  Albinus  his  successor,  during  which  the  Jewish 
council  of  state  were  the  highest  power  left  in  Jerusalem.  Ananus, 
a  young,  fiery  Sadducee,  having  just  been  appointed  high  priest, 
had  the  boldness  to  assume  the  sovran  power  of  life  and  death ; 
and  bringing  him,  with  others  of  the  hated  followers  of  the  new 
faith,  before  the  Sanhedrim,  he  effected  their  condemnation,  and, 
as  one  account  represents,  getting  up  a  tumult  among  the  lower 
orders,  dragged  them  to  the  outer  courts  of  the  temple,  where  all 
were  murdered.  If  the  most  ancient  Christian  story  may  be  be- 
lieved, James  was  first  thrown  from  the  roof  of  the  temple-court 
to  the  ground,  (after  an  ineffectual  attempt  to  induce  him  to  re- 
nounce the  faith  of  Jesus,)  and  as  the  venerable  old  man  was  not 
instantly  killed  by  the  fall,  a  bloody,  hard-hearted  ruffian  in  the 
mob  smote  him  with  a  huge  club,  and  crowned  the  earthly  toils 
of  "  the  brother  of  our  Lord"  with  the  glories  of  martyrdom. 

The  eminent  Jewish  historian,  Josephus,  himself  a  resident  in  Jerusalem  at  that 
time,  and  an  eyewitness  of  these  events,  and,  undoubtedly,  acquainted  by  sight  and 
fame  with  James,  has  given  a  clear  account  of  the  execution  of  this  apostle,  which 
can  best  evince  its  own  merit  by  being  given  entire. 

"  The  account  which  Josephus  has  given,  shows  that  the  death  of  James  must  have 
happened  during  Paul's  imprisonment,  and  is  delivered  in  the  following  words : — '  The 
emperor,  being  informed  of  the  death  of  Festus,  sent  Albinus  to  be  prefect  of  Judea. 
But  the  younger  Ananus,  who,  as  we  have  said  before,  was  made  high  priest,  was 
haughty  in  his  behavior,  and  very  ambitious.  He  was  also  of  the  sect  of  the  Sadducees, 
who,  as  we  have  also  observed  before,  are  above  all  other  Jews  severe  in  their  judicial 


432  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

sentences.  This,  then,  being  the  temper  of  Ananus,  he,  thinking  he  had  a  convenient 
opportunity,  because  Feslus  was  dead,  and  Albinus  was  not  yet  arrived,  called  a  coun- 
cil, and  brought  before  it  James,  brother  of  Jesus,  who  was  called  Christ,  with  several 
others,  where  thevwere  accused  of  beingtrangressorsof  the  law,  and  stoned  to  death. 
But  the  most  mod.erate  men  of  the  city,  who  were  also  the  most  learned  in  the  laws, 
were  offended  at  this  proceeding.  They  sent  therefore  privately  to  the  king,"  [Agrip- 
pa,  sovran  of  northern  Palestine,  and  then  possessing  great  power  and  influence  in 
Jerusalem,  though  that  city  was  not  in  his  own  proper  dominions,]  "  and  entreated 
him  to  give  orders  to  Ananus  to  abstain  from  such  conduct  in  future.  And  some 
went  to  meet  Albinus,  who  was  coming  from  Alexandria,  and  represented  to  him, 
that  Ananus  had  no  right  to  call  a  council  without  his  permission.  Albinus  approving 
of  what  they  said,  wrote  a  very  severe  letter  to  Ananus,  threatening  to  punish  him 
for  what  he  had  done.  And  king  Agrippa  look  away  from  him  the  priesthood, 
after  he  had  possessed  ii  three  months,  and  appointed  in  his  stead  Jesus,  the  .son  of 
Damnaeus.'  From  this  account  of  Josephus,  we  learn,  that  James,  notwithstanding 
he  was  a  Christian,  was  so  far  from  being  an  object  of  hatred  to  the  Jews,  that  he 
was  rather  beloved  and  respected.  At  least  his  death  excited  very  diflferent  sensa- 
tions from  that  of  the  first  James;  and  the  Sadducean  high  priest,  at  whose  instiga- 
tion he  suflfered,  was  punished  for  his  offense  by  the  loss  of  his  office." 

This  translation  is  taken  from  Marsh's  Michaelis,  (Introd.  Vol.  IV.  pp.  287,  288.) 
The  original  is  in  the  Jewish  Antiquities  of  Josephus.    (XX.  ix.  1.) 

This,  however,  is  not  the  statement  which  the  early  Christian  writers  give  of  the 
death  of  James  the  Just;  but  from  the  oldest  historian  of  the  church,  is  derived  ano- 
ther narrative,  so  highly  decorated  with  minute  particulars,  that  while  it  is  made  very 
much  more  interesting  than  the  concise  and  simple  account  given  by  Josephus,  it  is 
at  the  same  time  rendered  rather  suspicious  by  the  very  circumstance  of  its  interest- 
ing minuteness.  Josephus  had  no  temptation  whatever  to  pervert  the  statement.  He 
gives  it  in  terms  strongly  condemnatory  of  the  whole  transaction ;  but  the  Chris- 
tian writers,  as  they  have  shown  in  such  other  instances,  are  too  often  disposed  to 
amplify  truth,  for  the  sake  of  making  up  a  story  whose  incidents  harmonize  best  with 
their  notions  of  a  desirable  martyrdom.  The  story,  however,  deserves  a  place  here, 
both  for  the  sake  of  a  fair  comparison,  and  on  account  of  its  own  interesting  char- 
acter. 

"  James,  the  brother  of  the  Lord,  managed  the  church,  with  the  apostles;  who  was 
by  all  named  '  the  Just,'  ("O  Sikoios,)  from  the  time  of  the  Lord  [Jesus]  even  to  our 
own  times.  For  many  were  called  James,  but  this  man  was  holy  from  his  mother's 
womb.  He  drank  neither  wine,  nor  strong  drink;  nor  ate  any  creature  wherein  was 
life.  There  never  came  a  razor  upon  his  beard  ; — he  anointed  not  himself  with  oil, 
neither  did  he  use  a  bath.  To  him  only  it  was  lawful  to  enter  into  the  holy  of  holies. 
He  wore  no  woolen,  but  only  linen  garments;  and  entered  the  temple  alone,  where 
he  was  seen  upon  his  knees,  supplicating  for  the  forgiveness  of  the  people,  till  his 
knees  became  hard,  and  covered  with  a  callus,  like  those  of  a  camel.  On  account 
of  his  eminent  righteousness,  he  was  called  the  Just,  and  Oblias,  which  signifies 
'  the  people's  fortress.'  Then,  after  describing  the  divisions  among  the  people,  re- 
specting Christianity,  the  account  states,  that  all  the  leading  men  among  the  Scribes 
and  Pharisees,  came  to  James,  and  entreated  him  to  stand  up  on  the  battlements  of 
the  temple,  and  persuade  the  people  assembled  at  the  passover,  to  have  juster  notions 
concerning  Jesus;  and  that,  when  thus  mounted  on  the  battlements,  he  cried  with  a 
loud  voice — '  Why  do  ye  question  me  about  Jesus,  the  Son  of  Man  1  He  even  sits  in 
heaven,  at  the  right  hand  of  great  power,  and  will  come  in  the  clouds  of  heaven.' 
With  this  declaration,  many  were  satisfied,  and  cried — '  Hosanna  to  the  Son  of  David.' 
But  the  unbelieving  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  mortified  at  what  they  had  done,  pro- 
duced a  riot;  for  they  consulted  together,  and  then  cried  out — '  Oh  !  oh !  even  the  Just 
one  is  himself  deceived.'  They  went  up,  therefore,  and  cast  down  the  Just,  and  .said 
among  themselves — '  Let  us  stone  James  the  Just.'  And  they  began  to  stone  him,  for 
he  did  not  die  with  his  fall ;  but  turning,  he  kneeled,  saying — '  I  entreat,  O  Lord  God 
the  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do.'  And  while  they  were 
stoning  him,  one  of  the  priests,  of  the  sons  of  Rahab,  spoken  of  by  Jeremiah  the 
prophet,  cried  out — '  Cease ;  what  do  ye "?  The  Just  one  prays  for  us.'  But  a  certain 
one  among  them,  a  fuller,  took  a  lever,  such  as  he  had  used  to  squeeze  garments, 
and  smote  the  Just  one  on  the  head.  Thus  he  bore  his  testimony;  and  they  buried 
him  in  that  place,  and  his  grave-stone  yet  remains  near  the  temple." 

This  story  is  from  Hegesippus,  as  quoted  by  Eusebius,  to  whom  alone  we  owe  its 
preservation,— the  works  of  the  original  author  being  all  lost,  except  such  fragments, 


JAMES  THE  LITTLE.  433 

accidentally  quoted  by  other  writers.  The  translation  is  mostly  taken  from  the  MS 
of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Murdock,  to  whose  research  I  am  already  so  much  indebted  in  simi- 
lar instances.    (The  passage  is  in  Eusebius,  Hist.  Ecc.  II.  23.) 

The  comments  of  Michaelis  on  these  two  testimonies,  may  be  appropriately  sub- 
joined. (Introd.  VoL  IV.  pp.  288,  291.  Marsh's  Translation.)  "  The  account  giver. 
by  Hegesippus,  contains  an  intermixture  of  truth  and  fable;  and  in  some  materia, 
points  contradicts  the  relation  of  Josephus,  to  which  no  objection  can  be  made.  It 
confirms,  however,  the  assertion,  that  James  was  in  great  repute  among  the  Jews, 
€ven  among  those  who  did  not  believe  in  Christ ;  and  that  they  paid  him  much  greater 
deference  than  we  might  suppose  they  would  have  shown  to  a  Christian  bi:«,hop,  and 
a  brother  of  Christ,  whom  they  had  crucified.  Many  parts  of  the  preceding  account 
are  undoubtedly  fabuloiQs,  especially  that  part  which  relates  to  the  request  of  the  Jews 
that  James  would  openly  declare  from  the  battlements  of  the  tempie,  that  Jesus  was 
not  the  Messiah.  Indeed,  if  this  were  true,  it  would  not  redound  to  his  honor;  for 
it  would  imply  that  he  had  acted  with  duplicity,  and  not  taken  a  decided  part  in  favor 
of  Christianity,  or  the  Jews  could  never  have  thought  of  making  such  a  request. 
But  that  a  person,  who  was  at  the  head  of  the  church  in  Jerusalem,  should  have 
acted  such  a  double  part  as  to  leave  it  undecided  what  party  he  had  embraced,  and 
that,  too,  for  thirty  years  al^er  the  ascension,  is  in  itself  almost  incredible.  It  is  in- 
consistent likewise  with  the  relation  of  Josephus,  and  is  virtually  contradicted  both 
by  Paul  and  by  Luke,  who  always  speak  of  him  with  the  utmost  respect,  and  have 
no  where  given  the  smallest  hint,  that  he  concealed  the  principal  doctrines  of  the 
•Christian  religion." — Neander  also  condemns  it.    (Apost.  II.  1.) 

Lardner^  however,  in  his  excessive  reverence  for  the  Fathers,  in  order  to  set  the 
story  of  Hegesippus  beyond  suspicion,  has  endeavored  to  overthrow  the  opposing 
narrative  of  Josephus,  by  representing  that  as  an  inconsistent  forgery,  interpolated 
by  some  Christian  copyist.  Lardner  has  succeeded  in  effecting  the  condemnation  of 
at  least  two  suspicious  passages  in  the  modern  text  of  Josephus, — that  describing 
Jesus  Christ,  and  that  concerning  the  death  of  John  the  Baptist,— the  former  of  which 
is  now  universally  condemned  as  an  interpolation,  and  the  latter  very  generally  sus- 

Eected  as  such.    But  in  regard  to  the  clear  and  distinct  narrative  of  James's  death,  he 
as  been  far  from  successful,  and  this  statement  is  generally  preferred  to  that  of 
Hegesippus.    (See  Lardner's  Jewish  Testimonies.    Josephus.) 

The  date  which  I  have  adopted  for  this  transaction  (A.  D.  60)  is  on  the  high  criti- 
cal authority  of  Antony  Pagi.  (Crit.  Baronii.  A.  C.  60,  cd  Jin.  p.  46.)  BarOnius 
fixes  it  in  A.  D.  61,  (63  of  his  enumeration.)  Valesius  in  A.  D.  46.  Cave  says 
A.  D.  61. 

Thus  gloriously  ended  the  steady,  bright  career  of  "  the  second 
apostolic  martyr."  Honored,  even  by  the  despisers  of  the  faith 
and  haters  of  the  name  of  Christ,  with  the  exalted  title  of  "  the 
Just,"  he  added  the  solemn  witness  of  his  blood,  to  that  of  his 
divine  brother  and  Lord,  and  to  that  of  his  young  apostolic  brother, 
whose  name  and  fate  were  equally  like  his, — a  testimony  which 
sealed  anew  the  truth  of  his  own  record  against  the  sins  of  the 
oppressors,  published  in  his  last  great  earthly  work : — "  Ye  have 
condemned  and  killed  the  just  ;  yet  he  doth  not  resist  you." 


SIMON   ZELOTES. 


HIS  NAME. 


The  often-recurring  difficulty  about  the  distinctive  appellations 
of  the  apostles,  forms  the  most  prominent  point  of  inquiry  in  the 
life  of  this  person,  otherwise  so  little  known  as  to  afford  hardly  a 
single  topic  for  the  apostolic  historian.  The  dispute  here  indeed 
involves  no  question  about  personal  identity,  but  merely  refers  to 
the  coincidence  of  signification  between  the  two  different  words  by 
which  he  is  designated  in  the  apostolic  lists,  to  distinguish  him 
from  the  illustrious  chief  of  the  twelve,  who  bore  the  same  name 
with  him.  |  Matthew  and  Mark,  in  giving  the  names  of  the  apos- 
tles,— the  only  occasion  on  which  they  name  him, — call  him 
"  Simon  the  Cananite ;"  but  Luke,  in  a  similar  notice,  mentions 
him  as  "  Simon  Zelotes ;'/  and  the  question  then  arises,  whether 
these  two  distinctive  appellations  have  not  a  common  origin.  In 
the  vernacular  language  of  Palestine,  the  word  from  which  Ca- 
nanite is  derived,  has  a  meaning  identical  with  that  of  the  root  of 
the  Greek  word  Zelotes ;  and  hence  it  is  most  rationally  concluded, 
that  the  latter  is  a  translation  of  the  former, — Luke,  who  wrote 
entirely  for  Greeks,  choosing  to  translate  into  their  language  a 
term  whose  original  force  could  be  apprehended  only  by  those  ac- 
quainted with  the  local  circumstances  with  which  it  was  connected. 
The  name  Zelotes,  which  may  be  faithfully  translated  by  its 
English  derivative.  Zealot,  has  a  meaning  deeply  involved  in 
some  of  the  most  bloody  scenes  in  the  history  of  the  Jews,  in  the 
apostolic  age.  This  name,  or  rather  its  Hebrew  original,  was 
assumed  by  a  set  of  ferocious  desperadoes,  who,  under  the  honor- 
able pretense  of  a  holy  zeal  for  their  country  and  religion,  set  all 
law  at  defiance ;  and,  constituting  themselves  at  once  the  judges 
and  the  executors  of  right,  they  went  through  the  land,  waging 
war  against  the  Romans,  and  all  who  peacefully  submitted  to  that 
foreign  sway.  This  sect,  however,  did  not  arise  by  this  name 
until  many  years  after  the  death  of  Jesus,  and  there  is  no  good 
reason  to  suppose  that  Simon  derived  his  surname  from  any  con- 


SIMON  ZELOTES.  435 

nexion  with  the  bloody  Zealots,  who  did  their  utmost  to  increase 
the  last  agonies  of  their  distracted  country,  but  from  a  more  holy 
zeal  displayed  in  a  more  righteous  manner.  It  may  have  been 
simply  characteristic  of  his  general  conduct,  or  it  may  have  refer- 
red to  some  j)articular  occasion  in  which  he  decidedly  evinced  this 
trait  of  zeal  in  a  righteous  cause. 

The  Cana?iite.— In  respect  to  this  name,  a  most  absurd  and  unjustifiable  blunder 
has  stood  in  all  the  common  versions  of  it,  which  deserves  notice.  This  is  the  repre- 
sentation of  the  word  in  the  form,  "  Canaanile"  which  is  a  gross  perversion  of  the 
original.  The  Greek  word  is  \vavaviTni,  {Kaivanites,')  a  totally  different  word  from 
that  which  is  used  both  in  the  New  Testament  and  in  the  Alexandrine  version  of  the 
Old,  to  express  the  Hebrew  term  for  an  inhabitant  of  Canaan.  The  name  of  the 
land  of  Canaan  is  always  expressed  by  the  aspirated  form,  Xai/a«i/,  which  in  the  Latin 
and  all  modern  versions  is  very  properl)'  expressed  by  "  Chanaan."  In  Matt.  xv.  22, 
where  the  Canaanitish  woman  is  spoken  of,  the  original  is  Xai/ai/ai'a,  {Chananaia,) 
nor  is  there  any  passage  in  which  the  name  of  an  inhabitant  of  Canaan  is  expressed 
by  the  form  Kui/oi/in?;,  {Cananites,)  with  the  smooth  K,  and  the  single  A.  Yet  the 
Latin  ecclesiastic  writers,  and  even  the  usually  accurate  Natalis  Alexander,  express 
this  apostle's  name  as  "  Simon  Chaiiaimcus"  which  is  the  word  for  "  Canaanite." 

The  true  force  and  derivation  of  the  word  is  this.  The  name  assumed  in  the  lan- 
guage of  Palestine  by  the  ferocious  sect  above  mentioned,  was  derived  from  the  He- 
brew primitive  K:p  {Qana  or  Kana,)  and  thence  the  name  ■'sjp  (^Kanani)  was  very 
fairly  expressed,  according  to  the  forms  and  terminations  of  the  Greek,  by  Kai/ai/ir/jf, 
{Kananiles.)  The  Hebrew  root  is  a  verb  which  means  "  to  be  zealous"  and  the  name 
derived  from  it  of  course  means,  "  one  who  iszealmvs,"  oi  which  the  just  Greek  trans- 
lation is  the  word  Z^Xwriys,  {Zelotes,)  the  very  name  by  which  Luke  represents  it  in 
this  instance.  (Luke  vi.  15.  Acts  i.  13.)  One  of  these  names  is,  in  short,  a  mere 
translation  of  the  other, — nor  is  there  any  way  of  evading  this  construction,  except 
by  supposing  that  Luke  was  mistaken  in  supposing  that  Simon  was  called  "  the 
Zealot,  being  deceived  by  the  resemblance  of  the  name  "  Cananites"  to  the  Hebrew 
name  of  that  sect.  But  no  believer  in  the  inspiration  of  the  gospel  can  allow  this  sup- 
position. Equally  unfounded,  and  inconsistent  with  Luke's  translation,  is  the  notion 
that  the  name  Cananite  is  derived  from  Cana,  the  village  of  Galilee,  famous  as  the 
scene  of  Christ's  first  miracle. 

The  account  given  in  the  Life  of  Matthew  shows  the  character  of  this  sect,  as  it 
existed  in  the  last  days  of  the  Jewish  state.  Josephus  describes  them  very  fully  in  kis 
history  of  the  Jewish  War,  (iv.  3.)  Simon  probably  received  this  name,  however, 
Bot  from  any  connexion  with  a  sect  which  arose  long  after  the  death  of  Christ,  but 
from  something  in  his  own  character  which  showed  a  great  zeal  for  the  cause  which 
he  had  espoused. 

HIS  HISTORY. 

No  very  direct  statement  as  to  his  parentage  is  made  in  the 
New  Testament ;  but  one  or  two  incidental  allusions  to  some  cir- 
cumstances connected  with  it,  afford  ground  for  a  reasonable  con- 
clusion on  this  point.  In  the  enumeration  which  Matthew  and 
Mark  give  of  the  four  brothers  of  Jesus,  in  the  discourse  of  the 
offended  citizens  of  Nazaretli,  Simon  is  mentioned  along  with 
James,  Juda,  and  Joses.  It  is  worthy  of  notice,  also,  that  on  all 
the  apostolic  lists,  Simon  the  apostle  is  mentioned  between  the 
brothers  James  and  Juda ;  an  arrangement  that  cannot  be  account- 
ed for,  except  by  supposing  that  he  was  also  the  brother  of  James. 
The  reason  why  Juda  is  distinctly  specified  as  the  brother  of  James, 


436  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES, 

while  Simon  is  mentioned  without  reference  to  any  such  relation- 
ship, is,  doubtless,  that  the  latter  was  so  well  known  by  the  appel- 
lation of  the  Zealot,  that  there  was  no  need  of  specifying  his 
relations,  to  distinguish  him  from  Simon  Peter.  These  two  cir- 
cumstances, incidentally  mentioned,  may  be  considered  as  justifying 
the  supposition,  that  Simon  Zelotes  was  the  same  person  as  Simon 
the  brother  of  Jesus.  In  this  manner,  all  the  old  writers  have 
understood  the  connexion  ;  and  though  such  use  is  no  authority, 
it  is  worth  mentioning,  that  the  monkish  chroniclers  always  con- 
sider Simon  Zelotes  as  the  brother  of  Juda  ;  and  they  associate 
these  two,  as  wandering  together  in  eastern  countries,  to  preach 
the  gospel  in  Persia  and  Mesopotamia.  The  few  respectable  au- 
thoritieS)  also,  that  make  any  mention  of  him,  speak  decidedly  of 
Mesopotamia  as  the  scene  of  his  apostolic  labors,  and  of  Persia  as 
the  country  where  he  died  ;  all  which  go  to  confirm  the  general 
testimony  in  favor  of  the  movement  of  the  apostles  from  Jerusalem, 
just  before  its  destruction,  to  the  countries  east  of  the-  Euphrates. 

Others  carry  him  into  much  more  improbable  wanderings, 
Egypt  and  Northern  Africa,  and  even  Britain,  are  mentioned  as 
the  scenes  of  his  apostolic  labors,  in  the  ingenious  narratives  of 
those  who  undertook  to  supply  almost  every  one  of  the  nations  of 
the  eastern  continent  with  an  apostolic  patron  saint.  All  this  is 
very  poor  consolation  for  the  general  dearth  of  facts  in  relation  to 
this  apostle  ;  and  the  searcher  for  historical  truth  will  not  be  so 
well  satisfied  with  the  tedious  tales  of  monkish  romance,  as  with 
the  decided  and  unquestionable  assurance,  that  the  whole  history 
of  this  apostle,  from  beginning  to  end,  is  perfectly  unknown,  and 
that  not  one  action  of  his  life  has  been  preserved  from  the  darkness 
of  an  utterly  impenetrable  oblivion. 


%:: 


JUDE, 


HIS  NAME. 


The  number  of  instances,  among  the  men  of  the  apostolic  age, 
of  two  persons  bearing  the  same  name,  is  very  curious,  and  seems 
*.o  show  a  great  poverty  of  appellatives  among  their  parents. 
Among  the  twelve  there  are  two  Simons,  two  Jameses,  and  two 
Judases ;  and  including  those  whose  labors  were  any  way  con- 
nected with  theirs,  there  are  three  Johns,  (the  Baptist,  the  Apostle, 
and  John  Mark,)  and  two  Philips,  besides  other  minor  coincidences. 
The  confusion  which  this  repetition  of  names  causes  among  com- 
mon readers,  is  truly  undesirable ;  and  it  requires  attention  for 
them  to  avoid  error.  In  the  case  of  this  apostle,  indeed,  the  occa- 
sion of  error  is  obviated  for  the  most  part,  by  a  slight  change  in 
the  termination ;  his  name  being  generally  written  Juda,  (in 
modern  versions,  Jude,)  while  the  wretched  traitor  who  bears  the 
same  name,  preserves  the  common  form  terminating  in  S,  which 
is  also  the  form  in  which  Luke  and  John  express  this  apostle's 
name.  A  more  serious  difficulty  occurs,  however,  in  a  diversity 
noticed  between  the  account  given  by  the  two  first  evangelists,  and 
the  forms  in  which  his  name  is  expressed  in  the  writings  of  Luke 
and  John,  and  in  the  introduction  to  his  own  epistle.  Matthew 
and  Mark,  in  giving  the  names  of  the  apostles,  mention  in  the  tenth 
place,  the  name  of  Thaddeus,  to  whom  the  former  evangelist  also 
gives  the  name  of  Ijcbbeus.  They  give  him  a  place  before  Simon 
Zelotes,  and  immediately  after  James,  the  son  of  Alpheus.  Luke 
gives  the  tenth  place  to  Simon  Zelotes,  in  both  his  lists,  and  after 
him  mentions  "  Judas,  the  brother  of  James  ;"  and  John  speaks  of 
"  Judas,  (not  Iscariot,")  among  the  chosen  disciples.  Jude,  in  his 
epistle  also,  announces  himself  as  "  the  brother  of  James."  From 
all  these  circumstances  it  would  seem  to  be  very  fairly  inferred,  that 
Judas,  or  Juda,  the  brother  of  James,  and  Lebbeus  or  Thaddeus, 
were  all  only  different  names  of  the  same  apostle.  But  this  view 
is  by  no  means  universally  received,  and  some  have  been  found 
bold  enough  to  declare,  that  these  two  sets  of  names  referred  to 


438  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

different  persons,  both  of  whom  were  at  different  times  numbered 
among  the  twelve  apostles,  and  were  received  or  excluded  from 
the  list  by  Jesus,  from  some  various  circumstances,  now  unknown  ; 
— or  were  perhaps  considered  such  by  one  evangelist  or  another, 
according  to  the  notions  and  individual  preferences  of  each  writer. 
But  such  a  view  is  so  opposed  to  the  established  impressions  of  the 
uniform  and  fixed  character  of  the  apostolic  list,  and  of  the  con- 
sistency of  different  parts  of  the  sacred  record,  that  it  may  very 
justly  be  rejected  without  the  trouble  of  a  discussion. 

Another  inquiry  still,  concerning  this  apostle,  is — whether  he  is 
the  same  as  that  Judas  who  is  mentioned  along  with  James,  Joses, 
and  Simon,  as  the  brother  of  Jesus.  All  the  important  points  in- 
volved in  this  question,  have  been  already  fully  discussed  in  the 
life  of  James  the  Little ;  and  if  the  conclusion  of  that  argument 
is  correct,  the  irresistible  consequence  is,  that  the  apostle  Jude  was 
also  one  of  these  relatives  of  Jesus.  The  absurdity  of  the  view 
of  his  being  a  different  person,  cannot  be  better  exposed  than  by  a 
simple  statement  of  its  assertions.  It  requires  the  reader  to  believe 
that  there  was  a  Judas,  and  a  James,  brothers  and  apostles  ;  and 
another  Judas  and  another  James,  also  brothers,  and  brothers  of 
Jesus,  but  not  apostles  ;  and  that  these  are  all  mentioned  in  the 
New  Testament  without  any  thing  like  a  satisfactory  explanation 
of  the  reality  and  distinctness  of  this  remarkable  duplicate  of 
brotherhoods.  Add  to  this,  moreover,  the  circumstance  that  Juda, 
the  author  of  the  epistle,  specifies  himself  as  "  the  brother  of 
James,"  as  though  that  were  suflicient  to  prevent  his  being  con- 
founded with  any  other  Judas  or  Juda  in  this  world  ; — a  specifica- 
tion totally  useless,  if  there  was  another  Judas,  the  brother  of 
another  James,  all  eminent  as  Christian  teachers. 

There  is  still  another  question  connected  with  his  simple  entity 
and  identity.  Ancient  traditions  make  mention  of  a  Thaddeus, 
who  first  preached  the  gospel  in  the  interior  of  Syria ;  and  the 
question  is,  whether  he  is  the  same  person  as  the  apostle  Juda, 
who  is  called  Thaddeus  by  Matthew  and  Mark.  The  great  ma- 
jority of  ancient  writers,  more  especially  the  Syrians,  consider  the 
missionary  Thaddeus  not  as  one  of  the  twelve  apostles,  but  as  one 
of  the  seventy  disciples,  sent  out  by  Jesus  in  the  same  way  as  the 
select  twelve.  Another  confirmation  of  the  view  that  he  was  a 
different  person  from  the  apostle  Jude,  is  found  in  the  circum- 
stance, that  the  epistle  which  bears  the  name  of  the  latter,  was 
not  for  several  centuries  received  by  the  Syrian  churches,  though 


JUDE.  439 

generally  adopted  throughout  all  Christendom,  as  an  inspired 
apostolic  writing.  But  surely,  if  their  national  evangelizer  had 
been  identical  with  the  apostle  Jude,  who  wrote  that  epistle,  they 
would  have  been  the  first  to  acknowledge  its  authenticity  and  au- 
thority, and  to  receive  it  into  their  scriptural  canon. 

So  perfectly  destitute  are  the  gospel  and  apostolic  history  of  the 
slightest  account  of  this  apostle's  life  and  actions,  that  his  whole 
biography  may  be  considered  complete  in  the  mere  settlement  of 
his  name  and  identity.  The  only  word  that  has  been  preserved 
as  coming  from  liis  lips,  is  recorded  in  John's  account  of  the  part- 
ing discourses  of  Jesus  to  his  disciples,  on  the  eve  of  his  crucifix- 
ion. Jesus  was  promising  them  that  the  love  of  God  should  be 
the  sign  and  the  reward  of  him  who  faithfully  kept  his  command- 
ments,— "  He  that  holds  and  keeps  my  commandments,  is  the  man 
that  loves  me ;  and  he  that  loves  me  shall  be  loved  by  my  Father  ; 
and  I  will  love  him  and  manifest  myself  to  him."  These  words 
censtituted  the  occasion  of  the  remark  of  Judas,  thus  recorded  by 
John.  "  Judas  (not  Iscariot)  says  to  him — '  Lord  !  how  is  it  that 
thou  wilt  manifest  thyself  to  us  as  thou  dost  not  to  the  world?' 
Jesus  answered  and  said  to  him — '  If  a  man  love  me,  he  will  keep 
my  words  ;  and  my  Father  will  love  him,  and  we  will  come  to 
him,  and  make  our  abode  with  him.' "  A  natural  inquiry,  aptly 
and  happily  suggested,  and  most  clearly  and  satisfactorily  answer- 
ed, in  the  plain  but  illustrative  words  of  the  divine  teacher  ! 
Would  that  the  honest  inquirer  after  the  true,  simple  meaning  of 
the  words  of  God,  might  have  his  painful  researches  through  the 
wisdom  of  ages,  as  well  rewarded  as  did  the  favored  hearers  of 
Jesus  !  And  would  that  the  trying  efibrts  of  critical  thought 
might  end  in  a  result  so  brilliant  and  so  cheering ! 

Jude  is  also  undoubtedly  the  person  mentioned  as  associated 
with  SilEis  in  the  mission  from  the  apostolic  assembly  at  Jerusa- 
lem to  the  church  of  Antioch,  on  the  return  of  Barnabas  and  Paul. 
In  that  brief  statement  he  is  mentioned  under  the  name  of  Judas 
Barsabas.  This  surname  is  also  applied,  in  the  first  chapter  of 
the  Acts,  to  Joseph  Justus,  one  of  the  candidates  for  the  apostle- 
ship.  When  it  is  remembered  that  Matthew  and  Mark  speak  of 
Joses  and  Judas,  along  with  James  and  Simon,  as  the  brothers  of 
Jesus,  the  confirmation  of  the  identity  of  those  just  mentioned 
under  the  same  name,  whether  Judases,  Jameses,  Josephs,  or  Si- 
mons, is  strong  and  palpable. 

The  name  Barsabas  is  interpreted  by  Lightfoot  as  meaning  "  the  son  of  the  aged" 


440  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

yaw  (^saba^ — a  name  perhaps  appropriate  to  Joseph,  the  father  of  these  brothers  of 
Jesus.     This  meaning  of  the  Hebrew  root,  however,  is  doubtful. 

From  Hegesippus  is  derived,  through  Eusebius,  a  story  connected  with  this  apostie, 
which  implies  that  he  had  children.  The  aspect  of  the  account  is  rather  dubious ; 
but  coming  on  such  early  authority,  it  deserves  commemoration,  if  not  belief.  The 
tale  is  as  follows :  "  In  the  time  of  the  emperor  Domitian  there  still  survived  some  of 
the  kindred  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  grandsons  of  Juda,  who  was  called  his  brother  after 
the  flesh.  These  being  spoken  of  as  descended  from  David,  were  brought  by  one 
of  the  emperor's  body-guard  to  Domitian  Caesar;  for  that  monarch  was  alarmed 
about  the  coming  of  Christ,  even  as  Herod  was  before.  The  emperor  asked  them  if 
they  were  descended  from  David,  and  they  acknowledged  that  they  were.  He  then 
asked  how  much  property  they  had ; — to  which  they  replied,  that  they  had  only  nine 
thousand  pence  to  be  shared  between  them, — not  indeed  that  amount  of  money,  but 
thirty-nine  acres  of  ground,  valued  at  that,  from  the  productions  of  which  they  paid 
their  taxes;  nor  could  they  obtain  their  food  except  by  their  own  labor,  which  had 
left  its  marks  on  their  hands  in  callous  hardness.  Being  asked  respecting  Christ's 
kingdom,  when  and  where  it  would  appear,  they  replied,  that  it  was  not  of  this  world, 
nor  founded  on  earth,  but  was  heavenly  and  angelic,  and  would  appear  in  the  end  of 
time,  when  Christ  coming  in  glory  shall  judge  the  living  and  the  dead,  and  give 
every  man  the  reward  of  his  works.  Domitian,  therefore,  in  contempt  of  their  hum- 
ble condition,  passed  no  sentence  against  them,  but  sent  them  away  free.  At  the  same 
time,  by  decree,  he  put  an  end  to  the  persecution  then  raging  against  the  church. 
And  they  after  their  dismissal  were  noted  in  the  churches  as  being  at  once  botli 
Christ's  witnesses  {jiAprvpa?,  commonly  translated  m.artyrs,  though  they  were  not  put 
to  death)  and  his  relations.  Peace  being  restored,  they  survived  to  the  time  of  Tra- 
jan." This  is  the  whole  extract  made  from  Hegesippus  by  Eusebius.  (Hist.  Ecc. 
iii.  20.)  At  best,  it  has  but  a  dubious  character  ;  and  the  concluding  statement,  that 
Domitian  himself  put  a  stop  to  the  persecution,  is  opposed  to  the  general  testimony  of 
the  ancients,  that  this  was  done  by  Nerva,  his  successor.  The  whole  has  little  appear- 
ance of  probability 

HIS  EPISTLE. 

The  solitary  monument  and  testimony  of  his  apostolic  labors,  are 
found  in  that  brief,  but  strongly  characterized  and  peculiar  writing, 
which  bears  his  name,  and  forms  the  last  portion,  but  one,  of  the 
modern  scriptural  canon.  Short  as  it  is,  and  obscure,  too,  by  the 
numerous  references  it  contains,  to  local  and  temporary  circum- 
stances, there  is  much  expressed  in  this  little  portion  of  the  apostolic 
writings,  which  is  highly  interesting  to  the  inquirer  into  the  darker 
portions  of  the  earliest  Christian  history. 

Several  very  remarkable  circumstances  in  this  epistle,  have,  from 
the  earliest  ages  of  Christian  theology,  excited  great  inquiry  among 
writers,  and  in  many  cases  have  not  only  led  commentators  and 
critics  to  pronounce  the  work  very  suspicious  in  its  character,  but 
even  absolutely  to  condemn  it  as  unworthy  of  a  place  in  the  sacred 
canon.  One  of  these  circumstances  is,  that  the  writer  quotes  apoc- 
ryphal books  of  a  mystical  and  superstitious  character,  that  have 
never  been  received  by  Christians  or  Jews,  as  possessing  any  divine 
authority,  nor  as  entitled  to  any  regard  whatever  in  religious  matters. 
At  least  two  distinct  quotations  from  these  confessedly  fictitious 
writings,  are  found  in  this  brief  epistle.  The  first  is  from  the  book 
of  Enoch,  which  has  been  preserved  even  to  the  present  day,  in  the 
Ethiopic  translation  ;  the  original  Hebrew  having  been  irrecoverably 
lost.  Some  of  the  highest  authorities  in  orthodoxy  and  in  learning 
have  pronounced  the  original  to  have  been  a  very  ancient  writing  j 


JUDE.  441 

— a  forgery,  indeed,  since  it  professed  to  be  the  writing  of  Enoch 
himself, — but  made  up  in  the  earUest  ages  of  Rabbinical  literature, 
after  the  Old  Testament  canon  was  completed,  but  before  any  por- 
tion of  the  New  Testament  was  written, — probably  some  years  before 
the  Christian  era,  though  the  means  of  ascertaining  its  exact  date 
are  wanting.  Another  quotation,  equally  remarkable,  occurs  in  this 
epistle,  without  any  mention  #)eing  made,  however,  of  the  exact 
source  from  which  the  passage  has  been  drawn  ;  and  the  point  is  at 
present  a  subject  of  dispute, — as  references  have  been  made  by  dif- 
ferent authorities,  ancient  and  modern,  to  different  apocryphal  Jew- 
ish boolis,  which  contain  similar  passages.  But  the  most  valuable 
authorities,  both  ancient  and  modern,  decide  it  to  be  a  work  now 
universally  allowed  to  be  apocryphal, — "  the  Ascension  of  Moses," 
which  is  directly  quoted  as  authority  on  a  subject  altogether  removed 
from  human  knowledge,  and  on  which  no  testimony  could  be  of  any 
value,  except  it  were  derived  directly  and  solely  from  the  sources  of 
inspiration.  The  consequence  of  these  references  to  these  two  doubt- 
ful authorities,  is,  that  many  of  the  critical  examiners  of  this  epistle^ 
in  all  ages,  have  felt  themselves  justified  in  condemning  it. 

TertuUian  (A.  D.  200)  is  the  earliest  writer  who  has  distinctly  quoted  this  epistle. 
He  refers  to  it  in  connexion  with  the  quotation  from  the  book  of  Enoch.  "  Hence  it 
is  that  Enoch  is  quoted  by  the  apostle  Jude."  (De  cultu  feminarmn,  3.)  Clement  of 
Alexandria  also  repeatedly  quotes  the  epistle  of  Jude  as  an  apostolic  writing.  Ori- 
gen  (A.  D.  230)  very  clearly  expresses  nis  opinion  in  favor  of  this  epistle  as  the  pro- 
duction of  Jude,  the  brother  of  Jesus.  In  his  commentary  on  Matt.  xiii.  55,  where 
James,  Simon,  and  Jude,  are  mentioned,  he  says — "Jude  wrote  an  epistle,  of  few 
lines  indeed,  but  full  of  powerful  words  of  heavenly  grace,  who  at  the  beginning,  says 
— '  Jude,  the  servant  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  brother  of  James.'  "  Origen  thought 
every  thing  connected  with  this  epistle,  of  such  high  authority,  that  he  considered 
the  apocryphal  book  of  "  the  Ascension  of  Moses,"  a  work  of  authority,  because  it 
had  been  quoted  by  Jude,  (verse  9.)  He  confesses,  however,  that  there  were  some 
who  doubted  the  authenticity  of  the  epistle  of  Jude ;  and  that  this  was  the  fact,  ap- 
pears still  more  distinctly  from  the  account  of  the  apostolic  writings,  given  by  Euse- 
bius,  (A.  D.  320,)  who  sets  it  down  among  the  disjnUed  writings.  The  ancient  Syriac 
version  (executed  before  A.  D.  100)  rejects  this,  as  well  as  the  second  of  Peter,  and 
the  second  and  third  of  John.  After  the  fourth  century,  all  these  became  universally 
established  in  the  Greek  and  Latin  churches.  The  great  Michaelis,  however,  utterly 
condemns  it  as  probably  a  forgery.    (Introd.  IV.  xxix.  5.) 

The  clearest  statement  of  the  character  of  this  reference  to  the  book  of  Enoch,  is 
given  by  Hug's  translator,  Dr.  Wait.    (Introd.  Vol.  II.  p.  618,  note.) 

"  This  manifestly  appears  to  have  been  the  reason  why  Jude  cited  apocryphal 
works  in  his  epistle,  viz.  for  the  sake  of  refuting  their  own  assertions  from  those  pro- 
ductions, which,  like  the  rest  of  their  nation,  they  most  probably  respected.  For  this 
purpose  the  book  of  Enoch  was  peculiarly  calculated,  since  in  the  midst  of  all  its 
ineptiae  and  absurdities,  this  point,  and  the  orders  of  the  spiritual  world,  are  strongly 
urged  and  discussed  in  it.  It  is  irrelevant  to  the  inquiry,  how  much  of  the  present 
book  existed  at  this  time,  for  that  it  was  framed  by  different  writers,  and  at  diflFerent 
periods,  no  critic  can  deny ;  yet  that  this  was  the  leading  character  of  the  work,  and 
that  these  were  the  prominent  dogmata  of  those  parts  which  were  then  in  existence, 
we  have  every  presumptive  evidence.  The  Hebrew  names  of  angels,  &e.,  such  as 
the  Ophanim,  plainly  indicate  it  to  have  been  a  translation  from  some  lost  Jewish 
original,  which  was  dottbtless  known  both  to  Peter  and  to  Jude;  nor  can  the  unpre- 
judiced examiner  of  these  epistles  well  hesitate  to  acknowledge  Hug's  explanation 
of  them  to  be  the  most  correct  and  the  most  reasonable." 

The  whole  defense  of  the  epistle  against  these  imputations,  may 
be  grounded  upon  the  supposition,  that  the  apostle  was  writing 


442  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

against  a  peculiar  class  of  heretics,  who  did  acknowledge  these  apoc- 
ryphal books  to  be  of  divine  authority,  and  to  whom  he  might  quote 
these  with  a  view  to  show,  that  even  by  their  own  standards  of  truth, 
their  errors  of  doctrine  and  life  must  be  condemned.  The  sect  of 
the  Gnostics  has  been  already  mentioned  in  the  life  of  John,  as  being 
the  first  ever  known  to  have  perverted  the  purity  of  Christian  doc- 
trine, by  heresy.  These  heretics  cmainly  are  not  very  fully  de- 
scribed in  those  few  passages  of  this  short  epistle  that  are  directed  at 
the  errors  of  doctrine ;  but  the  character  of  those  errors  which  Jude 
denounces,  is  accordant  with  what  is  known  of  some  of  the  promi- 
nent peculiarities  of  the  Gnostics.  But  whatever  may  have  been  the 
particular  character  of  these  heretics,  it  is  evident  that  they  must, 
like  the  great  majority  of  the  Jews  in  those  days,  have  acknowledged 
the  divine  authority  of  these  ancient  apocryphal  writings ;  and  the 
apostle  was  therefore  right  in  making  use  of  quotations  from  these 
works,  to  refute  their  very  remarkable  errors.  The  evils  which  he 
denomiced,  however,  were  not  merely  of  a  speculative  character ; 
but  he  more  especially  condemns  their  gross  immoralities,  as  a  scan- 
dal and  an  outrage  on  the  purity  of  the  Christian  assemblies  with 
which  they  still  associated.  In  all  those  passages  where  these  vices 
are  referred  to,  it  will  be  observed  that  both  immoralities  and  doc- 
trinal errors  are  included  in  one  common  condemnation,  which 
shows  that  both  were  inseparably  connected  in  the  conduct  of 
those  heretics  whom  the  writer  condemns.  This  circumstance  also 
does  much  to  identify  them  with  some  of  the  Gnostical  sects  before 
alluded  to, — more  especially  with  the  Nicolaitans,  as  they  are  called 
by  John  in  the  beginning  of  the  Apocalypse,  where  he  is  addressing 
the  church  of  Pergamus.  In  respect  to  this  very  remarkable  pecu- 
liarity of  a  vicious  and  abominable  life,  combined  with  speculative 
errors,  the  ancient  Christian  writers  very  fully  describe  the  Nicolai- 
tans ;  and  their  accounts  are  so  unanimous,  and  their  accusations  so 
definite,  that  it  is  just  and  reasonable  to  consider  this  epistle  as  di- 
rected particularly  against  them. 

Nicolaitans. — An  allusion  has  already  been  made  to  this  sect  in  the  life  of  John, 
but  they  deserve  a  distinct  reference  here  also,  as  they  are  so  distinctly  mentioned  in 
Jude's  epistle.  The  explanation  of  the  name,  which  in  the  former  passage  (page  363) 
■was  crowded  out  by  other  matters  prolonging  that  part  of  the  work  beyond  its  due 
limits,  may  here  be  given  most  satisfactorily,  in  the  words  of  the  learned  Dr.  Hug. 
(Introd.  Vol.  II.  note,  §  182,  original,  §  174,  translation.) 

"  The  arguments  of  those  who  decide  them  to  have  been  the  Nicolaitans,  accord- 
ing to  my  opinion,  are  at  present  the  following: — John,  in  the  Apocalypse,  describes 
the  Nicolaitans  nearly  as  the  heretics  are  here  represented  to  us,  with  the  same  com- 
parison, and  with  the  same  vices;  persons  who  exercise  the  arts  of  Balaam,  who 
taught  Balak  to  ensnare  the  children  of  Israel,  and  to  induce  them  to  pariake  of  idol- 
atrous sacrifices,  and  to  fornicate,  (Acts  ii.  14;  Jude  2;  2  Peter  ii.  15.)  Even  ajjSa, 
according  to  its  derivation,  is  equivalent  to  NixoXnos.  They  also  certainly  denied  the 
Lord's  creation  and  government  of  the  world.    Alterum  quidem  fabricatorem,  alium 

autem  Patrem  Domini et  eam  conditionem,  qiiae  est  secnndum  nos  non  a  primo 

Deo  factam,  sed  a  Virtme  aliqua  valde  dcorsum  subjecta.  (Iren.  L.  iii.  c.  11.)  If 
now  all  corporeal  and  material  existence  has  its  origin  from  the  Creator  of  the  world, 
who  is  a  very  imperfect  and  gross  spirit,  it  flows  naturally  from  this  notion,  that  they 
could  not  admit  a  corporeal  resuscitation  by  the  agency  of  the  Supreme  Being,  or  by 


JUDE.  443 

the  agency  of  Jesus,  in  a  tiniversal  day  of  judgment.  With  respect  to  the  spiritual 
world,  they  also  actually  taught  such  absurdities,  that  it  must  be  said  of  them,  iu^as 
0Xaa(pJifiowi ;  for  they  supposed,  Aeones  quosdam  turpitudinis  natos ;  et  complexus,  et 
permixtiones,  execrabiles,  et  obscaenas.  (TertuUianus  in  append,  ad  Lib.  de  praes- 
cript.  c.  46.)  But,  as  to  their  excesses  and  abominable  mode  of  life,  the  accounts  of 
the  ancients  are  so  unanimous,  and  the  accusations  are  so  constituted,  that  the  two 
apostolic  epistles  may  have  most  pertinently  referred  to  them." 

Another  circumstance  in  this  epistle  which  has  attracted  a  critical 
notice,  and  which  has  occasioned  its  condemnation  by  some,  is  the 
remarkable  coincidence  both  of  sense  and  words  between  it  and  the 
second  chapter  of  the  second  epistle  of  Peter.  There  are  probably 
few  diligent  readers  of  the  New  Testament  to  whom  this  has  not 
been  a  subject  of  curious  remark,  as  several  verses  in  one,  seem  a 
mere  transcript  of  corresponding  passages  in  the  other.  Various 
conjectures  have  been  made  to  account  for  this  resemblance  in  mat- 
ter and  in  words, — some  supposing  Jude  to  have  written  first,  and 
concluding  that  Peter,  writing  to  the  same  persons,  made  references 
in  this  manner  to  the  substance  of  what  they  had  already  learned 
from  another  apostle, — and  others  supposing  that  Peter  wrote  first, 
and  that  Jude  followed  and  amplified  a  portion  of  the  epistle  which 
had  already  lightly  touched  in  some  parts  only  upon  the  particular 
errors  which  the  latter  writer  wished  more  especially  to  refute  and 
condemn.  This  coincidence  is  nevertheless  no  more  a  ground  for 
rejecting  one  or  the  other  of  the  two  writings,  than  the  far  more  per- 
fect parallehsms  between  the  gospels  are  a  reason  for  concluding 
that  only  one  of  them  can  be  an  authorized  document.  Both  the 
apostles  were  evidently  denouncing  the  same  errors  and  condemning 
the  same  vices,  and  nothing  was  more  natural  than  that  this  simi- 
larity of  purpose  should  produce  a  proportional  similarity  of  lan- 
guage. Either  of  the  above  suppositions  is  consistent  with  the  char- 
acter of  the  writings ; — Peter  may  have  written  first,  and  Jude  may 
have  taken  a  portion  of  that  epistle  as  furnishing  hints  for  a  more 
protracted  view  of  these  particular  points  ;  or,  on  the  supposition  that 
Jude  wrote  first,  Peter  may  have  thought  it  worth  while  only  to  refer 
generally,  and  not  to  dwell  very  particularly  on  those  points  which 
his  fellow-apostle  had  already  so  fully  and  powerfully  treated. 

The  particular  churches  to  which  this  epistle  was  addressed,  are 
utterly  unknown  ;  nor  do  modern  writers  pretend  to  find  any  means 
of  detecting  the  places  to  which  it  was  addressed  in  any  peculiar 
passage,  except  so  far  as  the  chief  seats  of  the  heretics,  against  whom 
he  wrote,  are  supposed  to  be  known.  Asia  Minor,  Syria,  and  the 
East,  were  the  regions  to  which  the  Gnostical  errors  were  mostly 
confined  ;  and  in  the  former  country  more  especially  they  were  ob- 
jects of  attention  to  the  ministers  of  truth,  during  the  apostolic  age, 
and  in  succeeding  times.  It  was  probably  intended  for  the  same  per- 
sons to  whom  Peter  wrote ;  and  what  has  been  said  on  the  direction 
of  his  two  epistles,  will  illustrate  the  immediate  design  of  this  also. 

Its  date  is  involved  in  the  same  uncertainty  that  covers  all  points 
in  its  own  history  and  that  of  its  author  ;  the  prominent  difficulty 


444  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

being  its  great  brevity,  in  consequence  of  which  it  offers  but  few 
characteristics  of  any  kind,  for  the  decision  of  doubtful  points ;  and 
the  hfe  and  works  of  Jude  must  therefore  be  set  down  among  those 
matters,  in  which  the  indifference  of  those  who  could  once  have 
preserved  historical  truth  for  the  eyes  of  posterity,  has  left  even  tb  -, 
research  of  modern  criticism,  not  one  hook  to  hang  a  guess  upon. 


# 

0 


JUDAS   ISCARIOT. 


This  name  doubtless  strikes  the  eye  of  the  Christian  reader,  as 
ahnost  a  stain  to  the  fair  page  of  apostohc  history,  and  a  dishonor 
to  the  noble  list  of  the  holy,  with  whom  the  traitor  was  associated. 
But  he  who  knew  the  hearts  of  all  men  from  the  beginning,  even 
before  their  actions  had  developed  and  displayed  their  characters, 
chose  this  man  among  those  whom  he  first  sent  forth  on  the  mes- 
sage of  coming  grace ;  and  all  the  gospel  records  bear  the  name 
of  the  traitor  along  with  those  who  were  faithful  even  unto  death ; 
nor  does  it  behoove  the  unconsecrated  historian  to  affect,  about  the 
arrangement  of  this  name,  a  delicacy  which  the  gospel  writers  did 
not  manifest. 

Of  his  birth,  his  home,  his  occupation,  his  call,  and  his  previous 
character,  the  sacred  writer  bear  no  testimony ;  and  all  which 
the  inventive  genius  of  modern  criticism  has  been  able  to  present, 
in  respect  to  any  of  these  circumstances,  is  drawn  from  no  more 
certain  source  than  the  various  proposed  etymologies  and  signifi- 
cations of  his  name.  But  the  plausibility  which  is  worn  by  each 
one  of  these  numerous  derivations,  is  of  itself  a  sufficient  proof  of 
the  little  dependence  which  can  be  placed  upon  any  conclusion  so 
lightly  founded.  The  inquirer  is  therefore  safest  in  following 
merely  the  reasonable  conjecture,  that  his  previous  character  had 
been  respectable,  not  manifesting  to  the  world  at  least,  any  base- 
ness which  would  make  him  an  infamous  associate.  For  though 
the  Savior,  in  selecting  the  chief  ministers  of  his  gospel,  did  not 
take  them  from  the  wealthy,  the  high-born,  the  refined,  or  the 
learned  ;  and  though  he  did  not  scruple  even  to  take  those  of  a  low 
and  degraded  occupation, — his  choice  would  nevertheless  entirely 
exclude  those  who  were  in  any  way  marked  by  previous  charac- 
ter, as  more  immoral  than  the  generality  of  the  people  among 
whom  they  lived.  In  short,  it  is  very  reasonable  to  suppose,  that 
Judas  Iscariot  was  a  respectable  man,  probably  with  a  character  as 
good  as  most  of  his  neighbors  had,  though  he  may  have  been  con- 
sidered by  some  of  his  acquEiintance,  as  a  close,  sharp  man  in 


446  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

money  matters  ;  for  this  is  a  character  most  unquestionably  fixed 
on  him  in  those  few  and  brief  allusions  which  are  made  to  him 
in  the  gospel  narratives.  Wh.itever  may  have  been  the  business 
to  which  he  had  been  devoted  during  his  previous  life,  he  had 
probably  acquired  a  good  reputation  for  honesty,  as  well  as  for 
careful  management  of  property ;  for  he  is  on  two  occasions  dis- 
tinctly specified  as  the  treasurer  and  steward  of  the  little  company 
or  family  of  Jesus ; — an  office  for  which  he  would  not  have  been 
selected,  unless  he  had  maintained  such  a  character  as  that  above 
imputed  to  him.  Even  after  his  admission  into  the  fraternity,  he 
still  betrayed  his  strong  acquisitiveness,  in  a  manner  that  will  be 
fully  exhibited  in  the  history  of  the  occurrence  in  which  it  was 
most  remarkably  developed. 

Iscariot. — The  present  form  of  this  word  appears  from  the  testimony  of  Beza,  to  be 
different  from  the  original  one,  which,  in  his  oldest  copy  of  the  New  Testament,  was 
given  without  the  /  in  the  beginning,  simply  Exaoiwr^s,  {Scarioles ;)  and  this  is  con- 
firmed by  the  very  ancient  Syriac  version,  which  expresses  it  by  |  /  D .  » .  *~^  CD 

(Sckaryuta.)  Origen  also,  the  oldest  of  the  Christian  commentators,  (A.  D.  230,) 
gives  the  word  without  the  initial  vowel,  "  Scariot."  It  is  most  reasonable,  therefore, 
to  conclude  that  the  name  was  originally  Scariot,  and  that  the  /was  prefixed,  for  the 
sake  of  the  easier  pronunciation  of  the  two  initial  consonants  ;  for  some  languages 
are  so  smoothly  constructed,  that  they  do  not  allow  even  S  to  precede  a  mute,  without 
a  vowel  before.  Just  as  the  Turks,  in  taking  up  the  names  of  Greek  towns,  change 
Scopia  into  Jscopia,  Smyrna  into  Jsmir,  &c.  The  French  too,  change  the  Latm 
Spiritus  into  Esprit,  as  do  the  Spaniards  into  Espirilu;  and  similar  instances  are 
numerous. 

The  very  learned  Matthew  Poole,  in  his  Synopsis  Criticorum,  (Matt.  x.  4,)  gives 
a  very  full  view  of  the  various  interpretations  of  this  name.  Six  distinct  etymologies 
and  significations  of  this  word  have  been  proposed,  most  of  which  appear  so  plausi- 
ble, that  it  may  seem  hard  to  decide  on  their  comparative  probabilities.  That  which 
is  best  justified  by  the  easy  transition  from  the  theme,  and  by  the  aptness  of  the  signi- 
nification  to  the  circumstances  of  the  persons,  is  ihe  first,  proposed  by  an  anonymous 
author  quoted  in  the  Parallels  of  Junius,  and  adopted  by  Poole.  This  is  the  deriva- 
tion from  the  Syriac  ,  ^d  u.*~^T\  (sekharyut,)  "  a  bag,"  or  "purse  ;"  root  cognate 
with  the  Hebrew  -od  {sakhar,)  No.  1,  Gibbs's  Hebrew  Lexicon,  and  ijo  (sagar,)  Syr. 
and  Arab.  id.  The  word  thus  derived  must  mean  the  "  bag-man,"  the  " p^irscr," 
which  is  a  most  happy  illustration  of  John's  account  of  the  olhce  of  Judas,  (xii.  6. 
xiii.  29.)  It  is,  in  short,  a  name  descriptive  of  his  peculiar  duty  in  receiving  the 
money  of  the  common  stock  of  Christ  and  his  apostles,  buying  the  necessary  pro- 
visions, administering  their  common  charities  to  the  poor,  and  managing  all  their 
pecuniary  affairs, — performing  all  the  duties  of  that  officer  who  in  English  is  called 
a  "  steward."    Judas  Iscariot,  or  rather  "  Scariot,"  means,  therefore,  "  Judas  the 

STEWARD." 

The  second  derivation  proposed  is  that  of  Junius,  (Parall.)  who  refers  it  to  a  sense 
descriptive  of  his  fate.  The  Syriac,  Hebrew,  and  Arabic  root,  -^x  {sakar,)  has  in  the 
first  of  these  languages,  the  secondary  signification  of  "  strangle,"  and  the  personal 
substantive  derived  from  it,  might  therefore  mean,  "  one  who  was  strangled."  Light- 
foot  says  that  if  this  theme  is  to  be  adopted,  he  should  prefer  to  trace  the  name  to  the 
word  N-i;irN  which  with  the  Rabbinical  writers  is  used  in  reference  to  the  same  prim- 
itive, in  the  meaning  of  "  strangulation."  But  both  these,  even  without  regarding  the 
great  aptness  of  the  first  definition  above  given,  may  be  condemned  on  their  own  de- 
merits ;  because,  they  suppose  either  that  this  name  was  applied  to  him  only  after  his 
death, — an  exceedingly  unnatural  view, — or  (what  is  vastly  more  absurd)  that  he 
was  thus  named  during  his  life-time,  by  a  prophetical  anticipation,  that  he  would  die 


JUDAS   ISCARIOT.  447 

by  the  halter ! ! !  It  is  not  very  uncommon,  to  be  sure,  for  such  charitable  prophetic 
inferences  to  be  drawn  respecting  the  character  and  destiny  of  the  graceless,  and  the 
point  of  some  vulgar  proverbs  consists  in  this  very  allusion  ;  but  the  utmost  stretch  of 
such  predictions  never  goes  to  the  degree  of  fixing  upon  the  hopeful  candidate  for  the 
gallows,  a  surname  drawn  from  this  comfortable  anticipation  of  his  destiny.  Be- 
sides, it  is  hard  to  believe  that  a  man  wearing  thus,  as  it  were,  a  halter  around  his 
neck,  would  have  been  called  by  Jesus  into  the  goodly  fellowship  of  the  apostles;  for 
though  neither  rank,  nor  wealth,  nor  education,  nor  refinement,  were  requisites  for 
admission,  yet  a  tolerably  good  moral  character  maybe  fairly  presumed  to  have  been 
an  indispensable  qualification. 

The  third  derivation  is  of  such  a  complicated  and  far-fetched  character,  that  it 
bears  its  condemnation  on  its  own  face.  It  is  that  of  the  learned  Tremellius,  who  at- 
tempts to  analyze  Iscariot  into  ■^:z'  {sckcr,)  "  wages,"  "  reward,"  and  na:  {nalah,) 
"turn  away,"  alluding  to  the  fact  that  for  money  he  revolted  from  his  Master.  This, 
besides  its  other  diificulties,  supposes  that  the  name  was  conferred  after  his  death; 
whereas  he  must  certainly  have  needed  during  his  life  some  appellative  to  distinguish 
him  from  Judas,  the  brother  of  James. 

Th.Q  fourth  is  that  of  Grotius  and  Erasmus,  who  derive  it  from  ■\J->r»-  a"iN  {Ish  Issa- 
char,)  "  a  man  of  Issachar," — supposing  the  name  to  designate  his  tribe,  just  as  the 
same  phrase  occurs  in  Judges  x.  1.  But  all  these  distinctions  of  origin  from  the  tea 
tribes  must  have  been  utterly  lost  in  the  time  of  Christ ;  nor  does  any  instance  occur 
of  a  Jew  of  the  apostolic  age  being  named  from  his  supposed  tribe. 

The.  fifth  is  the  one  suggested  and  adopted  by  Lightfoot.  In  the  Talmudic  Hebrew, 
the  "word  N''i3-iip^  (sckurti,) — also  written  with  an  initial  n  {aleph,)  and  pronounced 
Iscurti, — has  the  meaning  of  '■'■  leather  apron;"  and  this  great  Hebraician  proposes, 
therefore,  to  translate  the  name,  "Judas  vith  the  leather  apron ;"  and  suggests  some 
aptness  in  such  a  personal  appendage,  because  in  such  aprons  they  had  pockets  or 
bags,  in  which  money,  &c.  might  be  carried.  The  whole  derivation,  however,  is 
forced  and  far-fetched, — doing  great  violence  to  the  present  fortn  of  the  word,  and  is 
altogether  unworthy  of  the  genius  of  its  inventor,  who  is  usually  very  acute  in  ety- 
mologies. 

The  sixth  is  that  of  Beza,  PJscator,  and  Hammond,  who  make  it  nmp-a'iN  {Ish- 
Qerinth  or  Kcrioth,)  "  a  man  of  Kerioth,'"  a  city  of  Judah.  (Josh.  xv.  25.)  Beza 
says  that  a  very  ancient  MS.  of  the  Greek  New  Testament,  in  his  possession,  (above 
referred  to,)  in  all  the  five  passages  in  John,  where  Judas  is  mentioned,  has  this  sur- 
name written  li-rn  Ki<ptto-,>v,  {apn  Cari-otou,)  "  Judas  of  Kerioth."  Lucas  Brugensis 
observes  that  this  form  of  expression  is  used  in  Ezra  ii.  "i2,  23,  where  the  "  men  of 
Anathotb,"  &c.  are  spoken  of;  but  there  is  no  parallelism  whatever  between  the  two 
cases ;  because  in  the  passage  quoted  it  is  a  mere  general  designation  of  the  inhabit- 
ants of  a  place, — nor  can  any  passage  be  shown  in  which  it  is  thus  appended  to  a 
man's  name,  by  way  of  surname.  The  peculiarit}''  of  Beza's  MS.  is  therefore  un- 
doubtedly an  unauthorized  perversion  by  some  ancient  copyist;  for  it  is  not  found  on 
any  other  ancient  authority. 

The  motives  which  led  such  a  man  to  join  himself  to  the  fol- 
lowers of  the  self-denying  Nazarene.  of  course  could  not  have  been 
of  a  very  high  order ;  yet  it  may  be  remembered  that  one  of  the 
chosen  disciples  of  Jesus  is  mentioned  in  the  solemnly  faithful 
narrative  of  the  evangelists,  as  inspired  by  a  self-denying  princi- 
ple of  action,  in  the  earlier  stages  of  their  history.  Wherever  an 
occasion  appeared  on  which  their  true  motives  and  feelings  could 
be  displayed,  they  all,  without  exception,  manifested  a  selfish  dis- 
position, and  seemed  inspired  chiefly  by  the  expectation  of  world- 
ly honors,  triumphs,  and  rewards  to  be  won  in  his  service ! 
Peter,  indeed,  is  not  very  distinctly  specified  as  betraying  any  re- 
markable regard  for  his  own  individual  interest,  and  on  several 
occasions  manifested,  certainly  by  starts,  much  of  a  true  self-sacrifi- 


448  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

ciiig  devotion  to  his  Master  :  yet  his  great  views  in  beginning  to 
tollow  Jesus  were  unquestionably  of  an  ambitious  order,  and  for  a 
long  time  his  noblest  conception  was  that  of  a  worldly  triumph,  in 
which  the  chosen  ones  were  to  have  a  share  proportioned  no  doubt 
to  their  exertions  for  its  attainment.  The  two  Boanerges  betrayed 
the  selfishness  of  tlicir  spirit,  in  scheming  for  a  lion's  share  in  the 
spoils  of  victory  ;  and  the  whole  body  of  the  disciples,  on  more 
tijan  one  occasion,  contended  among  themselves  about  the  first 
places  in  Christ's  kingdom.  Judas,  therefore,  was  not  greatly 
worse  at  the  beginning  than  his  fellow-disciples  ;  and  probably 
maintained  on  the  whole  a  respectable  stand  among  them,  unless 
occasion  may  have  betrayed  to  them  the  fact,  that  he  was  mean 
in  money  matters.  But  he,  after  espousing  the  fortunes  of 
Jesus,  doubtless  went  on  scheming  for  his  own  advancement, 
much  as  the  rest  did  for  theirs,  except  that,  probably,  when  those 
of  more  liberal  conceptions  were  contriving  great  schemes  for 
the  attaimncnt  of  power,  honor,  fame,  titles,  and  glory,  both  mili- 
tary and  civil,  his  penny-saving  soul  Avas  reveling  in  golden 
dreams,  and  his  thoughts  running  delightfully  over  the  prospects 
of  vast  gain,  to  be  reaped  in  the  confiscation  of  the  property  of 
the  wealthy  Pharisees  and  lawyers,  that  would  ensue  immediate- 
ly on  the  establishment  of  the  empire  of  the  Nazarene  and  his 
Galileans,  Wiiile  the  great  James  and  his  amiable  brother  were 
contending  with  the  rest  of  the  fraternity  about  the  premier- 
ships,— the  highest  administration  of  spiritual  and  temporal  power, 
— the  discreetly  calculating  Iscariot  was  doubtless  expecting  the 
fair  results  of  a  regular  course  of  promotion,  from  the  office  of 
bag-carrier  to  the  itinerant  company  of  Galileans,  to  the  stately 
honors  and  immense  emoluments  of  lord  high-treasurer  of  the  new 
kingdom  of  Israel ; — his  advancement  naturally  taking  place  in  the 
line  in  which  he  had  made  his  first  l^eginning  in  the  service  of  his 
Lord,  he  might  well  expect  that  in  those  very  particulars  where  he 
lutd  shown  himself  faithful  in  few  things,  he  would  be  made  ruler 
over  many  things,  when  he  should  enter  into  the  joy  of  his  Lord, — 
sharing  the  honors  and  profits  of  His  exaltation,  as  he  had  borne 
his  part  in  the  toils  and  anxieties  of  his  humble  fortunes.  The 
carefid  management  of  his  little  stewardship,  "  bearing  the  bag, 
and  what  was  put  therein,"  and  '•  buying  those  things  that  were 
))ecessary"  for  all  the  wants  of  the  brotherhood  of  Jesus, — was  a 
service  of  no  small  importance  and  merit,  and  certainly  would 
deserve  a  consideration  at  the  hands  of  his  Master,     Such  a  trust 


JUDAS   ISCARIOT.  44d 

also,  certainly  implied  a  great  confidence  of  Jesus  in  his  honesty 
and  discretion  in  money  matters,  and  shows  not  only  the  blame- 
lessness  of  his  cliaracter  in  those  particulars,  but  the  peculiar  turn 
of  his  genius,  in  being  selected,  out  of  the  whole  twelve,  for  this 
very  responsible  and  somewhat  troublesome  function. 

Yet  the  eyes  of  the  Redeemer  were  by  no  means  closed  to  the 
baser  inclinations  of  this  much-trusted  disciple.  He  knew  (for 
what  did  he  not  know  ?)  how  short  was  the  step  from  the  steady 
adherence  to  the  practice  of  a  particular  virtue,  to  the  most  scan- 
dalous breach  of  honor  in  that  same  line  of  action, — how  slight, 
and  easy,  and  natural,  was  the  perversion  of  a  truly  mean  soul,  or 
even  one  of  respectable  and  honorable  purposes,  from  the  honest 
pursuit  of  gain,  to  the  absolute  disregard  of  every  circumstance 
but  personal  advantage,  and  safety  from  the  punishment  of  crime, 
— a  change  insensibly  resulting  from  the  total  absorption  of  the 
soul  in  one  solitary  object  and  aim ;  for  in  all  such  cases,  the  ho- 
nesty is  not  the  purpose  ;  it  is  only  an  incidental  principle,  occa- 
sionally called  in  to  regulate  the  modes  and  means  of  the  grand 
acquisition  ;— but  gam  is  the  great  end  and  essence  of  such  a  life, 
and  the  forgetfulness  of  every  other  motive,  when  occasion  sug- 
gests, is  neither  unnatural  nor  surprising.  With  all  this  and  vastly 
more  knowledge,  Jesus  was  well  able  to  discriminate  the  different 
states  of  mind  in  which  the  course  of  his  discipleship  found  this 
calculating  follower.  He  doubtless  traced  from  day  to  day,  and 
from  week  to  week,  and  from  month  to  month,  as  well  as  from 
year  to  year,  of  his  weary  pilgrimage,  the  changes  of  zeal,  reso- 
lution, and  hope,  into  distaste  and  despair,  as  the  day  of  anticipated 
reward  for  these  sacrifices  seemed  farther  and  farther  removed,  by 
the  progress  of  events.  The  knowledge,  too,  of  the  manner  in 
which  these  depraved  propensities  would  at  last  develope  them- 
selves, is  distinctly  expressed  in  the  remark  which  he  made  in 
reply  to  Peter's  declaration  of  the  fidelity  and  devotion  of  himself 
and  his  fellow  disciples,  just  after  the  miracle  of  feeding  the  five 
thousand  by  the  lake,  when  some  renounced  the  service  of  Christ, 
disgusted  with  the  revelations  which  he  there  made  to  them  of  the 
spiritual  nature  of  his  kingdom,  and  its  rewards,  and  of  the  diffi- 
cult and  disagreeable  requisites  for  his  discipleship.  Jesus  seeing 
the  sad  defection  of  the  worldly,  turned  to  the  twelve,  and  said — 
*'  Will  ye  also  go  away  ?"  Simon  Peter,  with  ever  ready  zeal,  re- 
plied— "  Lord  !  to  whom  shall  we  go  but  unto  thee  ?  For  thou 
only  hast  the  words  of  eternal  life."    Jesus  answered  them — "  Have 


460  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

I  not  chosen  you  twelve,  and  one  of  you  is  an  accuser  ?"  This 
reply,  as  John  in  recording  it  remarks,  alluded  to  Judas  Iscariot, 
the  son  of  Simon ;  for  he  it  was  that  was  to  betray  him,  though 
he  was  one  of  the  twelve.  He  well  knew  that  on  no  ear  would 
these  revelations  of  the  pure  spiritualism  of  his  kingdom,  and  of 
the  self-denying  character  of  his  service,  fall  more  disagreeably 
than  on  that  of  the  money-loving  steward  of  the  apostolic  family, 
whose  hopes  would  be  most  wofuUy  disappointed  by  the  uncom- 
fortable prospects  of  recompense,  and  whose  thoughts  would  be 
henceforth  contriving  the  means  of  extricating  himself  from  all 
share  in  this  hopeless  enterprise.  Still  he  did  not,  like  those  mal- 
contents who  were  not  numbered  among  the  twelve,  openly  re- 
nounce his  discipleship,  and  return  to  the  business  which  he  had 
left  for  the  deceptive  prospect  of  a  profitable  reward.  He  found 
himself  too  deeply  committed  to  do  this  with  advantage,  and  he 
therefore  discontentedly  continued  to  follow  his  great  summoner, 
until  an  opportunity  should  occur  of  leaving  this  undesirable  ser- 
vice, with  a  chance  of  some  immediate  profit  in  the  exchange. 
Nor  did  he  yet,  probably,  despair  entirely  of  some  more  hopeful 
scheme  of  revolution  than  was  now  held  up  to  view.  He  might 
occasionally  have  been  led  to  hope,  that  these  gloomy  announce- 
ments were  but  a  trial  of  the  constancy  of  the  chosen,  and  that 
all  things  would  yet  turn  out  as  their  high  expectations  had  plan- 
ned. In  the  occasional  remarks  of  Jesus,  there  was  also  much, 
which  an  unspiritual  and  sordid  hearer,  might  very  naturally  con- 
strue into  a  more  comfortable  accomplishment  of  his  views,  and  in 
which  such  a  one  would  think  he  found  the  distinct  expression 
of  the  real  purposes  of  Jesus  in  reference  to  the  reward  of  his  dis- 
ciples. Such  an  instance,  was  the  reply  made  to  Peter  when  he 
reminded  his  Master  of  the  great  pecuniary  sacrifices  which  they 
had  all  made  in  his  service :  '•  Lo  !  we  have  left  all,  and  followed 
thee."  The  assurances  contained  in  the  reply  of  Jesus,  that  among 
other  things,  those  who  had  left  houses  and  lands  for  his  sake, 
should  receive  a  hundred  fold  more  in  the  day  of  his  triumph, 
must  have  favorably  impressed  the  baser-minded  with  some  idea 
of  a  real,  solid  return  for  the  seemingly  unprofitable  investment 
which  they  had  made  in  his  scheme.  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  if 
the  faith  and  hope  of  Iscariot  in  the  word  of  Jesus  were  already 
too  far  gone  to  be  recalled  to  life  by  any  cheering  promises,  these 
sayings  may  have  only  served  to  increase  his  indifference,  or  to 
deepen  it  into  downright  hatred,  at  what  he  would  regard  as  a  new 


JUDAS   ISCARIOT.  461 

deceit,  designed  to  keep  up  the  sinking  spirits  of  those  who  had 

begun  to  apprehend  the  desperate  character  of  the  enterprise  in 

which  they  had  involved  themselves.     If  his  feehngs  had  then 

reached  this  point  of  desperation,  the   effect  of  this  renewal  of 

promises,  which  he  might  construe  into  a  support  of  his  original 

views  of  the  nature  of  the  rewards  accruing  to  the  followers  of 

Christ,  on  the  establishment  of  his  kingdom,  would  only  excite 

and  strengthen  a  deep-rooted  spite  against  his  once-adored  Lord, 

and  his  malice,  working  in  secret  over  the  disappointment,  would 

at  last  be  ready  to  rise  on  some  convenient  occasion  into  active 

revenge. 

AnacttLser. — This  is  the  true  primary  force  of  &iiBv\n';  {diabolo.s)  in  this  passage. 
(John  vi.  70.)  This  word  is  never  applied  to  any  individual  in  the  sense  of  "  devil," 
except  to  Satan  hiinseil';  bat  wherever  it  occurs  as  a  common  substantive  appellation, 
descriptive  of  character,  pointedly  refers  to  its  primary  signification  of  "  accuser," 
"  calumniator, "  "  informer,"  &c.,  the  root  of  it  being  SiaiJ/iWiK  which  means  "  to  ac- 
cuse," "  to  calumniate;"  and  when  applied  to  Satan,  it  still  preserves  this  sense, — 
though  it  then  has  the  force  of  a  proper  name ;  since  its',  (Salan,)  in  Hebrew,  means 
primarily  "  accuser,"  but  acquires  the  force  of  a  proper  irame,  in  its  ordinary  use. 
Grotius  however,  suggests  that  in  this  passage,  the  word  truly  corresponds  to  the 
Hebrew  is,  (tsar,)  the  word  which  is  applied  to  Haman,  (Esth.  vii.  6.  viii.  1,)  and 
has  here  the  general  force  of  "  accuser,"  "  enemy,"  &c.  The  context  here  (verse  71) 
shows  that  John  referred  to  this  sense,  and  that  Christ  applied  it  to  Judas  propheti- 
cally,— thus  showing  his  knowledge  of  the  fact,  that  this  apostle  would  "  accuse"  him, 
and  "  inform"  against  him,  before  the  Sanhedrim.  Not  only  Grotius,  but  Vatablus, 
Erasmus,  Lucas  Brugensis,  and  others,  maintain  this  rendering. 

This  occasion,  before  long,  presented  itself.  The  successful 
labors  of  Jesus,  in  Jerusalem,  had  raised  up  against  him  a  combi- 
nation of  foes  of  the  most  determined  and  dangerously  hostile 
character.  The  great  dignitaries  of  the  nation,  uniting  in  one 
body  all  the  legal,  literary,  and  religions  honors  and  influence  of 
the  Hebrew  name,  and  strengthened,  too,  by  the  weight  of  the  vast 
wealth  belonging  to  them  and  their  immediate  supporters,  as  well 
as  by  the  exaltation  of  high  office  and  ancient  family,  had  at  last 
resolved  to  use  all  this  immense  power,  (if  less  could  not  effect  it,) 
for  the  rain  of  the  bold,  eloquent  man,  who,  without  one  of  all 
the  privileges  which  were  the  sources  and  supports  of  their  power, 
had  shaken  their  ancient  dominion  to  its  foundation  by  his  simple 
words,  and  almost  overthrown  all  their  power  over  the  people, 
whose  eyes  were  now  beginning  to  be  opened  to  the  mystery  of 
'•  how  little  wisdom  it  took  to  govern  them  !"  Self-preservation 
seemed  to  require  an  instantaneous  and  energetic  action  against 
the  bold  Reformer ;  and  they  were  not  the  men  to  scruple  about 
the  means*  or  mode  of  satisfying  both  revenge  and  ambition  by  his 
destruction.     This  state  of  feeling  among  the  aristocracy  could 

not  have  been  unknown  to  Iscariot.     He  had  doubtless  watched 
59 


452  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

its  gradual  developments,  from  day  to  day,  during  the  displays  in 
the  temple ;  and  as  defeat  followed  defeat  in  the  strife  of  mind,  he 
had  abundant  opportunity  to  see  the  hostile  feeling  of  the  baffled 
and  mortified  Pharisees,  Sadducees,  scribes,  and  lawyers,  mountr 
ing  to  the  highest  pitch  of  indignation,  and  furnishing  him  with 
the  long-desired  occasion  of  making  up  for  his  own  disappoint- 
ment in  his  great  plans  for  the  recompense  of  his  sacrifices,  in  the 
cause  of  Jesus.  He  saw  that  there  was  no  chance  whatever  for 
the  triumphant  establishment  of  that  kingdom  in  whose  honors  he 
had  expected  to  share.  All  the  opportunities  and  means  for  effect- 
ing this  result,  Jesus  was  evidently  determined  to  throw  away,  nor 
could  any  thing  ever  move  him  to  such  an  effort  as  was  desirable 
for  the  gratification  of  the  ambition  of  his  disciples.  The  more 
splendid  and  tempting  the  occasions  for  founding  a  temporal  do- 
minion, the  more  resolutely  did  he  seem  to  disappoint  the  golden 
hopes  of  his  followers ;  and  proceeding  thus,  was  only  exposing 
himself  and  them  to  danger,  without  making  any  provision  for 
their  safety  or  escape.  And  where  was  to  be  the  reward  of  Isca- 
riot's  long  services  in  the  management  of  the  stewardship  of  the 
apostolic  fraternity?  Had  he  not  left  his  business,  to  follow 
them  about,  laboring  in  their  behalf,  managing  their  affairs,  pro- 
curing the  means  of  subsistence  for  them,  and  exercising  a  respon- 
sibility which  none  else  was  so  competent  to  assume  ?  And  what 
recompense  had  he  received  ?  None,  but  the  almost  hopeless  ruin 
of  his  fortunes  in  a  desperate  cause.  That  such  were  the  feelings 
and  reflexions  which  his  circumstances  would  naturally  suggest^ 
is  very  evident.  The  signs  of  the  alienation  of  his  affections  from 
Jesus,  are  also  seen  in  the  little  incident  recorded  by  all  the  evan- 
gelists, of  the  anointing  of  his  feet  by  Mary.  She,  in  deep  grati- 
tude to  the  adored  Lord  who  had  restored  to  life  her  beloved 
brother,  brought,  as  the  offering  of  her  fervent  love,  the  box  of 
precious  ointment  of  spikenard,  and  poured  it  over  his  feet,  anoint- 
ing them,  and  wiping  them  with  her  hair,  so  that  the  v/hole  house 
was  filled  with  the  fragrance.  This  beautiful  instance  of  an  ardent 
devotion,  that  would  sacrifice  every  thing  for  its  object,  awakened 
no  corresponding  feeling  in  the  narrow  soul  of  Iscariot;  but  seizing 
this  occasion  for  the  manifestation  of  his  inborn  meanness,  and  his 
growing  spite  against  his  Master,  he  indignantly  exclaimed,  (veil- 
ing his  true  motive,  however,  under  the  appearance  of  charitable 
regard  for  the  poor,) — "  To  what  purpose  is  this  waste  ?  Why 
was  not  this  ointment  sold  for  three  hundred  pence,  and  given  to 


JUDAS   ISCARIOT.  463 

the  poor  ?"  So  specious  was  this  honorable  pretense  for  blaming- 
what  seemed  the  inconsiderate  and  extravagant  devotion  of  Mary, 
that  others  of  the  disciples  joined  in  the  indignant  remonstrance, 
against  this  useless  squandering  of  property,  which  might  be  con- 
verted to  the  valuable  purpose  of  ministering  to  the  necessities  of 
the  poor,  many  of  whose  hearts  might  have  been  gladdened  by  a 
well-regulated  expenditure  of  the  price  of  this  costly  offering, 
which  was  now  irrecoverably  lost.  But  honorable  as  may  have 
been  the  motives  of  those  who  joined  with  Iscariot  in  this  protest, 
the  Apostle  John  most  distinctly  insists  that  he  was  moved  by  a 
far  baser  consideration.  "  This  he  said,  not  because  he  cared  for 
the  poor,  but  because  he  was  a  thief,  and  kept  the  coffer,  and  car- 
ried what  was  cast  into  it."  This  is  a  most  distinct  exposition  of 
a  piece  of  villainy  in  the  traitor,  that  would  have  remained  un- 
known, but  for  the  record  which  John  gives  of  this  transaction. 
It  is  here  declared  in  plain  terms,  that  Iscariot  had  grossly  be- 
trayed the  pecuniary  trust  which  had  been  committed  to  him  on 
the  score  of  his  previous  honesty,  and  had  been  guilty  of  down- 
right peculation, — converting  to  his  own  private  purposes,  the 
money  which  had  been  deposited  with  him  as  the  treasurer  and 
steward  of  the  whole  company  of  the  disciples.  He  had  probably 
made  up  his  mind  to  this  rascally  abuse  of  trust,  on  the  ground 
that  he  was  justified  in  thus  balancing  what  he  had  lost  by  his 
connexion  with  Jesus ;  and  supposed,  no  doubt,  that  the  ruin  of 
all  those  whom  he  was  thus  cheating,  would  be  effectually  secured 
before  the  act  could  be  found  out.  What  renders  this  crime  doubly 
abominable,  is,  that  it  was  robbing  the  poor  of  the  generous  con- 
tributions which,  by  the  kindness  of  Jesus,  had  been  appropriated 
to  their  use,  out  of  this  little  common  stock ;  for  it  seems  that  Is- 
cariot was  the  minister  of  the  common  charities  of  the  brother- 
liood,  as  well  as  the  provider  of  such  things  as  were  necessary  for 
their  subsistence,  and  the  steward  of  the  common  property.  With 
the  pollution  of  this  base  crime  upon  his  soul,  before  stirred  up 
to  spite  and  disgust  by  disappointed  ambition,  he  was  now  so  dead 
to  honor  and  decency,  that  he  was  abundantly  prepared  for  the 
commission  of  the  crowning  act  of  villainy.  The  words  in  which 
Jesus  rebuked  his  specious  concern  for  the  economical  administra- 
tion of  the  money  in  charity,  were  also  in  a  tone  that  he  might 
construe  into  a  new  ground  of  offense,  implying,  as  they  did,  that 
his  zeal  had  some  motive  far  removed  from  a  true  affection  for  that 
Master,  whose  life  was  in  hourly  peril,  and  might  at  any  moment  be 


454  LIVES  OF  THE    APOSTLES. 

SO  sacrificed  by  his  foes,  that  the  honorable  forms  of  preparation 
for  the  burial  might  be  denied ;  and  being  thus  already  devoted 
to  death,  he  might  well  accept  this  costly  offering  of  pure  devo- 
tion, as  the  mournful  unction  for  the  grave.  In  these  sadly  pro- 
phetic words,  Judas  may  have  found  the  immediate  suggestion 
of  his  act  of  sordid  treachery ;  and  incited,  moreover,  by  the  re- 
pulse which  his  remonstrance  had  received,  he  seems  to  have  gone 
directly  about  the  perpetration  of  the  crime. 

The  nature  and  immediate  object  of  this  plot  may  not  be  per- 
fectly comprehended,  without  considering  minutely  the  relations 
in  which  Jesus  stood  to  the  Jewish  Sanhedrim,  and  the  means  he 
had  of  resisting  or  evading  their  efforts  for  the  consummation  of 
their  schemes  and  hopes  against  him.  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was,  to 
the  chief  priests,  scribes,  and  Pharisees,  a  dangerous  foe.  He  had, 
during  his  visits  to  Jerusalem,  in  his  repeated  encounters  with 
them  in  the  courts  of  the  temple,  and  all  public  places  of  assembly, 
struck  at  the  very  foundation  of  all  their  authority  and  power  over 
the  people.  The  Jewish  hierarchy  was  supported  by  the  sway  of 
the  Romans,  indeed,  but  only  because  it  was  in  accordance  with 
their  universal  policy  of  tolerance,  to  preserve  the  previously 
established  order  of  things,  in  all  countries  which  they  conquered, 
so  long  as  such  a  preservation  was  desired  by  the  people,  but  no 
longer  than  it  was  perfectly  accordant  with  the  feelings  of  the  ma- 
jority. The  Sanhedrim  and  their  dependents  therefore  knew  per- 
fectly well  that  their  establishment  could  receive  no  support  from 
the  Roman  government,  after  they  had  lost  their  dominion  over 
the  affections  of  the  people ;  and  were  therefore  very  ready  to  per- 
ceive, that  if  they  were  to  be  thus  confounded  and  set  at  nought, 
in  spite  of  learning  and  dignity,  by  a  poor  Galilean,  and  even 
their  gravest  and  most  puzzling  attacks  upon  his  wisdom  and  pru- 
dence turned  into  an  absolute  jest  against  them, — it  was  quite  clear 
that  the  amused  and  delighted  multitude  would  soon  cease  to  re- 
gard the  authority  and  opinions  of  their  venerable  religious  and 
legal  rulers,  whose  subtleties  were  so  easily  foiled  by  one  of  the 
common,  uneducated  mass.  But  the  very  circumstances  which 
effected  and  constituted  the  evil,  were  also  the  grand  obstacles  to 
the  removal  of  it.  Jesus  was  by  these  means  seated  firmly  in  the 
love  and  reverence  of  the  people  ; — and  of  the  vast  number  of  stran- 
gers then  in  Jerusalem  at  the  feast,  there  were  very  many  who 
would  have  their  feelings  strongly  excited  in  his  favor,  by  the  cir- 
cumstance that  they,  as  well  as  he,  were  Galileans,  and  would 


JUDAS   ISCARIOT.  455 

therefore  be  very  apt  to  make  common  cause  with  him  in  case  of 
any  violent  attack.  All  these  obstacles  required  management ;  and 
after  having  been  very  many  times  foiled  in  their  attempt  to  seize 
him,  by  the  resolute  determination  of  the  thousands  by  whom  he 
was  always  encircled  to  defend  him,  they  found  that  they  must 
contrive  some  way  to  get  hold  of  him  when  he  was  withont  the 
defenses  of  this  admiring  host.  This  could  be  done,  of  course, 
only  by  following  him  to  his  secret  haunts,  and  coming  quietly 
upon  him  before  the  nmltitude  could  assemble  to  his  aid.  But  his 
movements  were  altogether  beyond  their  notice.  No  armed  band 
could  follow  him  about,  as  he  went  from  the  city  to  the  country, 
in  his  daily  and  nightly  walks.  They  needed  some  spy  who  could 
watch  his  private  movements  when  unattended,  save  by  the  little 
band  of  the  twelve,  and  give  notice  of  the  favorable  moment  for  a 
seizure,  when  the  time,  the  place,  and  the  circumstances,  would 
all  conspire  to  prevent  a  rescue.  Thus  taken,  he  might  be  safely 
lodged  in  some  of  the  impregnable  fortresses  of  the  temple  and 
city,  so  as  to  defy  the  momentary  burst  of  popular  rage,  on  find- 
ing that  their  idol  had  been  taken  away.  They  knew,  too,  the 
fickle  character  of  the  commonalty  well  enough  to  feel  certain, 
that  when  the  tide  of  condemnation  was  once  strongly  set  against 
the  Nazarene,  the  lip-worship  of  "Hosannas"  could  be  easily 
turned,  by  a  little  management,  into  the  ferocious  yell  of  deadly 
denunciation.  The  mass  of  the  people  are  always  essentially  the 
same  in  their  modes  of  action.  Mobs  were  then  managed  by  the 
same  rules  as  now,  and  demagogues  were  equally  well  versed  in 
the  tricks  of  their  trade.  Besides,  when  Jesus  had  once  been  for- 
mally indicted  and  presented  before  the  secular  tribunal  of  the 
Roman  governor,  as  a  rioter  and  seditious  person,  no  idea  of  a 
rescue  from  the  military  force  could  be  entertained  ;  and  however 
unwillinfr  Pilate  miofht  be  to  minister  to  the  wishes  of  the  Jews, 
in  an  act  of  unnecessary  cruelty,  he  could  not  resist  a  call  thus 
solenmly  made  to  him,  in  the  character  of  preserver  of  the  Roman 
sway,  though  he  would  probably  have  rejected  entirely  any  propo- 
sition to  seize  Jesus  by  a  military  force,  in  open  day,  in  the  midst 
of  the  multitude,  so  as  to  create  a  troublesome  and  bloody  tumult, 
by  such  an  imprudent  act.  In  a  full  consideration  of  all  these 
difiiculties,  the  Jewish  dignitaries  were  sitting  in  conclave,  con- 
triving means  to  effect  the  settlement  of  their  troubles,  by  the 
complete  removal  of  him  who  was  unquestionably  the  cause  of 
all.     At  once  their  anxious  deliberations  were  happily  interrupted 


456  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

by  the  entrance  of  the  trusted  steward  of  the  company  of  Jesus, 
who  changed  all  their  doubts  and  distant  hopes  into  absolute  cer- 
tainty, by  offering,  for  a  reasonable  consideration,  to  give  up  Jesus 
into  their  hands,  a  prisoner,  without  any  disturbance  or  riot.  How 
much  delay  and  debate  there  was  about  terms,  it  would  be  hard 
to  say  ;  but  after  all,  the  bargain  made,  does  not  seem  to  have  been 
greatly  to  the  credit  of  the  liberality  of  the  Sanhedrim,  or  the 
sharpness  of  Judas.  Thirty  of  the  largest  pieces  of  silver  then 
coined,  would  make  but  a  poor  price  for  such  an  extraordinary 
service,  even  making  all  allowance  for  a  scarcity  of  money  in 
those  times.  And  taking  into  account  the  wealth  and  rank  of 
those  concerned,  as  well  as  the  importance  of  the  object,  it  is  fair 
to  pronounce  them  a  very  mean  set  of  fellows.  But  Judas  espe- 
cially seems  to  forfeit  almost  all  right  to  the  character  given  him 
of  acnteness  in  money  matters;  and  it  is  only  by  supposing  him 
to  be  quite  carried  out  of  his  usual  prudence,  by  his  woful  aban- 
donment to  crime,  that  so  poor  a  bargain  can  be  made  consistent 
with  the  otherwise  reasonable  view  of  his  character. 

Thirty  pieces  of  silver.— The  value  of  these  pieces  is  seemingly  as  vaguely  ex- 
pressed ia  the  original  as  in  the  translation ;  but  a  reference  to  Hebrew  usages 
throws  some  light  on  the  question  of  definition.  The  common  Hebrew  coin  thus 
expressed  was  tlie  shekel, — equivalent  to  the  Greek  didrachmnn,  and  worth  about  six- 
teen cents.  In  Hebrew,  the  expression,  thirty  "shekels  of  silver,"  was  not  always 
written  out  in  full ;  but  the  name  of  the  coin  being  omitted,  the  expression  was  always 
equally  definite,  because  no  other  coin  was  ever  left  thus  to  be  implied.  Just  so  in 
English,  the  phrase,  "  a  million  of  money,"  is  perfectly  well  understood  here  to  mean 
"a  million  of  dollars;"  while  in  England,  the  current  coin  of  that  country  would 
make  the  expression  mean  so  many  pounds.  In  the  same  manner,  to  say,  in  this 
country,  that  any  thing  or  any  man  is  worih  "  thousands,"  always  conveys,  with  per- 
fect de'finileness,  the  idea  of  '"'dollars  ;"  and  in  every  other  country  the  same  expres- 
sion would  implv  a  particular  coin.  Thirty  pieces  of  silver,  each  of  which  was 
worth  sixteen  cents,  would  amount  only  to  four  dollars  and  eiehty  cents,  which  are 
just  one  pound  sterling.  A  small  price  for  the  great  Jewish  Sanhedrim  to  pay  for 
the  ruin  of  their  most  dangerous  foe  1  Yet  for  this  little  sum,  the  Savior  of  the  world 
was  bought  and  sold ! 

Having  thus  settled  this  business,  the  cheaply-purchased  traitor 
returned  to  the  unsuspecting  fellowship  of  the  apostles,  mingling 
with  them,  as  he  supposed,  without  the  slightest  suspicion  on  the 
part  of  any  one,  respecting  the  horrible  treachery  which  he  had 
contrived  for  the  bloody  ruin  of  his  Lord.  But  there  was  an  eye, 
whose  power  he  had  never  learned,  though  dwelling  beneath  its 
gaze  for  years, — an  eye,  which  saw  the  vainly  hidden  results  of 
his  treachery,  even  as  for  years  it  had  scanned  the  base  motives 
which  governed  him.  Yet  no  word  of  reproach  or  denunciation 
broke  forth  from  the  lips  of  the  betrayed  One ;  the  progress  of 
crime  was  suffered  unresistedly  to  bear  him  onward  to  the  mourn- 


JUDAS   ISCARIOT.  457 

folly  necessary  fulfilment  of  his  destiny.  Judas,  meanwhile,  from 
day  to  day,  waited  and  watched  for  the  most  desirable  opportunity 
of  meeting  his  engagements  with  his  priestly  employers.  The  first 
day  of  the  feast  of  unleavened  bread  having  arrived,  Jesus  sat 
down  at  evening  to  eat  the  paschal  lamb  with  his  twelve  disciples, 
alone.  The  whole  twelve  were  there  without  one  exception, — 
and  among  those  who  reclined  around  the  table,  sharing  in  the 
social  delights  of  the  entertainment  which  celebrated  tiie  beginning 
of  the  grand  national  festival,  was  the  dark-souled  accuser  also, 
like  Satan  among  the  sons  of  God.  Even  here,  amid  the  general 
joyous  hilarity,  his  great  scheme  of  villainy  formed  the  grand 
theme  of  his  meditations, — and  while  the  rest  were  entering  fully 
into  the  natural  enjoyments  of  the  occasion,  he  was  brooding  over 
tlie  best  means  of  executing  his  plans.  During  the  sapper,  after 
the  performance  of  the  impressive  ceremony  of  washing  their  feet, 
Jesus  made  a  sudden  transition  from  the  comments  with  which  he 
was  illustrating  it;  and,  in  a  tone  of  deep  and  sorrowful  emotion, 
suddenly  exclaimed — "  I  solemnly  assure  you,  that  one  of  you  will 
betray  me."  This  surprising  assertion,  so  emphatically  made,  ex- 
cited the  most  distressful  sensations  among  the  little  assembly ; — 
all  enjoyment  was  at  an  end  ;  and  grieved  by  the  imputation,  in 
which  all  seemed  included  until  the  individual  v.^as  pointed  out, 
they  each  earnestly  inquired — "  Lord,  is  it  I  ?"  As  the}'-  sat  thus 
looking  in  the  most  painful  doubt  around  their  lately  cheerful  cir- 
cle, the  disciple  who  held  the  place  of  honor  and  affection  at  the 
table,  at  the  request  of  Peter,  whose  position  gave  him  less  advan- 
tage for  familiar  and  private  conversation, — plainly  asked  of  Jesus 
— "Who  is  it.  Lord?"  Jesus  to  make  his  reply  as  deliberate  and 
impressive  as  possible,  said — "  It  is  he  to  whom  I  shall  give  a  sop 
when  I  have  dipped  it."  The  design  of  all  this  circumlocution  in 
pointing  out  the  criminal,  was,  to  mark  the  enormity  of  the  oiiense. 
"  He  that  eatolh  bread  with  me,  hath  lifted  up  his  heel  against  me." 
It  was  his  familiar  friend,  his  chosen  companion,  enjoying  with 
him  at  that  moment  the  most  intimate  social  pleasures  of  the  en- 
tertainment, and  occupying  one  of  the  places  nearest  to  him,  at 
the  board.  As  he  promised,  after  dipping  the  sop,  he  gave  it  to 
Judas  Iscariot,  who,  receiving  it,  was  moved  to  no  change  in  his 
dark  purpose  ;  but  with  a  new  Satanic  spirit,  resolved  immediately 
to  execute  his  plan,  in  spite  of  this  open  exposure,  which,  he  might 
think,  was  meant  to  shame  him  from  his  baseness.  .Tesus,  with 
an  eve  still  fixed  on  his  most  secret  inward  movements,  said  to 


458  LIVES  OF  THE   APOSTLES. 

him — "  What  thou  doest,  do  quickly."  Judas,  utterly  lost  to  re- 
pentance and  to  shame,  coolly  obeyed  the  direction,  as  if  it  had 
been  an  ordinary  command,  in  the  way  of  his  official  duty,  and 
went  out  at  the  words  of  Jesus.  All  this,  however,  was  perfectly 
without  meaning,  to  the  wondering  disciples,  who,  not  yet  reco- 
vered from  their  surprise  at  the  very  extraordinary  announcement 
which  they  had  just  heard  of  the  expected  treachery,  could  not 
suppose  that  this  quiet  movement  could  have  any  thing  to  do  with 
the  occurrence  which  preceded  it ;  but  concluded  that  Judas  was 
going  about  the  business  necessary  for  the  preparation  of  the  next 
day's  festal  entertainment, — or  that  he  was  following  the  directions 
of  Jesus  about  the  charity  to  be  administered  to  the  poor  out  of 
the  funds  in  his  keeping,  in  accordance  with  the  commendable 
Hebrew  usage  of  remembering  the  poor  on  great  occasions  of  en- 
joyment,— a  custom  to  which,  perhaps,  the  previous  words  of  Judas, 
when  he  rebuked  the  waste  of  the  ointment  by  Mary,  had  some 
especial  reference,  since  at  that  particular  time,  money  was  actu- 
ally needed  for  bestowment  of  alms  to  the  poor.  Judas,  after 
leaving  the  place  where  the  declaration  of  Jesus  had  made  him 
an  object  of  snch  suspicion  and  dislike,  went,  under  the  intluence 
of  that  evil  spirit,  to  whose  direction  he  was  now  abandoned,  di- 
rectly to  the  chief  priests,  (who  were  anxiously  waiting  the  fulfil- 
ment of  his  promise,)  and  made  known  to  them  that  the  time  was 
now  come.  The  band  of  watchmen  and  servants,  with  their 
swords  and  cudgels,  were  accordingly  mustered  and  put  under  the 
guidance  of  Judas,  who,  well  knowing  the  place  to  which  Jesus 
would  of  course  go  from  the  feast,  conducted  his  band  of  low  fol- 
lowers across  the  brook  Kedron,  to  the  garden  of  Gethsemane. 
On  the  way  he  arranged  with  them  the  sign  by  wliich  they  should 
recognize,  in  spite  of  the  darkness  and  confusion,  the  person  whose 
capture  was  the  grand  object  of  this  expedition.  "  The  man 
whom  I  shall  kiss  is  he:  seize  him."  Entering  the  garden,  at 
length,  he  led  them  straight  to  the  spot  v/hich  his  intimate  I'ami- 
liarity  with  Jesus  enabled  him  to  know,  as  his  favorite  retreat. 
Going  up  to  him  witii  the  air  of  friendly  confidence,  he  saluted 
him,  as  if  rejoiced  to  find  him,  even  after  this  brief  absence, — an- 
other instance  of  the  very  close  intimacy  which  had  existed  be- 
tween the  traitor  and  the  betrayed.  Jesus  submitted  to  this  hollow 
show,  without  any  attempt  to  repulse  the  movement  which  marked 
him  for  destruction,  only  saying,  in  mild  but  expressive  reproach 
— "  Judas  !  Betrayest  thou  the  Son  of  Man  with  a  kiss  ?"     With- 


JUDAS   ISCARIOT.  459 

out  more  delay  he  announced  himself  in  plain  terms  to  those  who 
came  to  seize  him ;  thus  showing  how  little  need  there  was  of  art- 
ful contrivance  in  taking  one  who  did  not  seek  to  escape.  "  If  ye 
seek  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  I  am  he."  The  simple  majesty  with  which 
these  words  were  uttered,  was  such  as  to  overawe  even  the  low 
officials ;  and  it  was  not  till  he  himself  had  again  distinctly  re- 
minded them  of  their  object,  that  they  could  execute  their  errand. 
So  vain  was  the  arrangement  of  signals,  which  had  been  studi- 
ously made  by  the  careful  traitor. 

No  further  mention  is  made  of  Iscariot  after  the  scene  of  his 
treachery,  until  the  next  morning,  when  .Tesus  had  been  condemned 
by  the  high  court  of  the  Sanhedrim,  and  dragged  away  to  undergo 
punishment  from  the  secular  power.  The  sun  of  another  day  had 
risen  on  his  crime ;  and  after  a  very  brief  interval,  he  now  had 
time  for  cool  meditation  on  the  nature  and  consequences  of  his 
act.  Spite  and  avarice  had  both  now  received  their  full  grati- 
fication. The  thirty  pieces  of  silver  were  his,  and  the  Master 
whose  instructions  he  had  hated  for  their  purity  and  spirituality, 
because  they  had  made  known  to  him  the  vileness  of  his  own 
character  and  motives,  was  now  in  the  hands  of  those  who  were 
impelled,  by  the  darkest  passions,  to  secure  his  destruction.  But 
after  all,  now  came  the  thought  and  inquiry — "  what  had  the  pure 
and  holy  Jesus  done,  to  deserve  this  reward  at  his  hands?"  He 
had  called  him  from  the  sordid  pursuits  of  a  common  life,  to  the 
hiffh  task  of  aiding-  in  the  regeneration  of  Israel.  He  had  taught 
him,  labored  with  him,  prayed  for  him,  trusted  him  as  a  near  and 
worthy  friend,  making  him  the  steward  of  all  the  earthly  posses- 
sions of  his  apostolic  family,  and  the  organ  of  his  ministrations  of 
charity  to  the  poor.  All  this  he  had  done  without  the  prospect  of 
a  reward,  surely.  And  why  ?  To  make  him  an  instrument,  not 
of  the  base  purposes  of  a  low  ambition ; — not  to  acquire  by  this 
means  the  sordid  and  bloody  honors  of  a  conqueror, — but  to  effect 
the  moral  and  spiritual  emancipation  of  a  people,  suifering  far  less 
under  the  evils  of  a  foreign  sway,  than  under  the  debasing  do- 
minion of  folly  and  sin.  And  was  this  an  occasion  to  arm  against 
him  the  darker  feelings  of  his  trusted  and  loved  companions  ? — to 
turn  the  instruments  of  his  mercy  into  weapons  of  death  ?  Ought 
the  mere  disappointment  of  a  worldly-minded  spirit,  that  was  ever 
clinging  to  the  love  of  material  things,  and  that  would  not  learn 
the  solenm  truth  of  the  spiritual  character  of  the  Messiah's  reign, 

now  to  cause  it  to  vent  its  regrets  at  its  own  errors,  in  a  traitorous 
60 


4()0  LIVES  OF  Tii:-:  apostles. 

attack  upon  the  life  of"  him  who  had  called  it  to  a  purpose  whose 
ji^lories  and  rewards  it  could  not  appreciate  ?  These  and  other 
mournful  thoughts  would  naturally  rise  to  the  repentant  traitor's 
mind,  in  the  awful  revulsion  of  feeling  which  that  morning  brought 
v.'ith  it.  But  repentance  is  not  atonement ;  nor  can  any  change 
of  feeling  in  the  mind  of  the  sinner,  after  the  perpetration  of  the 
sinful  act,  avail  any  thing  for  the  removal  or  expiation  of  the  evil 
consequences  of  it.  So  vain  and  unprofitable,  both  to  the  injurer 
and  the  injured,  are  the  tears  of  remorse  !  And  herein  lay  the  dif- 
ference between  the  repentance  of  Judas  and  of  Peter.  The  sin 
of  Peter  affected  no  one  but  himself,  and  was  criminal  only  as  the 
manifestation  of  a  base,  selfish  spirit  of  deceit,  that  fell  firom  truth 
through  a  vain-glorious  confidence, — and  the  effusion  of  his  gush- 
ing tears  might  prove  the  means  of  washing  away  the  pollution  of 
such  an  offense  from  his  soul.  But  the  sin  of  Judas  had  wrought 
a  work  of  crime  whose  evil  could  not  be  affected  by  any  tafdy 
change  of  feeling  in  him.  Peter's  repentance  came  too  late,  in- 
deed, to  exonerate  him  from  guilt ;  because  all  repentance  is  too 
late  for  such  a  purpose,  when  it  comes  after  the  commission  of  the 
sin.  The  repentance  of  an  evil  purpose,  coming  in  time  to  pre- 
vent the  execution  of  the  act,  is  indeed  available  for  good ;  but 
both  Peter  and  Judas  came  to  the  sense  of  the  heinousness  of  sin, 
only  after  its  commission.  Peter,  however,  had  no  evil  to  repair 
for  others, — while  Judas  saw  the  bloody  sequel  of  his  guilt,  coming 
with  most  irrevocable  certainty  upon  the  blameless  One  whom  he 
had  betrayed.  Overwhelmed  v/ith  vain  regrets,  he  took  the  now 
hateful,  though  once-desired  price  of  his  Adllainy,  and  seeking  the 
presence  of  his  purchasers,  held  out  to  them  the  money,  with  the 
useless  confession  of  the  2;uilt.  which  was  too  accordant  with  their 
schemes  and  hopes,  for  them  to  think  of  redeeming  him  from  its 
consequences.  The  words  of  his  confession  were — "  I  have  sin- 
ned, in  betraying  innocent  blood."  This  late  protestation  was  re- 
ceived by  the  proud  priests,  with  as  mucli  regard  as  might  have 
been  expected  from  exulting  tyranny,  when  in  the  enjoyment  of 
the  grand  object  of  its  efforts.  With  a  cold  sneer,  they  replied — 
"  What  is  that  to  us  ?  See  thou  to  that !"  Maddened  with  the 
immovable  and  remorseless  determination  of  the  haughty  con- 
demners  of  the  Just,  he  flung  down  the  price  of  his  infamy  and 
wo,  upon  the  floor  of  the  temple,  and  rushed  out  of  their  presence, 
to  seal  his  crimes  and  misery  by  the  act  that  put  him  for  ever  be- 
yond the  power  of  redemption.     Seeking  a  place  removed  from 


*'  JUDAS    ISCARIOT.  461 

the  observation  of  men,  he  hurried  out  of  the  city,  and  contriving 
the  fatal  means  of  death  for  himself,  before  the  bloody  doom  of 
him  whom  he  betrayed  had  been  fulfilled,  the  wretched  man  saved 
his  eyes  the  renewed  horrors  of  the  sight  of  the  crucifixion,  by 
closing  them  in  the  sleep  which  earthly  sights  cannot  disturb.  But 
even  in  the  mode  of  his  death,  new  circumstances  of  horror  oc- 
curred. Swinging  himself  into  the  air,  by  falling  from  a  highth, 
as  the  cord  tightened  around  his  neck,  checking  his  descent,  the 
weight  of  his  body  produced  the  rupture  of  his  abdomen,  and  his 
bowels  bursting  through,  made  him,  as  he  swung  stiffening  and 
convulsed  in  the  agonies  of  this  doubly  horrid  death,  a  disgusting 
and  appalling  spectacle, — a  monument  of  the  vengeance  of  God 
on  the  traitor,  and  a  shocking  witness  of  his  own  remorse  and 
self-condemnation. 

A  very  striking  difference  is  noticeable  between  the  account  given  by  Matthew  of 
the  death  o  Judas,  and  that  given  by  Luke  in  the  speech  of  Peter,  Acts  i.  18,  19. 
The  various  modes  of  reconciling  these  difficulties  are  found  in  the  ordinary  com- 
mentaries. In  respect  to  a  single  expression  in  Acts  i.  18,  there  is  an  ingenious  con- 
jecture offered  by  Granville  Penn,  in  a  very  interesting  and  learned  article  in  the 
first  volume  of  the  transactions  of  the  Royal  Society  of  Literature,  which  may  very 
properly  be  mentioned  here,  on  account  of  its  originality  and  plausibility,  and  because 
it  is  found  only  in  an  expensive  work,  hardly  ever  seen  in  this  country.  Mr.  Penn's 
view  is,  that  "  the  word  e\aKri<re,  {elakesc,)  in  Acts  i.  18,  is  only  an  inflexion  of  the 
Latin  verb,  laqueo,  (to  halter  or  strangle,)  rendered  insititious  in  the  Hellenistic 
Greek,  under  the  form  'Kaxii^"  He  enters  into  a  very  elaborate  argument,  which 
cannot  be  given  here,  but  an  extract  may  be  transcribed,  in  order  to  enable  the  learn- 
ed to  apprehend  the  nature  and  force  of  his  views.  (Trans.  R.  S.  Lit.  Vol.  I.  Part  2, 
pp.  51,  52.) 

"  Those  who  have  been  in  the  southern  countries  of  Europe  know,  that  the  opera- 
tion in  question,  as  exercised  on  a  criminal,  is  performed  with  a  great  length  of  cord, 
with  which  the  criminal  is  precipitated  from  a  high  beam,  and  is  thus  violently  Za^we- 
ated,  or  snared  in  a  noose,  mid-way — medius  or  in  medio ;  ixtcoi,  and  medius,  referring 
to  place  as  well  as  to  person  ;  as,  fittrof  vixmv  earnKcv.  (John  i.  26.)  '  Considit  scopulo 
medius '  (Virg.  G.  iv.  436.)    ' medius  prorumpit  in  hostes.'    (Aen.  x.  379.) 

"  Erasmus  distinctly  perceived  this  sense  in  the  words  vprivrii  ycmncvoi,  although  he 
did  not  discern  it  in  the  word  c\aKri(X€,  which  confirms  it :  nprjuhi  Graecis  dicitur,  qui 
vultu  est,  in  terram  dejecta :  expressit  autem  gestum  et  haiiitum  LAaoEO  praepocati  ; 
alioquin,  ex  hoc  sane  loco  non  poterat  intelligi,  quod  Judas  suspendcrit  se.'  (in  loc.) 
And  so  Augustine  also  had  understood  those  words,  as  he  shows  in  his  Recit.  in  Act. 
Apostol.  1.  i.  col.  474 — '  et  collem  sibi  alligavit,  et  dejectus  in  faciem,'  &c.  Hence 
one  MS.,  cited  by  Sabatier,  for  Trpn^'is  ysuoftevos,  reads  amiKpijianivoi ;  and  Jerom,  in  his 
new  vulgate,  has  substituted  suspensus  for  the  inonus  faclus  of  the  old  Latin  versior., 
which  our  old  English  version  of  1542  accordingly  renders,  and  when  he  was  hanged. 

"  That  which  follows,  and  which  evidently  determined  the  vulgar  interpretation  of 

tKoLKTine — e.^cyviiQrj  irnvra  to.  cTr\ayyya  airov,  all  his  bowels  gUShed  OUt — States  a  natural  and 

probable  effect  produced  by  the  sudden  interruption  in  the  fall  and  violent  capture 
in  the  noose,  in  a  frame  of  great  corpulency  and  distension,  such  as  Christian  anti- 
quity has  recorded  that  of  the  traitor  to  have  been  ;  so  that  a  term  to  express  rupture 
would  have  been  altogether  unnecessary,  and  it  is  therefore  equally  unnecessary  to 
seek  for  it  in  the  verb  t\aKr]ae..  Had  the  historian  intended  to  express  disruption,  we 
may  justly  presume  that  he  would  have  said,  as  he  had  already  said  in  his  gospel,  v. 
6,  iuppnyvvTo,  or  xxiii.  45,  iaxi'^Qn  f'C'^os :  it  is  difficult  to  conceive,  that  he  would  here 
have  traveled  into  the  language  of  ancient  Greek  poetry  for  a  word  to  express  a  com- 
mon idea,  when  he  had  common  terms  at  hand  and  in  practice ;  but  he  used  the 
Roman  laqueo,  'Saxew,  to  mark  the  infamy  of  the  death. 


462  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

("  n(0>)(r9£ij  £7ri   Toaovrov  rfiv  oapKa,  tocns  ;//;  SvudaOai   Sie^BcT)'.      PapiaS,  ap.  Roulh  Reliq. 

Sacr.  torn.  I.  p.  9,  and  Oecumenius,  thus  rendered  by  Zegers,  Criiici  Sacri,  Act  i.  18, 
in  tantum  enim  corpore  injlalus  est  ut  progredi  non  posset.  The  tale  transmitted  by 
those  writers  of  the  first  and  tenth  centuries,  that  Judas  was  crushed  to  death  by  a 
chariot  proceeding  rapidly,  from  which  his  unwieldiness  rendered  him  unable  to  es- 
cape, merits  no  further  attention,  after  the  authenticated  descriptions  of  the  traitor's 
death,  which  we  have  here  investigated,  than  to  suggest  a  possibility  that  the  place 
where  the  suicide  was  committed  might  have  overhung  a  public  way,  and  that  the 
body  falling  by  its  weight  might  have  been  traversed,  after  death,  by  a  passing 
chariot; — from  whence  might  have  arisen  the  tales  transmitted  successively  by  those 
wriiers  ;  the  first  of  whom,  being  an  inhabitant  of  Asia  Minor,  and  therefore  far  re- 
moved from  the  theatre  of  Jerusalem,  and  being  also  (as  Eusebius  witnesses,  iii.  39) 
a  man  of  a  very  weak  mind — aipdopa  fiiKpds  tov  vovv — was  liable  to  be  deceived  by  false 
accounts.) 

"  The  words  of  St.  Peter,  in  the  Hellenistic  version  of  St.  Luke,  will  therefore  im- 
port, praeceps  in  ora  fusus,  laqueavit  {i.  e.  implicuit  se  laqueo)  medius ;  (z.  e.  in  medio, 
inter  trabem  et  terrani ;)  ct  effusa  sunt  ovinia  viscera  ejus — throwing  himsetf  headlong, 
he  caught  mid-xoay  in  the  noose,  and  all  his  bowels  gushed  out.  And  thus  the  two  re- 
porters of  the  suicide,  from  whose  respective  relations  charges  of  disagreement,  and 
even  of  contradiction,  have  been  drawn  in  consequence  of  mistaking  an  insititious 
Latin  word  for  a  genuine  Greek  ivord  of  corresponding  elements,  are  found,  by  tracing 
that  insititious  word  to  its  true  origin,  to  report  identically  the  same  fact ;  the  one  by 
a  single  term,  the  other  by  a  periphrasis." 

Such  was  the  end  of  the  twelfth  of  Jesus  Christ's  chosen  ones. 
To  such  an  end  was  the  familiar  friend,  the  trusted  steward,  the 
social  companion  of  the  Savior,  brought  by  the  impulse  of  some 
not  very  unnatural  feelings,  excited  by  occasion,  into  extraordi 
nary  action.  The  universal  and  intense  horror  which  the  relation 
of  his  crime  now  invariably  awakens,  is  by  no  means  favorable 
to  a  just  and  fair  appreciation  of  his  sin  and  its  motives,  nor  to 
such  an  honest  consideration  of  his  course  from  rectitude  to  guilt, 
as  is  most  desirable  for  the  application  of  the  whole  story  to  the 
moral  improvement  of  its  readers.  Originally  not  an  infamous 
man,  he  was  numbered  among  the  twelve  as  a  person  of  respecta- 
ble character,  and  long  held  among  his  fellow-disciples  a  respon- 
sible station,  which  is  itself  a  testimony  of  his  unblemished  repu- 
tation. He  was  sent  forth  with  them,  as  one  of  the  heralds  of 
salvation  to  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel.  He  shared  with 
them  the  counsels^  the  instructions,  and  the  prayers  of  Jesus.  If 
he  was  stupid  in  apprehending,  and  unspiritual  in  conceiving  the 
truths  of  the  gospel,  so  were  they.  If  he  was  an  unbeliever  in 
the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  so  were  they  ;  and  had  he  survived  till 
the  accomplishment  of  that  prophecy,  he  could  not  have  been 
slower  in  receiving  the  evidence  of  the  event,  than  they.  As  it 
was,  he  died  in  his  unbelief;  while  they  lived  to  feel  the  glorious 
removal  of  all  their  doubts,  the  purification  of  all  their  gross  con- 
ceptions, and  the  effusion  of  that  Spirit  of  Truth,  through  which, 
by  the  grace  of  God  alone,  they  afterwards  were  what  they  were. 
Without  a  merit  in  faith,  beyond   Judas,  they  maintained  their 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT.  463 

dim  and  doubtful  adherence  to  the  truth,  only  by  their  nearer  ap- 
proximation to  moral  perfection  ;  and  by  their  nobler  freedom 
from  the  pollution  of  sordid  and  spiteful  feeling.  Through  passion 
alone  he  fell,  a  victim,  not  to  a  want  of  faith  merely, — for  therein, 
the  rest  could  hardly  claim  a  superiority, — but  to  the  radical  defi- 
ciency of  true  love  for  Jesus,  of  that  "  charity  which  never  fail- 
eth,"  but  "  endureth  to  the  end."  It  was  their  simple,  devoted 
affection,  which,  through  all  their  ignorance,  their  grossness  of 
conception,  and  their  faithlessness  in  his  word,  made  them  still 
cling  to  his  name  and  his  grave,  till  the  full  revelations  of  his  re- 
surrection and  ascension  had  displaced  their  doubts  by  the  most 
glorious  certainties,  and  given  their  faith  an  eternal  assurance. 
The  great  cause  of  the  awful  ruin  of  Judas  Iscariot,  then,  was  the 
fact,  that  he  did  not  love  Jesus.  Herein  was  his  grand  distinc- 
tion from  all  the  rest  ;  for  though  their  regard  was  mingled  with 
so  much  that  was  base,  there  was  plainly,  in  all  of  them,  a  solid 
foundation  of  true,  deep  affection.  The  most  ambitious  and  skep- 
tical of  them,  gave  the  most  unquestionable  proofs  of  this.  Peter, 
John,  both  the  Jameses,  and  others,  are  instances  of  the  mode  in 
which  these  seemingly  opposite  feelings  were  combined.  But  Ju- 
das was  without  this  great  refining  and  elevating  principle,  which 
so  redeemed  the  most  sordid  feelings  of  his  fellows.  It  was  not 
merely  for  the  love  of  money  that  he  was  led  into  this  horrid 
crime.  The  love  of  four  dollars  and  eighty  cents  !  Who  can 
believe  that  this  was  the  sole  motive  ?  It  was  rather  that  his  sor- 
didness  and  selfishness,  and  his  ambition,  if  he  had  any,  lacked 
this  single,  purifying  emotion,  which  redeemed  their  characters. 
Thus,  for  the  lack  of  the  love  of  Jesus  alone,  Judas  fell  from  his 
high  estate  to  an  infamy  as  immortal  as  their  fame.  Wherever, 
through  all  ages,  the  high,  heroic  energy  of  Peter,  the  ready  faith 
of  Andrew,  the  martyr-fire  of  James  Boanerges,  the  soul-absorbing 
love  of  John,  the  willing  obedience  oi  Philip,  the  guileless  purity 
of  Nathanael,  the  recorded  truth  of  Matthew,  the  slow  but  deep 
devotion  of  Thomas,  the  blameless  righteousness  of  James  the 
Just,  the  appellative  zeal  of  Simon,  and  the  earnest,  warning  elo- 
quence of  Jude,  are  all  commemorated  in  honor  and  bright  re- 
nown,— the  murderous,  sordid  spite  of  Iscariot,  will  insure  him 
an  equally  lasting  proverbial  shame.     Truly,  "  the  sin  of  judas 

IS    WRITTEN   WITH    A   PEN    OF    IRON  ON  A  TABLET   OF    MARBLE." 


MATTHIAS. 


The  events  which  concern  this  person's  connexion  with  the 
apostoUc  company,  are  briefly  these.  Soon  after  the  ascension  of 
Jesus,  the  eleven  disciples  being  assembled  in  their  "  upper  room," 
with  a  large  company  of  believers,  making  in  all,  together,  a  meet- 
ing of  one  hundred  and  twenty,  Peter  arose  and  presented  to  their 
consideration,  the  propriety  and  importance  of  iilling,  in  the  apos- 
tolic college,  the  vacancy  caused  by  the  sad  defection  of  Judas  Is- 
cariot.  Beginning  with  what  seems  to  be  an  apt  allusion  to  the 
words  of  David  concerning  Ahithophel, — (a  quotation  very  natu- 
redly  suggested  by  the  striking  similarity  between  the  fate  of  that 
ancient  traitor,  and  that  of  the  base  Iscariot,)  he  referred  to  the  pe- 
culiarly horrid  circumstances  of  the  death  of  this  revolted  apostle, 
and  also  applied  to  these  occurrences  the  words  of  the  same  Psalm- 
ist concerning  those  upon  whom  he  invoked  the  wrath  of  God,  in 
words  which  might  with  remarkable  emphasis  be  made  descrip- 
tive of  the  ruin  of  Judas.  "  Let  his  habitation  be  desolate,"  and 
"  let  another  take  his  oflice."  Applying  this  last  quotation  more 
particularly  to  the  exigency  of  their  circumstances,  he  pronounced 
it  to  be  in  accordance  with  the  will  of  God  that  they  should  im- 
mediately proceed  to  select  a  person  to  "  take  the  office"  of  Judas. 
He  declared  it  an  essential  requisite  for  this  office,  moreover,  that 
the  person  should  be  one  of  those  who,  though  not  numbered  with 
the  select  twelve,  had  been  among  the  intimate  companions  of 
Jesus,  and  had  enjoyed  the  honors  and  privileges  of  a  familiar  dis- 
cipleship,  so  that  they  could  always  testify  of  his  great  miracles 
and  divine  instructions,  from  their  own  personal  knowledge  as  eye- 
witnesses of  his  actions,  from  the  beginning  of  his  divine  career 
at  his  baptism  by  John,  to  the  time  of  his  ascension. 

Agreeably  to  this  counsel  of  the  apostolic  chief,  the  whole  com- 
pany of  the  disciples  selected  two  persons  from  those  who  had 
been  witnesses  of  the  great  actions  of  Christ,  and  nominated  them 
to  the  apostles,  as  equally  well  qualified  for  the  vacant  office.  To 
decide  the  question  with  perfect  impartiality,  it  was  resolved,  in 


MATTHIAS.  465 

conformity  with  the  common  ancient  practice  in  such  cases,  to 
leave  the  point  between  these  two  candidates  to  be  settled  by  lot; 
and  to  give  this  mode  of  decision  a  solemnity  proportioned  to  the 
importance  of  the  occasion,  they  first  invoked,  in  prayer,  the  aid 
of  God  in  the  appointment  of  a  person  best  qualified  for  his  ser- 
vice. They  then  drew  the  lots  of  the  two  candidates,  and  Mat- 
thias being  thus  selected,  was  thenceforth  enrolled  with  the  eleven 
apostles. 

Of  his  previous  history  nothing  whatever  is  known,  except  that, 
according  to  what  is  implied  in  the  address  of  Peter,  he  must  have 
been,  from  the  beginning  of  Christ's  career  to  his  ascension,  one 
qi  his  constant  attendents  and  hearers.  Some  have  conjectured 
that  he  was  one  of  the  seventy,  sent  forth  by  Jesus  as  apostles, 
in  the  same  manner  as  the  twelve  had  gone ;  and  there  is  nothing 
unreasonable  in  the  supposition  ;  but  still  it  is  a  conjecture  merely, 
without  any  fact  to  support  it.  The  New  Testament  is  perfectly 
silent  with  respect  to  both  his  previous  and  his  subsequent  life, 
and  not  a  fact  can  be  recorded  respecting  him.  Yet  the  produc- 
tive imaginations  of  the  martyrologists  of  the  Roman  and  Greek 
churches,  have  carried  him  through  a  protracted  series  of  adven- 
tures, during  his  alleged  preaching  of  the  gospel,  first  in  Judea, 
and  then  in  Ethiopia.  They  also  pretend  that  he  was  martyred, 
though  as  to  the  precise  mode  there  is  some  difference  in  the 
stories, — some  relating  that  he  was  crucified,  and  others,  that  he 
was  first  stoned  and  then  despatched  by  a  blow  on  the  head  with 
an  axe.  But  all  these  are  condemned  by  the  discreet  writers  even 
of  the  Romish  church,  and  the  whole  life  of  Matthias  must  be  in- 
cluded among  those  many  mysteries  which  can  never  be  in  any 
way  brought  to  light  by  the  most  devoted  and  untiring  researches  of 
the  apostolic  historian ;  and  this  dim  and  unsatisfactory  trace  of 
his  life  may  well  conclude  the  first  grand  division  of  a  work,  in 
which  the  reader  will  expect  to  find  so  much  curious  detail  of 
matters  commonly  unknown,  but  which  no  research  nor  learning 
can  furnish,  for  the  prevention  of  his  disappointment. 


466  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

The  Galilean  apostles  form  a  perfectly  well  marked  and 
distinct  class  of  laborers  in  the  original  field  of  Christian  evan- 
gelization, and  are  characterized  by  several  peculiarities,  recogniza- 
ble in  none  but  them. 

I.  They  were  the  original  apostles  of  Jesus  Christ,  appointed 
directly  by  him,  selected  after  a  probationary  acquaintance  and  in- 
struction, from  the  common  mass  of  his  disciples,  for  the  especial 
honors  of  his  minute  and  careful  personal  instruction,  and  of  lead- 
ing in  the  work  of  proclaiming  and  extending  his  gospel. 

II.  They  were  all  the  countrymen  of  jesus  in  a  peculiar  sense, 
— citizens  of  the  same  province, — brought  up  under  a  common 
local  influence, — familiar  with  the  same  people,  and  the  same 
scenery, — characterized  by  the  quick,  fervid,  violent,  and  energetic 
spirit  of  the  Galileans,  and  sharing,  in  the  estimation  of  the  refined 
inhabitants  of  the  Jewish  capital,  the  opprobrium  which  was 
thrown  upon  the  northern  province,  as  a  mere  border  section,  re- 
moved from  the  great  centre  of  Hebrew  learning  and  religion,  and 
cut  off  from  the  purer  Jews,  on  one  side,  by  the  outcast  Samari- 
tans, while,  on  the  north  and  east,  their  proximity  to  the  heathen 
of  Syria  and  Arabia,  brought  them  into  such  close  and  frequent 
intercourse  with  foreigners,  as  to  justify  suspicions  of  some  taint 
in  their  orthodoxy. 

The  region  to  which  by  modern  geographers  the  name  Palestine  is  given,  was  in  the 
time  of  the  apostles  commonly  divided  into  three  grand  sections, — Jcdea,  in  the  south, 
Galilee,  in  the  north,  and  Samaria  in  the  middle,  between  the  other  two.  Galilee, 
the  northern  section,  was  bounded  on  the  south  by  Samaria  and  Peraea,  east  by  the 
great  northern  range  of  Hermon,  where  it  stretches  along  the  borders  of  Trachonitis, 
Iturea,  and  Auranitis; — for,  as  has  already  been  shown,  the  name  Galilee  was  ex- 
tended to  all  the  northern  section  of  Palestine,  both  east  and  west  of  Jordan  and  the 
lake.  Coele-Syria  lay  next  to  it  on  the  north,  and  the  shore  of  the  Mediterranean 
constituted  its  western  boundary.  The  subdivisions  of  this  territory  were  various. 
The  sea-coast  occupied  by  Sidon,  Tyre,  and  other  ancient  seats  of  commerce,  was 
from  time  immemorial  known  as  Phoenicia.  On  the  conquest  of  Canaan  by  the  Is- 
raelites. Galilee  was  apportioned  among  the  tribes  of  Asher,  Naphtali,  Zebulon,  Issa- 
char,  and  Manasseh.  Under  the  Romans,  the  name  Galilee  was  generally  restricted 
to  the  region  ivest  of  Jordan  and  the  lake,  though  the  Jews  continued  to  apply  the 
term  to  the  whole  section.  The  portion  beyond  the  lake  and  river  was  called  Basan, 
or  Batanea,  and  the  country  immediately  bordering  on  the  western  shore  of  the  lake, 
was  called  Gnulanibis,  from  Golan,  an  ancient  city  in  that  region. 

The  name  Gat.ilee  (Latin,  Galilaea, — Greek,  Va>i\ain, — Hebrew,  rh-h>)  is  derived 
from  the  Hebrew  word  'ribJ,  {galil,)  "  a  circuit,  a  border,  district,  or  country,"  and  is 
appropriate  to  this  region,  as  lying  oa  the  northern  border  or  frontier  of  Palestine, 
separating  southern  Palestine  from  the  Gentile  people  of  Syria,  who,  intermingling 
with  the  northern  Lsraelites,  as  well  as  the  Phoenicians,  always  formed  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  population  of  this  border  country.  The  name  "  Galilee  of  the  Gcjililes" 
or  "  the  nations"  has  a  special  reference  to  these  peculiarities  of  location  and  popu- 
lation, and  this  view  is  confirmed  by  the  testimonies  of  other  ancient  writers,  as 
Strabo  and  Jo.sephus,  who  characterize  it  as  filled  up  in  a  great  measure  by  a  motley 
collection  of  the  various  nations  who  bordered  upon  Palestine.    From  the  earliest 


THE  GALILEAN  APOSTLES.  467 

periods,  its  position  gave  it  this  same  general  familiarity  of  a  mixed  population,  made 
up  from  various  nations.  (Thence,  perhaps,  the  term  "  king  of  nations,"  applied  to 
the  monarch  of  this  territory.  Gen.  xiv.  1 ;  Joshua  xii.  23.)  (See  Poole's  Synopsis 
on  Matt.  iv.  15.) 

III.  Their  field  of  labor  was  peculiar.  Palestine,  Arabia, 
Babylon,  and  tlie  far  east,  were  the  portions  of  the  world  to  which 
the  original  apostles  confined  their  labors.  There  they  all  (with 
but  one  exception)  preached,  wrote,  and  died.  Yet, — most  gloomy 
and  melancholy  thought  ! — all  those  noble  and  highly  favored 
scenes  of  original  Christian  evangelization,  a  thousand  years 
ago  lost  the  last  traces  of  apostolic  labor,  and  under  the  marring 
influence  of  war,  revolution,  and  ignorance,  sunk  into  a  state  even 
lower  than  that  in  which  the  first  gospel-light  found  them !  The 
Muhammedan  faith,  at  this  day,  is  the  most  spiritual  and  pure  re- 
ligion known  over  all  the  hallowed  scenes  of  original  apostolic 
labor,  and  those  who  are  there  known  by  the  name  of  Christian, 
bear  it  only  to  pollute  it  by  ignorance,  idolatry,  and  superstition, 
which  would  disgrace  a  heathen. 

Yet  mark  the  noble  moral  of  this  great  passage  in  the  history  of 
man !  Unproductive  in  their  ultimate  consequences,  as  the  mighty 
labors  of  those  lives  might  have  seemed  to  any  in  that  age,  in  a 
prospective  view  of  the  history  of  those  lands, — the  distant  and 
wide  results  of  that  original  evangelization  now  present  a  scene 
most  startlingly  grand  to  the  retrospective  glance.  The  light  of  the 
gospel  has  indeed  forsaken  the  lands  hallowed  by  its  first  dawn. 
Syria,  Palestine,  Arabia,  and  Persia,  all  slumber  in  a  night  that 
shows  no  glimmering  of  the  day  which  once  shone  so  brightly 
over  them  ;  but  the  sun  which  ages  ago  went  down  on  them,  rose 
on  the  lands  of  the  west,  whose  nations,  turning  their  eyes  ever  to 
the  east  as  the  source  of  religious  light,  caught  the  early  effulgence 
of  the  gospel  truth,  which,  though  at  times  overclouded,  has  since 
brightened  in  a  steady  career  of  glory,  "  like  the  path  of  the  just, 
shining  as  the  morning  light,  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect  day." 
And  if,  as  the  apostles  from  the  verge  of  the  grave  turned  their 
eyes  upon  the  scenes  of  their  devoted  labors,  the  voice  of  prophecy 
had  foretold  to  them  the  gloomy  night  of  ignorance,  idolatry,  and 
barbarism,  so  soon  to  fall  and  so  long  to  rest  on  that  holy  land, 
v/here  could  the  inspired  eye  of  faith  have  found  a  redeeming  con- 
solation ?  The  hope  that  cheered  them  in  all  the  doubt  and  trial 
and  anguish  of  their  laborious  lives,  might  for  a  moment  have 
seemed  groundless ;  but  the  consolations  of  their  Lord's  last  pro- 
mises would  still  have  upheld  the  doubting,  sinking  spirit,  even 


468  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

against  the  horrors  of  such  a  prospect.  Nor  would  that  faithful 
hope  have  been  deceptive.  Beyond  the  gloom  of  ages  and  of  na- 
tions, that  lost  light  was  cherished  and  diffused  ;  its  beams  warmed 
the  cold  hearts  of  the  northern  and  western  barbarians  into  a  glo- 
rious humanity  ; — they  illuminated  continents,  they  regenerated 
nations,  they  lightened  on  the  overthrow  of  heathen  empires,  they 
enkindled  and  sustained  a  civilization  that  more  outshone  the  most 
glorious  achievments  of  antiquity,  than  could  a  poet's  dream  the 
scenes  of  reality.  But  their  most  splendid  result  is  yet  to  come. 
Those  distant  lands  shall  restore  that  adopted  and  cherished  and 
extended  truth  to  its  original  seat.  That  light  shall  return  in  the 
cycle  of  ages  to  the  land  where  it  rose  thousands  of  years  ago,  to 
bless,  not  only  that  land,  nor  that  age  merely,  but  the  world  through 
all  time.  Even  now  that  recurring  day  sends  its  morning  twilight 
once  more  over  the  east.  From  a  land  which  the  apostles  never 
knew,  of  which  the  prophets  never  dreamed,  the  gospel  now  goes 
back  to  bless  the  holy  spot  of  its  birth,  with  a  new  day.  The  spirit 
of  the  apostles,  the  energy  of  the  martyrs,  and  the  fire  of  the  pro- 
phets, have  been  in  our  own  times  re-embodied  in  the  champions 
of  American  religious  enterprise ;  and  the  green  graves  of  New 
England's  missionary  sons,  while  they  form  her  most  noble  claim 
to  the  world's  remembrance,  and  re-hallow  the  land  of  the  holy, 
are  a  cheering  monumental  token  of  the  surety  of  God's  word,  and 
of  his  faithfulness  to  the  promise  of  his  Son,  most  gloriously  re- 
deeming the  pledge  of  constant  support  and  ultimate  triumph  made 
to  his  trusting  and  devoted  apostles. 


II.  THE  HELLENIST  APOSTLES. 


SAUL,    AFTERWARDS  NAMED    PAUL. 


HIS  COUNTRY. 


On  the  farthest  northeastern  part  of  the  Mediterranean  sea, 
where  its  waters  are  bounded  by  the  great  angle  made  by  the 
meeting  of  the  Syrian  coast  with  the  Asian,  there  is  a  pecuharity 
in  the  course  of  the  mountain  ranges,  which  deserves  notice  in  a 
view  of  the  countries  of  that  region,  modifying  as  it  does  all  their 
most  prominent  characteristics.  The  great  chain  of  Taurus, 
which  can  be  traced  far  eastward  in  the  branching  ranges  of 
Singara,  Masius,  and  Niphates,  running  connectedly  also  into  the 
distant  peaks  of  mighty  Ararat,  here  sends  off  a  spur  to  the  shore 
of  the  Mediterranean,  which,  under  the  name  of  Mount  Amanus, 
meets  its  waters,  just  at  their  great  northeastern  angle  in  the  an- 
cient gulf  of  Issus,  now  called  the  gulf  of  Scanderoon.  Besides 
this  connexion  with  the  mountain  chains  of  Mesopotamia  and  Ar- 
menia on  the  northeast,  from  the  south  the  great  Syrian  Lebanon, 
running  very  nearly  parallel  with  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean, at  the  Issic  angle,  joins  this  common  centre  of  convergence, 
so  insensibly  losing  its  individual  character  in  the  Asian  ridge,  that 
by  many  writers,  Mount  Amanus  itself  is  considered  only  a  regular 
continuation  of  Lebanon.  These,  however,  are  as  distinct  as  any 
of  the  chains  here  uniting,  and  the  true  Libanic  mountedns  cease 
just  at  this  grand  natural  division  of  Syria  from  the  northern  coast 
of  the  Mediterranean.  A  characteristic  of  the  Syrian  mountains 
is  nevertheless  prominent  in  the  northern  chain.  They  all  take 
a  general  course  parallel  with  the  coast,  and  very  near  it,  occa- 
sionally sending  out  lateral  ridges,  which  mark  the  projections  of 
the  shore  with  high  promontories.  Of  these,  however,  there  are 
much  fewer  on  the  southern  coast  of  Asia  Minor  ;  and  the  western 
ridge  of  Taurus,  after  parting  from  the  grand  angle  of  convergence, 
runs  exactly  parallel  to  the  margin  of  the  sea,  in  most  parts  about 


470  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

seven  miles  distant.  The  country  thus  fenced  off  by  Taurus, 
along  the  southern  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  is  very  distinctly  charac- 
terized by  these  circumstances  connected  with  its  orography,  and 
is  in  a  very  peculiar  manner  bounded  and  inclosed  from  the  rest 
of  the  continent,  by  these  natural  features.  The  great  mountain 
barrier  of  Taurus,  as  above  described,  stretches  along  tlie  north, 
forming  a  mighty  wall,  which  is  at  each  end  met  at  right  angles 
by  a  lateral  ridge,  of  which  the  eastern  is  Amanus,  descending 
within  a  few  rods  of  the  water,  while  the  western  is  the  true 
termination  of  Taurus  in  that  direction, — the  mountains  here 
making  a  grand  curve  from  west  to  south,  and  stretching  out  into 
the  sea,  in  a  bold  promontory,  which  definitely  marks  the  farthest 
western  limit  of  the  long,  narrow  section,  thus  remarkably  inclosed. 
This  simple  natural  division,  in  the  apostolic  age,  contained  two 
principal  artificial  sub-divisions.  On  the  west  was  the  province 
of  Pamphylia,  occupying  about  one  fourth  of  the  coast ; — and  on 
the  east,  the  rest  of  the  territory  constituted  the  province  of  Cilicia, 
far-famed  as  the  land  of  the  birth  of  that  great  apostle  of  the  Gen- 
tiles, whose  life  is  the  theme  of  these  pages. 

Cilicia, — opening  on  the  west  into  Pamphylia, — is  elsewhere 
inclosed  in  mountain  barriers,  impenetrable  and  impassable,  except 
in  three  points,  which  are  the  only  places  in  which  it  is  accessible 
by  land,  though  widely  exposed,  on  the  sea,  by  its  long  open  coast. 
Of  these  adits,  the  most  important,  and  the  one  through  which  the 
vast  proportion  of  its  commercial  intercourse  with  the  world,  by 
land,  has  always  been  carried  on,  is  the  eastern,  which  is  just  at 
the  oft-mentioned  great  angle  of  the  Mediterranean,  where  the 
mountains  descend  almost  to  the  waters  of  the  gulf  of  Issus. 
Mount  Amanus,  coming  from  the  northeast,  and  stretching  along 
the  eastern  boundary  of  Cilicia,  an  impassable  barrier  here  ad- 
vances to  the  shore  ;  but  just  before  its  base  reaches  the  water,  it 
abruptly  terminates,  leaving  between  the  high  rocks  and  the  sea  a 
narrow  space,  which  is  capable  of  being  completely  commanded 
and  defended  from  the  mountains  which  thus  guard  it ;  and  form- 
ing the  only  land  passage  out  of  Cilicia  to  the  eastern  coast  of  the 
Mediterranean,  it  was  thence  anciently  called  "the  gates  of  Sy- 
ria." Through  these  "  gates"  has  always  passed  all  the  traveling 
"By  land  between  Asia  Minor  and  Palestine ;  and  it  is  therefore  an 
important  point  in  the  most  celebrated  route  in  apostolic  history. 
The  other  main  opening  in  the  mountain  walls  of  this  region,  is 
the  passage  through  the  Taurus,  made  by  the  course  of  the  Sarus, 


SAUL.  471 

the  largest  river  of  the  province,  which  breaks  through  the  northern 
ridge,  in  a  defile  that  is  called  "  the  gates  of  Cilicia." 

The  boundaries  of  Cilicia  are  then, — on  the  north,  mountainous 
Cappadocia,  perfectly  cut  off  by  the  impenetrable  chain  of  Taurus, 
except  the  narrow  pass  through  "  the  gates  of  Cilicia ;" — on  the 
east,  equally  well  guarded  by  Mount  Amanus,  Northern  Syria,  the 
only  land  passages  being  through  the  famed  "Syrian  gates,''  and 
another  defile  north  of  the  coast,  toward  the  Euphrates  ; — on  the 
south,  stretches  the  long  margin  of  the  sea,  which  in  the  western 
two  thirds  of  the  coast  takes  the  name  of  "  the  Cilician  strait,"  be- 
cause it  here  flows  between  the  main  land  and  the  great  island  of 
Cyprus,  which  lies  off  the  shore,  always  in  sight,  being  less  than 
thirty  miles  distant,  the  eastern  third  of  the  coast  being  bounded 
by  the  waters  of  the  gulf  of  Issus  ; — and  on  the  west  Cilicia  ends 
in  the  rough  highlands  of  Pamphylia.  The  territory  itself  is  dis- 
tinguished by  natural  features,  into  two  divisions, — "Rocky  Cilicia" 
and  "  Level  Cilicia,"— the  former  occupying  the  western  third,  and 
the  latter  the  eastern  part, — each  district  being  abundantly  well 
described  by  the  term  applied  to  it.  Within  the  latter  lay  the 
opening  scenes  of  the  apostle's  life. 

Thus  peculiarly  guarded,  and  shut  off  from  the  world,  it  might 
be  expected  that  this  remarkable  region  would  nourish,  on  the  nar- 
row plains  of  its  fertile  shores,  and  the  vast  rough  mountains  of 
its  gigantic  barriers,  a  race  strongly  marked  in  mental,  as  in  phy- 
sical characteristics.  In  all  parts  of  the  world,  the  philosophical 
observer  may  notice  a  relation  borne  by  man  to  the  soil  on  which 
he  lives,  and  to  the  air  which  he  breathes, — hardly  less  striking 
than  the  dependence  of  the  inferior  orders  of  created  things,  on 
the  material  objects  which  surround  them.  Man  is  an  animal, 
and  his  natural  history  displays  as  many  curious  correspondences 
between  his  varying  peculiarities  and  the  locality  which  he  in- 
habits, as  can  be  observed  between  the  physical  constitution  of 
inferior  creatures,  and  the  similar  circumstances  which  affect 
them.  The  inhabitants  of  a  wild,  broken  region,  which  rises  into 
mighty  inland  mountains,  or  sends  its  cliffs  and  valleys  into  a  vast 
sea,  are,  in  all  ages  and  climes,  characterized  by  a  peculiar  energy 
and  quickness  of  mind,  which  often  marks  them  in  history  as  the 
prominent  actors  in  events  of  the  highest  importance  to  mankind 
in  all  the  world.  Even  the  dwellers  of  the  cities  of  such  regions, 
share  in  that  peculiar  vivacity  of  their  countrymen,  which  is  espe- 
pecially  imbibed  in  the  air  of  the  mountains ;  and  carry  through 


472  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

all  the  world,  till  new  local  influences  have  again  subjected  them, 
the  oriffinal  characteristics  of  the  land  of  their  birth.  The  restless 
activity  and  dauntless  spirit  of  Saul,  present  a  striking  instance  of 
this  relation  of  scenery  to  character.  The  ever-rolling  waters  of 
the  tideless  sea  on  one  side  presenting  a  boundless  view,  and  on 
the  other  the  blue  mountains  rearing  a  mighty  barrier  to  the 
vision, — the  thousand  streams  thence  rolling  to  the  former, — the 
white  sands  of  the  long  plains,  gemmed  with  the  green  of  shaded 
fountains,  as  well  as  the  active  movements  of  a  busy  population, 
all  living  under  these  same  inspiring  influences, — would  each  have 
their  effect  on  the  soul  of  the  young  Cilician,  as  he  grew  up  in  the 
midst  of  these  modifying  circumstances. 

Along  these  shores,  from  the  earliest  period  of  Hellenic  coloni- 
zation, Grecian  enterprise  had  planted  its  busy  centres  of  civiliza- 
tion. On  each  favorable  site,  where  agriculture  or  commerce  could 
thrive,  cities  grew  up  in  the  midst  of  prosperous  colonies,  in  which 
wealth  and  power,  in  their  rapid  advance,  brought  in  the  lights  of 
science,  art,  literature,  and  all  the  refinements  and  elegances  which 
Grecian  colonization  made  the  invariable  accompaniments  of  its 
march, — adorning  its  solid  triumphs  with  the  graceful  polish  of  all 
that  could  exalt  the  enjoyment  of  prosperity.  Issus,  Mopsuestia, 
AiJ'^hialus,  Selinus,  and  others,  were  among  the  early  seats  of  Gre- 
cian refinement ;  and  the  more  modern  efforts  of  the  Syro-Macedo- 
nian  sway,  had  blessed  Cilicia  with  the  fruits  of  royal  munificence, 
in  such  cities  as  Cragic  Antioch,  Seleucia  the  Rocky,  and  Arsinoe  ; 
and  in  still  later  times,  the  ever-active  and  wide-spreading  benefi- 
cence of  Roman  dominion,  had  still  farther  multiplied  the  peaceful 
triumphs  and  trophies  of  civilization,  by  here  raising  or  renewing 
cities,  of  which  Baiae,  Germanicia,  and  Pompeiopolis,  are  only  a 
specimen.  But  of  all  these  monuments  of  ancient  or  later  refine- 
ment, there  was  none  of  higher  antiquity  or  fame  than  Tarsus,  the 
city  where  was  born  this  illustrious  apostle,  whose  life  was  so 
greatly  instrumental  in  the  triumphs  of  Christianity. 

Tarsus  stands  on  the  banks  of  the  classic  Cydnus, — a  narrow 
stream  running  a  brief  course  from  the  barrier  of  Taurus,  directly 
southward  to  the  sea,  which  it  enters  about  three  miles  south  of 
the  city,  just  at  the  extreme  northern  point  of  a  wide  indentation 
of  the  coast  of  Cilicia.  The  river's  mouth  forms  a  spacious  and 
convenient  harbor,  to  which  the  light  vessels  of  ancient  commerce 
all  easily  found  safe  and  ready  access,  though  most  of  the  floating 
piles  in  which  the  productions  of  the  world  are  now  transported, 


SAUL.  473 

might  find  such  a  harbor  altogether  inaccessible  to  their  heavier 
burden. 

Ammianus  Marcellinus,  the  elegant  historian  of  the  decline  of  the  Roman  empire, 
speaks  in  high  descriplive  terms,  both  of  the  province  and  the  city,  which  makes  it 
eminent  in  Christian  liistory.  In  narrating  important  events  here  performed  during 
the  times  whose  history  he  records,  he  alludes  to  the  character  of  the  region  in  a  pre- 
liminary description.  "  After  surmounting  the  peaks  of  Taurus,  which,  towards  the 
east,  rise  into  higher  elevation,  Ciiicia  spreads  out  before  the  observer,  in  far  stretch- 
ing areas, — a  land  rich  in  all  good  things.  To  its  right  (that  is,  the  west,  as  the  ob- 
server looks  south  from  the  summits  of  Taurus)  is  joined  Isauria,— in  equal  degree 
verdant  with  palms  and  many  fruits,  and  intersected  by  the  navigable  river  Calycad- 
nus.  This,  besides  many  towns,  has  two  cities, — Seleucia,  the  work  of  Seleucus 
Nicator  of  Syria,  and  Ciaudiopolis,  a  colony  founded  by  Claudius  Caesat'.  Isauria, 
however,  once  exceedingly  powerful,  has  formerly  been  desolated  for  a  destructive 
rebellion,  and  therefore  shows  but  very  few  traces  of  its  ancient  splendor.  But  Cilicia, 
which  rejoices  in  the  river  Cydnus,  is  ennobled  by  Tarsus,  a  splendid  city, — by  Ana- 
zarbus,  and  by  Mopsuestia,  the  dwelling-place  of  that  Mopsus  who  accompanied  the 
Argonauts.  These  two  provinces  (Isauria  or  "  Cilicia  the  Rocky,"  and  Cilicia  proper 
or  "level")  being  formerly  connected  with  hordes  of  plunderers  in  a  piratical  war, 
were  subjugated  by  the  proconsul  Servilius,  and  made  tributary.  And  these  regions, 
placed,  as  it  were,  on  a  long  tongue  of  land,  are  separated  from  the  eastern  world  by 
Mount  Amanus."    (Ammianus  Marcellinus,  Hist.  Lib.  XIV.  p.  19,  ed.  Vales.) 

The  native  land  of  Saul  was  classic  ground.  Within  the  limits 
of  Cilicia  were  laid  the  scenes  of  some  of  the  most  splendid  pas- 
sages in  early  Grecian  fable ;  and  here,  too,  were  acted  some  of 
the  grandest  events  in  authentic  history,  both  Greek  and  Roman. 
The  very  city  of  his  birth,  Tarsus,  is  said  to  have  been  founded  by 
Perseus,  the  son  of  Jupiter  and  Danae,  famed  for  his  exploit  at 
another  place  on  the  shore  of  this  part  of  the  Mediterranean.  More 
authentic  history,  however,  refers  its  earliest  foundation  to  Sardan- 
apalus,  king  of  Assyria,  who  built  Tarsus  and  Anchialus  in  Cilicia, 
nine  hundred  years  before  Christ.  Its  origin  is  by  others  ascribed 
to  Triptolemus,  with  an  Argive  colony,  who  is  represented  on 
some  medals  as  the  founder.  These  two  stories  may  be  made 
consistent  with  each  other,  on  the  supposition  that  the  sam.e  place 
was  successively  the  scene  of  the  civilizing  influence  of  each  of 
these  attributed  founders.  So,  too,  may  be  taken  the  legend  which 
Ammianus  MarcelHnus  records  and  approves, — that  it  was  founded 
by  Sandan,  a  wealthy  and  eminent  person  from  Ethiopia,  who  at 
some  early  period  not  specified,  is  said  to  have  built  Tarsus.  It 
was,  however,  at  the  earliest  period  that  is  definitely  mentioned, 
subject  to  the  Assyrian  empire ;  and  afterwards  fell  under  the 
dominion  of  each  of  the  sovranties  which  succeeded  it,  passing 
into  the  hands  of  the  Persian  and  of  Alexander,  as  each  in  turn 
assumed  the  lordship  of  the  eastern  world.  While  under  the 
Persian  sway,  it  is  commemorated  by  Xenophon  as  having  been 
honored  by  the  presence  of  the  younger  Cyrus,  when  on  his 


474  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

march  through  Asia  to  wrest  the  empire  from  his  brother,  On 
this  occasion  he  entered  this  region  through  the  northern  "gates 
of  CiHcia,"  and  passed  oufthrough  the  "gates  of  Syria,"  a  passage 
which  is,  in  connexion  with  this  event,  very  minutely  described 
by  the  elegant  historian  of  that  famous  expedition. 

Sardanapalus. — The  fact  of  the  foundation  both  of  Tarsus  and  Anchialus  by  this 
splendid  but  unfortunately  extravagant  monarch,  the  last  of  his  line,  is  commemora- 
ted by  Arrian,  who  refers  to  the  high  authority  of  an  inscription  which  records  the 
event. 

"  Anchialus  is  said  to  have  been  founded  by  the  king  of  Assyria,  Sardanapalus. 
The  fortifications,  in  their  magnitude  and  extent,  still,  in  Arrian's  time,  bore  the  cha- 
racter of  greatness,  which  the  Assyrians  appear  singularly  to  have  affected  in  works 
of  the  kind.  A  monument,  representing  Sardanapalus,  was  found  there,  warranted 
by  an  inscription  in  Assyrian  characters,  of  course  in  the  old  Assyrian  language, 
■which  the  Greeks,  whether  well  or  ill,  interpreted  thus:  '  Sardanapalus,  son  of  Aa- 
acyndaraxes,  in  one  day  founded  Anchialus  and  Tarsus.  Eat,  drink,  play  :  all  other 
human  \oys  are  not  worth  a  fillip.'  Supposing  this  version  nearly  exact,  (for  Arrian 
says  it  was  not  quite  so,)  whether  the  purpose  has  not  been  to  mvite  to  civil  order  a 
people  disposed  to  turbulence,  rather  than  to  recommend  immoderate  luxury,  may 
perhaps  reasonably  be  questioned.  What,  indeed,  could  be  the  object  of  a  king  of 
Assyria  in  founding  such  towns  in  a  country'  so  distant  from  his  capital,  and  so  divi- 
ded from  it  by  an  immense  extent  of  sandy  desert  and  lofty  mountains,  and,  still  more, 
how  the  inhabitants  could  be  at  once  in  circumstances  to  abandon  themselves  to  the 
intemperate  joys  which  their  prince  has  been  supposed  to  have  recommended,  is  not 
obvious ;  but  it  may  deserve  observation,  that,  in  that  line  of  coast,  the  southern  of 
Lesser  Asia,  ruins  of  cities,  evidently  of  an  age  after  Alexander,  yet  barely  named  in 
history,  at  this  day  astonish  the  adventurous  traveler  by  their  magnificence  and  ele- 
gance',"   (Mitford'5  Greece,  Vol.  IX.  pp.  311,  312.) 

Over  the  same  route  passed  the  conquering  armies  of  the  great 
Alexander.  At  Issus,  within  the  boundaries  of  Cilicia,  he  met,  in 
their  mightiest  array,  the  vast  hosts  of  Darius,  whom  here  van- 
quishiug,  he  thus  decided  the  destiny  of  the  world.  Before  this 
great  battle,  halting  to  repose  at  Tarsus,  he  almost  met  his  death, 
by  imprudently  bathing  in  the  classic  Cydnus,  whose  waters  were 
famed  for  their  extreme  coldness.  By  a  remarkable  coincidence, 
the  next  conqueror  of  the  world,  Julius  Caesar,  also  rested  at  Tar- 
sus for  some  days  before  his  great  triumphs  in  Asia  Minor.  Cilicia 
had  in  the  interval,  between  these  two  visits,  passed  from  the  Mace- 
donian to  the  Roman  dominion,  being  made  a  Roman  province  by 
Pornpey,  about  sixty  years  before  Christ,  at  the  time  when  all  the 
kingdoms  of  Asia  and  Syria  were  subjugated.  After  this  it  was 
visited  by  Cicero,  at  the  time  of  his  triumphs  over  the  cities  of 
eastern  Cilicia :  and  its  classic  stream  is  still  farther  celebrated,  in 
immortal  verse  and  prose,  as  the  scene  where  Marcus  Antony  met 
Cleopatra  for  the  first  time.  It  was  the  Cydnus,  down  which  she 
sailed  in  her  splendid  galle^'-,  to  meet  the  conqueror,  who  for  her 
afterwards  lost  the  empire  of  the  world.  During  all  the  civil  wars 
"whicli  desolated  the  Roman  empire  through  a  long  course  of  years 


SAUL.  475 

in  that  age,  Tarsus  steadily  adhered  to  the  house  of  Caesar,  first 
to  the  great  JuHus,  and  afterwards  to  Augustus.  So  remarkable 
was  its  attachment  and  devotion  to  the  cause  of  Julius,  that  when 
the  assassin  Cassius  marched  through  Asia  into  Syria  to  secure 
the  dominion  of  the  eastern  world,  he  laid  siege  to  Tarsus,  and 
having  taken  it,  laid  it  waste  with  the  most  destructive  vengeance 
for  its  adherence  to  the  fortunes  of  his  murdered  lord ;  and  such 
were  its  sufferings  under  these  and  subsequent  calamities  in  the 
same  cause,  that  when  Augustus  was  at  last  established  in  the  un- 
divided empire  of  the  world,  he  felt  himself  bound  in  honor  and 
gratitude,  to  bestow  on  the  faithful  citizens  of  Tarsus  the  most  re- 
markable favors.  The  city,  having  at  the  request  of  its  inhabi- 
tants received  the  new  name  of  Julioipolis,  as  a  testimony  of  their 
devotion  to  the  memory  of  their  murdered  patron,  was  lavishly 
honored  with  almost  every  privilege  vv^hich  the  imperial  Augustus 
could  bestow  on  these  most  faithful  adherents  of  his  family.  From 
the  terms  in  which  his  acts  of  generosity  to  them  are  recorded,  it 
has  been  inferred, — though  not  therein  positively  stated,^that  he 
conferred  on  it  the  rank  and  title  of  a  Roman  colony,  or  free  city, 
which  must  have  given  all  its  inhabitants  the  exalted  privileges  of 
Roman  citizens.  This  assertion  has  been  disputed,  however,  and 
forms  one  of  the  most  interesting  topics  in  the  life  of  the  great 
apostle,  involving  the  inquiry  as  to  the  mode  in  which  he  obtained 
that  inviolable  privilege,  which,  on  more  than  one  occasion, 
snatched  him  from  the  clutches  of  tyrannical  persecutors.  Whether 
he  held  this  privilege  in  common  with  all  the  citizens  of  Tarsus, 
or  inherited  it  as  a  peculiar  honor  of  his  own  family,  is  a  question 
yet  to  be  decided.  But  whatever  may  have  been  the  precise  ex- 
tent of  the  municipal  favors  enjoyed  by  Tarsus,  it  is  certain  that 
it  was  an  object  of  peculiar  favor  to  the  imperial  Caesars  during 
a  long  succession  of  years,  not  only  before  but  after  the  apostle's 
time,  being  crowned  with  repeated  acts  of  munificence  by  Augustus, 
Adrian,  Caracalla,  and  Heliogabalus ;  so  that  through  many  centu- 
ries it  was  the  most  favored  city  in  the  eastern  division  of  the 
Roman  empire. 

The  history  of  Cilicia  since  the  apostolic  age  is  brieflj'  thife:  It  remained  attached 
to  the  eastern  division  of  the  Roman  empire,  until  about  A.  D.  800,  Avhen  it  first  fell 
under  the  Miihanimedan  sway,  being  made  part  of  the  dominion  of  the  Califs  by 
Haroun  Al  Rashid.  In  the  thirteenth  century,  it  reverted  to  a  Christian  government, 
constituting  a  province  of  the  Armenian  kingdom  of  Leo.  About  A.  D.  1400,  it  fell 
under  the  sway  of  Bajazei  II. ^  Sultan  of  the  Ottoman  empire,  and  is  at  present  in- 
cluded in  that  empire, — most  of  it  in  a  single  Turkish  pashalic,  under  the  name  of 
Adana. 


476  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

Roman  citizens. — Witsius  very  fully  discusses  this  point,  and  his  whole  view  is 
therefore  here  translated  entire. 

"  It  is  remarkable,  that  though  he  was  of  Tarsus,  he  should  say  that  he  was  a  Ro- 
man citizen,  and  that,  too,  by  the  right  oi birth:  Acts  xxii.  28.  There  has  been  some 
discussion  whether  he  enjoyed  that  privilege  in  common  with  all  the  Tarsans,  or 
whether  it  was  peculiar  to  his  family.  Most  interpreters  firmly  hold  the  former 
opinion.  Beza  remarks — "that  he  calls  himself  a  Roman,  not  by  country,  but  by 
right  of  citizenship;  since  Tarsus  had  the  privileges  of  a  Roman  colony."  He  adds 
— "  Mark  Antony,  the  triumvir,  presented  the  Tarsans  with  the  rights  of  citizens  of 
Rome."  Others,  without  number,  bear  the  same  testimony.  Baronius  goes  still  far- 
ther,— contending  that  "  Tarsus  obtained  from  the  Romans,  the  municipal  right,"  that 
is,  the  privileges  of  free-born  citizens  of  Rome;  understanding  Paul's  expression  in 
Acts  xxi.  39,  to  mean  that  he  was  a  mvjdceps  of  Tarsus,  or  a  Tarsan  with  the  free- 
dom of  the  city  of  Rome.  Now  the  municipal  towns,  or  free  cities,  had  rights  supe- 
rior to  those  of  mere  colonies;  for  ihe  free-citizens  were  not  only  called  Roman  citi- 
zens as  the  colonists  were,  but  also,  as  Ulpian  records,  could  share  in  all  the  honors 
and  offices  of  Rome.  Moreover,  the  colonies  had  to  live  under  the  laws  of  the  Ro- 
mans, while  the  municipal  towns  were  allowed  to  act  according  to  their  own  ancient 
laws,  and  country  usages.  To  account  for  the  distinction  enjoyed  by  Tarsus,  in 
being  called  a  "  municipiwm,  of  Romans,"  the  citizens  are  said  to  have  merited  that 
honor,  for  having  in  the  civil  wars  attached  themselves  first  to  Julius  Caesar,  and  after- 
wards to  Octavius,  in  whose  cause  they  suffered  much.  For  so  attached  was  this 
city  to  the  side  of  Caesar,  that,  as  Dion  Cassius  records,  they  asked  to  have  their 
name  changed  from  Tarsus  to  Juliopolis,  in  memory  of  Julius,  and  in  token  of  good 
will  to  Augustus;  and  for  that  reason  they  were  presented  with  the  rights  of  a  colony 
or  a  municipium,  and  this  general  opinion  is  strengthened  by  the  high  testimony  of 
Pliny  and  Appian.  On  the  other  hand,  Heinsius  and  Grotius  strongly  urge  that 
these  things  have  been  too  hastily  asserted  by  the  learnefl ;  for  scarcely  a  passage  can 
be  found  in  the  ancient  writers,  where  Tarsus  is  called  a  colony,  or  even  a  munici- 
pium. "And  how  could  it  be  a  colony,"  asks  Heinsius,  "  when  writers  on  Roman 
law  acknowledge  but  two  in  Cilicia  1  Ulpian  {Lib.  I.  De  censibus)  says  of  the  Roman 
colonies  in  Asia  Minor — '  there  is  in  Bithynia  the  colony  of  Apamea, — in  Pontus, 
Sinope, — in  Cilicia  there  are  Selinus  and  Trajanopolis.'  But  why  does  he  pass  over 
Tarsus  or  Juliopolis,  if  that  had  place  among  them  V  Baronius  proves  it  to  have 
been  a  municipium,  only  from  the  Latin  version  of  Acts,  where  that  word  is  used; 
though  the  term  in  the  original  Greek  (TroXir^js)  means  nothing  more  than  the  com- 
mon word,  "  citizen,"  (as  it  is  rendered  in  the  English  version.)  Pliny  also  calls  Tar- 
sus not  a  colony,  nor  a  municipium,  but  a  "free  city," — libera  urbs.  (Book  V.  chap, 
xxvii.)  Appian,  in  the  first  book  of  the  civil  wars,  says  that  Antony  granted  to  the 
Tarsans  freedom,  but  says  nothing  of  the  rights  of  a  municipium,  or  colony.  Where- 
fore Grotius  thinks  that  the  only  point  established  is,  that  some  one  of  the  ancestors  of 
Paul,  in  the  civil  wars  between  Augustus  Caesar,  and  Brutus  and  Cassius,  and  per- 
haps those  between  this  Caesar  and  Antony,  received  the  grant  of  the  privileges  of  a 
Roman  citizen ;  whence  he  concludes  that  Paul  must  have  been  of  an  opulent  family. 
These  opinions  of  Grotius  have  received  the  approval  of  other  eminent  commenta- 
tors. These  notions,  however,  must  be  rejected  as  unsatisfactory;  because  though 
some  writers  have  but  slightly  alluded  to  Tarsus  as  a  free  city,  yet  Dio  Chrysostom 
(Tarsic.  poster.)  has  enlarged  upon  it  in  a  tone  of  high  declamation.  "  Yours,  men 
of  Tarsus,  was  the  fortune  to  be  first  in  this  nation, — not  only  because  you  dwell  in 
the  greatest  city  of  Cilicia,  and  one  which  was  a  metropolis  from  the  beginning, — but 
also  because  the  second  Caesar  was  remarkably  well-disposed  and  gracious  towards 
you.  For,  the  misfortunes  which  befell  the  city  in  his  cause,  deservedly  secured 
to  you  his  kind  regard,  and  led  him  to  make  his  benefits  to  you  as  conspicuous  as  the 
calamities  brought  upon  you  for  his  sake.  Therefore  did  Augustus  confer  on  you 
every  thing  that  a  man  could  on  friends  and  companions,  with  a  view  to  outdo  tho.se 
who  had  shown  him  so  great  good  will, — your  land,  laws,  honors,  the  right  of  the 
river  and  of  the  neighboring  sea."  On  which  words  Heinsius  observes,  in  comment, 
that  by  land  is  doubtless  meant  that  he  secured  to  them  their  own  territory,  free  and 
undisturbed.  By  lovis  are  meant  such  as  relate  to  the  liberty  usually  granted  to  free 
towns.  Honor  plainly  refers  to  the  right  of  citizenship,  as  the  most  exalted  he  could 
offer.  The  point  then  seems  to  be  established,  if  this  interpretation  holds  good,  and 
it  is  evidently  a  rational  one.  For  when  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  grant  high 
favors  to  a  city,  in  return  for  such  great  merits,  why,  when  it  was  in  his  power, 
should  Augustus  fail  to  grant  it  the  rights  of  Roman  citizenship,  which  certainJy 


SAUL.  477 

had  been  often  granted  to  other  cities  on  much  slighter  grounds  1  It  would  be  strange, 
indeed,  if  among  the  exalted  honors  which  Dio  proclaims,  that  should  not  have  been 
included.  This  appears  to  be  the  drill:,  not  only  of  Dio's  remarks,  but  also  of  Paul's, 
who  oiTers  no  other  proof  of  his  being  a  Roman  citizen,  than  that  he  was  a  Tarsan, 
and  says  nothing  of  it  as  a  special  immunity  of  his  own  family,  although  some  such 
explanation  would  otherwise  have  been  necessary  to  gain  credit  to  his  assertion. 
Whence  it  is  concluded  that  it  would  be  rash  to  pretend,  contrary  to  all  historical 
testimony,  any  peculiar  merits  of  the  ancestors  of  Paul,  towards  the  Romans,  which 
caused  so  great  an  honor  to  be  conferred  on  a  Jewish  family."  ("Witsius,  Vita  Pauli. 
i.  6,  pp.  4—7.) 

But  from  all  these  ample  and  grandiloquent  statements  of  Dio  Chrysostom,  it  by 
no  means  follows  that  Tarsus  had  the  privilege  of  Roman  citizenship ;  and  the  con- 
clusion of  the  learned  Wilsius  seems  highly  illogical.  The  very  fact,  that  while  Dio 
was  panegyrizing  Tarsus  in  these  high  terms,  and  recounting  all  the  favors  which 
imperial  beneficence  had  showered  upon  it,  he  yet  did  not  mention  among  these  mi- 
nutiae, the  privilege  of  citizenship,  is  quite  conclusive  against  this  view;  for  he 
would  not,  when  thus  seeking  lor  all  the  particulars  of  its  eminence,  have  omitted 
the  greatest  honor  and  advantage  which  could  be  conferred  on  any  city  by  a  Roman 
emperor,  nor  hav^e  left  it  vaguely  to  be  inferred.  Besides,  there  are  passages  in  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles  which  seem  to  be  opposed  to  the  view  that  Tarsus  was  thus  pri- 
vileged. In  Acts  xxi.  3'J,  Paul  is  represented  as  distinctly  stating  to  the  tribune,  that 
he  was  "  a  citizen  of  Tarsus ;"  yet  in  xxii.  24,  25,  it  is  said  that  the  tribune  was  about 
proceeding,  without  scruple,  to  punish  Paul  with  stripes,  and  was  very  much  sur- 
prised, indeed,  to  learn  that  he  was  a  Roman  citizen,  and  evidently  had  no  idea  that 
a  citizen  of  Tarsus  was,  as  a  matter  of  course,  endowed  with  Roman  citizenship; — 
a  fact,  however,  with  which  a  high  Roman  officer  must  have  been  acquainted,  for 
there  were  few  cities  thus  privileged,  and  Tarsus  was  a  very  eminent  city  in  a  pro- 
vince adjoining  Palestine,  and  not  far  from  the  capital  of  Judea.  And  the  subsequent 
passages  of  chap.  xxii.  represent  him  as  very  slow  indeed  to  believe  it,  even  after 
Paul's  distinct  assertion. 

Hemsen  is  very  clear  and  satisfactory  on  this  point,  and  presents  the  argument  in 
a  fair  light.  See  his  note  in  his  "  Apostel  Paulus"  on  pp.  1,  2.  He  refers  also  to  a 
•work  not  otherwise  known  here;— John  Ortwin  Westenberg's  "Dis.sert.  de  jurisp. 
Paul.  Apost."    Kuinoel  in  Act.  Apost.  xvi.  37,  discusses  the  question  of  citizenship. 

Nor  were  the  solid  honors  of  this  great  Asian  city,  limited  to 
the  mere  favors  of  imperial  patronage.  Founded,  or  early  enlarged 
by  the  colonial  enterprise  of  the  most  refined  people  of  ancient 
times,  Tarsus,  from  its  first  beginning,  shared  in  the  glories  of 
Helleno-Asiatic  civilization,  under  which  philosophy,  art,  taste, 
commerce,  and  warlike  power,  attained  in  these  colonies  a  highth 
before  unequaled,  while  Greece,  the  mother  country,  was  still  far 
back  in  the  march  of  improvement.  In  the  Asian  colonies  arose 
the  first  schools  of  philosophy,  and  there  is  hardly  a  city  on  the 
eastern  coast  of  the  Aegean,  but  is  consecrated  by  some  glorious 
association  with  the  name  of  some  Father  of  Grecian  science. 
Thales,  Anaxagoras,  Anaximander,  and  many  others  of  the  earliest 
philosophers,  all  flourished  in  these  Asian  colonies ;  and  on  the 
Mediterranean  coast,  within  Cilicia  itself,  were  the  home  and 
schools  of  Aratus  and  the  stoic  Chrysippus.  The  city  of  Tarsus 
is  commemorated  by  Strabo,  as  having  in  very  early  times  attained 
great  eminence  in  philosophy  and  in  all  sorts  of  learning,  so  that 
"  in  science  and  art  it  surpassed  the  fame  even  of  Athens  and  Al- 
exandria ;  and  the  citizens  of  Tarsus  themselves  were  distinguished 


478  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

for  individual  excellence  in  these  elevated  pursuits.  So  great  was 
the  zeal  of  the  men  of  that  place  for  philosophy,  and  for  the  rest 
of  the  circle  of  sciences,  that  they  excelled  both  Athens  and  Alex- 
andria, and  every  other  place  which  can  be  mentioned,  where 
there  are  schools  and  lectures  of  philosophers."  Not  borrowing 
the  philosophic  glory  of  their  city  merely  from  the  numbers  of 
strangers  who  resorted  thither  to  enjoy  the  advantages  of  instruc- 
tion there  afforded,  as  is  almost  universally  the  case  in  all  the 
great  seats  of  modern  learning ;  but  entering  themselves  Avith  zeal 
and  enjoyment  into  their  schools  of  science,  they  made  the  name 
of  Tarsus  famous  throughout  the  civihzed  world,  for  the  cultiva- 
tion of  knowledge  and  taste.  Even  to  this  day  the  stranger 
pauses  with  admiration  among  the  still  splendid  ruins  of  this  an- 
cient city,  and  finds  in  her  arches,  columns,  and  walls,  and  in  her 
chance-buried  medals,  the  solid  testimonies  of  her  early  glories  in 
art,  taste,  and  wealth.  Well,  then,  might  the  great  apostle  recur 
with  patriotic  pride  to  the  glories  of  the  city  where  he  was  born 
and  educated,  challenging  the  regard  of  his  military  hearers  for 
his  native  place,  by  the  sententious  allusion  to  it,  as  "  no  mean 

CITY." 

"  It  appears  on  the  testimony  of  Paul,  (Acts  xxi.  39,)  that  Tarsus  was  a  city  of  no 
little  note,  and  ii  is  described  by  other  writers  as  the  most  illustrious  city  of  all  Cilicia ; 
so  much  so  indeed,  that  the  Tarsans  traced  their  origin  to  lonians  and  Argives,  and 
a  rank  superior  even  to  these  ; — referring  their  antiquity  of  origin  not  merely  to  he- 
roes, but  even  to  demi-gods.  It  was  truly  exalted,  not  only  by  its  antiquity,  situation, 
population,  and  thriving  trade,  but  by  the  nobler  pursuits  of  science  and  literature, 
which  so  flourished  there,  that  according  to  Sirabo  it  was  worthy  to  be  ranked  with 
Athens  and  Alexandria ;  and  we  know  that  Rome  itself  owed  its  most  celebrated 
professors  to  Tarsus."    (Witsius.  §  1,  IT  iv.) 

The  testimony  of  Strabo  is  found  in  his  Geography,  book  XIV.  Cellarius  (Geog. 
Ant.)  is  very  full  on  the  geography  of  Cilicia,  and  may  be  advantageously  consulted. 
Conder's  Modern  Traveler  (Syria  and  Asia  Minor  2)  gives  a  very  full  account  of  its 
ancient  hi.story,  its  present  condition,  and  its  topography. 

The  present  appearance  of  this  ancient  city  must  be  a  matter  of  great  interest  to 
the  reader  of  apostolic  history ;  and  it  cannot  be  more  clearly  given  than  in  the 
simple  narrative  of  the  enterprising  Burckhardt,  who  wrote  his  journal  among  the 
places  which  he  describes.  (Life  of  Burckhardt,  prefixed  to  his  travels  in  Nubia,  pp. 
XV.  xvi.) 

"  The  road  from  our  anchoring  place  to  Tarsus  crosses  the  above-mentioned  plain 
in  an  easterly  direction:  we  passed  several  small  rivulets  which  empty  themselves 
into  the  sea,  and  which,  to  judge  from  the  size  of  their  beds,  swell  in  the  rainy  sea- 
son to  considerable  torrents.  We  had  rode  about  an  hour,  when  I  saw  at  half  an 
hour's  distance  to  the  north  of  our  route,  the  ruins  of  a  large  castle,  upon  a  hill  of  a 
regular  shape  in  the  plain ;  half  an  hour  further  towards  Tarsus,  at  an  equal  dis- 
tance from  our  road,  upon  a  second  tumulus,  were  ruins  resembling  the  former;  a 
third  insulated  hillock,  close  to  which  we  passed  midway  of  our  route,  was  over- 
grown with  grass,  without  any  ruins  or  traces  of  them.  I  did  not  see  in  the  whole 
plain  any  other  elevations  of  ground  but  the  three  just  mentioned.  Not  far  from  the 
first  ruins,  stands  in  the  plain  an  insulated  column.  Large  groups  of  trees  show  from 
afar  the  site  of  Tarsus.  We  passed  a  small  river  before  we  entered  the  town,  larger 
than  those  we  had  met  on  the  road.  The  western  outer  gate  of  the  town,  through 
which  we  entered,  is  of  ancient  structure  j  it  is  a  fine  arch,  the  interior  vault  of  which 


SAUL.  479 

is  in  perfect  preservation :  on  the  outside  are  some  remains  of  a  sculptured  frieze.  I 
did  not  see  any  inscriptions.  To  the  right  and  left  of  this  gateway  are  seen  the  an- 
cient ruined  walls  of  the  city,  which  extended  in  this  direction  farther  than  the  town 
at  present  does.  From  the  outer  gateway,  it  is  about  four  hundred  paces  to  the  mod- 
ern entrance  of  the  city;  the  intermediate  ground  is  filled  up  by  a  burying  ground  on 
one  side  of  the  road,  and  several  gardens,  with  some  miserable  huts,  on  tie  other. 
**:***»***  The  little  I  saw  of  Tarsus  did  not  allow  me  to  estimate 
its  extent ;  the  streets  through  which  I  passed  were  all  built  of  wood,  and  badly  ;  seme 
well-furnished  bazar.s,  and  a  large  and  handsome  mosque  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Khan, 
make  up  the  whole  register  of  curiosities  which  I  am  able  to  relate  of  1'arsus.  Upon 
several  maps  Tarsus  is  marked  as  a  sea  town  :  this  is  incorrect ;  the  sea  is  above 
three  miles  distant  from  it.  On  our  return  home,  we  started  in  a  S.  W.  direction,  and 
passed,  after  two  hours  and  a  half's  march,  Casal,  a  large  village,  half  a  mile  distant 
from  the  sea-shore,  called  the  Port  of  Tarsus,  because  vessels  freighted  for  Tarsus 
usually  come  to  anchor  in  iis  neighborhood.  From  thence  turning  towards  the  west, 
we  arrived  at  our  ship  at  the  end  of  two  hours.  The  merchants  of  Tarsus  trade 
principally  with  the  Syrian  coast  and  Cyprus:  imperial  ships  arrive  there  from  time 
lo  time,  to  load  grain.  The  land  trade  is  of  very  little  consequence,  as  the  caravans 
from  Smyrna  arrive  very  seldom.  There  is  no  land  communication  at  all  between 
Tarsus  and  Aleppo,  which  is  ten  journeys  (caravan  traveling)  distant  from  it.  The 
road  has  been  rendered  unsafe,  especially  in  later  times,  by  the  depredations  of  Kut- 
shuk  Ali,  a  savage  rebel,  who  has  established  himself  in  the  mountains  to  the  north 
of  Alexandretia.  Tarsus  is  governed  by  an  Aga,  who  I  have  reason  to  believe  is 
almost  independent." 

HIS  GRECIAN  LEARNING. 

In  this  splendid  seat  of  knowledge,  Saul  was  born  of  purely 
Jewish  parents.  "  A  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews,"  he  enjoyed  from 
his  earliest  infancy  that  minute  religious  instruction,  which  every 
Israelite  was  in  conscience  bound  to  give  his  children  ;  and  with 
a  minuteness  and  attention  so  much  the  more  careful,  as  a  resi- 
dence in  a  foreign  land,  far  away  from  the  consecrated  soil  of 
Palestine  and  the  Holy  city  of  his  faith,  might  increase  the  liabili- 
ties of  his  children  to  forget  or  neglect  a  religion  of  which  they 
saw  so  few  visible  tokens  around  them,  to  keep  alive  their  devo- 
tion. Yet,  though  thus  strictly  educated  in  the  religion  of  his 
fathers,  Saul  was  by  no  means  cut  off  by  this  circumstance  from 
the  enjoyment  of  many  of  the  advantages  in  profaner  knowledge, 
afforded  in  such  an  eminent  degree  by  Tarsus ;  but  nmst,  almost 
without  an  effort,  have  daily  imbibed  into  his  ready  and  ever  act- 
ive mind,  much  of  the  refining  influence  of  Grecian  philosophy. 
There  is  no  proof,  indeed,  that  he  ever  formally  entered  the  schools 
of  heathen  science ;  such  a  supposition  is,  perhaps,  inconsistent 
with  the  idea  of  his  principles  of  rigid  Judaism,  and  is  rendered 
rather  improbable  by  the  great  want  of  Grecian  elegance  and  ac- 
curacy in  his  writings ;  which  are  so  decidedly  characterized  by 
an  unrhetorical  style,  and  by  irregular  logic,  that  they  never  could 
have  been  the  production  of  a  scholar  in  the  most  eminent  philo- 
sophical institutions  of  Asia,  But  a  mere  birth  and  residence  in 
such  a  city,  and  the  incidental  but  constant  familiarity  with  those 


480  LIVES   OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

SO  absorbed  in  these  pursuits  as  very  many  of  his  fellow-citizens 
were,  would  have  the  unavoidable  effect  of  familiarizing  him  also 
with  the  great  subjects  of  conversation,  and  the  grand  objects  of 
pursuit,  so  as  ever  after  to  prove  an  advantage  to  him  in  his  inter- 
course with  the  refined  and  educated  among  the  Greeks  and  Ro- 
mans. The  knowledge  thus  acquired,  too,  is  ever  found  to  be  of 
the  most  readily  available  kind,  always  suggesting  itself  upon  occa- 
sions when  needed,  according  to  the  simple  principle  of  association, 
and  thus  more  easily  applied  to  ordinary  use  than  that  which  is 
more  regularly  attained,  and  is  arranged  in  the  mind  only  accord- 
ing to  formal  systems.  Thus  was  it,  with  most  evident  wisdom, 
ordained  by  God,  that  in  this  great  seat  of  heathen  learning,  that 
apostle  should  be  born,  who  was  to  be  the  first  messenger  of  grace 
to  the  Grecian  world,  and  whose  words  of  warning,  even  Rome 
should  one  day  hear  and  believe. 

HIS  FAMILY  AND  BIRTH. 

The  parents  of  Saul  were  Jews,  and  his  father,  at  least,  was  of 
the  tribe  of  Benjamin.  In  some  of  those  numerous  emigrations 
from  Judea  which  took  place  either  by  compulsion  or  by  the  volun- 
tary enterprise  of  the  people,  at  various  times,  after  the  Assyrian 
conquest,  the  ancestors  of  Saul  had  left  their  father-land,  for  the 
fertile  plains  of  Cilicia,  where,  under  the  patronizing  government 
of  some  of  the  Syro-Macedonian  kings,  they  found  a  much  more 
profitable  home  than  in  the  comparatively  uncommercial  land  of 
Israel.  On  some  one  of  these  occasions,  probably  during  the  emi- 
gration under  Antiochus  the  Great,  the  ancestors  of  Saul  had  set- 
tled in  Tarsus,  and  during  the  period  intervening  between  this 
emigration  and  the  birth  of  Saul,  the  family  seems  to  have  main- 
tained or  acquired  a  very  respectable  rank,  and  some  property. 
From  the  distinct  information  which  we  have  that  Saul  was  a 
ftee-horn  Roman  citizen,  it  is  manifest  that  his  parents  must  also 
have  possessed  that  right;  for  it  has  already  been  abundantly 
shown  that  it  was  not  common  to  the  citizens  of  Tarsus,  but  must 
have  been  a  peculiar  privilege  of  his  family.  After  the  subjuga- 
tion of  Cilicia,  (sixty-two  years  before  Christ,)  when  the  province 
passed  from  the  Syrian  to  the  Roman  sway,  the  family  were  in 
some  way  brought  under  the  favorable  notice  of  the  new  lords  of 
the  eastern  world,  and  were  honored  with  the  high  privilege  of 
Roman  citizenship,  an  honor  which  could  not  have  been  imparted 
to  any  one  low  either  in  birth  or  wealth.     The  precise  nature  of 


SAUL.  481 

the  service  performed  by  them,  that  produced  such  a  magnificent 
reward,  it  is  impossible  to  determine  ;  but  that  this  must  have 
been  the  reason,  it  is  very  natural  to  suppose.  But  whatever  may 
have  been  the  extent  of  the  favors  enjoyed  by  the  parents  of  Saul, 
from  the  kindness  of  their  heathen  rulers,  they  were  not  thereby 
led  to  neglect  the  institutions  of  their  fathers, — but  even  in  a 
strange  land,  observed  the  Mosaic  law  with  peculiar  strictness ; 
for  Saul  himself  plainly  asserts  that  his  father  was  a  Pharisee, 
and  therefore  he  must  have  been  bound  by  the  rigid  observances 
of  that  sect,  to  a  blameless  deportment,  as  far  as  the  Mosaic  law 
required. 

"  It  ought  not  to  seem  very  strange,  that  the  ancestors  of  Paul  should  have  settled 
in  Cilicia,  rather  than  in  the  land  of  Israel.  For  although  Cyrus  gave  the  whole 
people  of  God  an  opportunity  of  returning  to  their  own  country,  yet  many  from  each 
tribe  preferred  the  new  country,  in  which  they  had  been  born  and  bred,  to  the  old  one, 
of  which  they  had  lost  the  remembrance.  Hence  an  immense  multitude  of  Jews 
might  be  found  in  almost  all  the  dominions  of  the  Persians,  Greeks,  Romans,  and 
Parthiansj  as  alluded  to  in  Acts  ii.  9,  10.  But  there  were  also  other  occasions  and 
causes  for  the  dispersionof  the  Jews.  Ptolemy,  the  Macedonian  kingof  Egypt,  having 
taken  Jerusalem  from  the  Syro-Macedonians,  led  away  many  from  the  hill-country 
of  Judea,  from  Samaria,  and  Mount  Gerizim,  into  Egypt,  where  he  made  them  settle; 
and  after  he  had  given  them  at  Alexandria  the  rights  of  citizens  in  equal  privilege 
with  the  Macedonians,  not  a  few  of  the  rest,  of  their  own  accord,  moved  into  Egypt, 
allured  partly  by  the  richness  of  the  land,  and  partly  by  the  good  will  that  Ptolemy 
had  shown  towards  their  nation.  Afterwards,  Antiochus  the  Great,  the  Macedonian, 
king  of  Syria,  about  the  thirtieth  year  of  his  reign,  two  hundred  years  before  the 
Christian  era,  brought  out  two  thousand  Jewish  families  from  Babylonia,  whom  he 
sent  into  Phrygia  and  Lydia  with  the  most  ample  privileges,  that  they  might  hold  to 
their  duty  the  minds  of  the  Greeks,  who  were  tnen  inclining  to  revolt  from  his  sway. 
These  were  from  Asia  Minor,  spread  abroad  over  the  surrounding  countries,  be- 
tween the  Mediterranean  sea,  the  Euphrates,  and  Mount  Amanus,  on  the  frontiers  of 
Cilicia.  Besides,  others  afterwards,  to  escape  the  cruelties  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes, 
betook  themselves  to  foreign  lands,  where,  finding  themselves  well  settled,  they  and 
their  descendents  remained.  Moreover,  many,  as  Philo  testifies,  for  the  sake  of 
trade,  or  other  advantages,  of  their  own  accord,  left  the  land  of  Israel  for  foreign  coun- 
tries :  whence  almost  the  whole  world  was  filled  with  colonies  of  Jews,  as  we  see  in 
the  directions  of  some  of  the  general  epistles,  (James  i.  1;  1  Peter  i.  1.)  Thus  also 
Tarsus  had  its  share  of  Jewish  inhabitants,  among  whom  were  the  family  of  Paul." 
(Witsius.  Vit.  Paul.  i.  5.) 

An  instance  of  the  value  of  the  testimony  of  the  Fathers  on  points  where  know- 
ledge of  the  Scriptures  is  involved,  is  found  in  the  story  by  Jerome,  who  says  that 
*'  Paul  was  born  at  Gischali,  a  city  of  Judea,"  (in  Galilee,)  "  and  that  while  he  was 
a  child,  his  parents,  in  the  time  of  the  laying  waste  of  their  country  by  the  Romans, 
removed  to  Tarsus,  in  Cilicia."  And  yet  this  most  learned  of  the  Fathers,  the  trans- 
lator of  the  whole  Bible  into  Latin,  did  not  know,  it  seems,  that  Paul  himself  most 
distinctly  states  in  his  speech  to  the  riotous  Jews,  (Acts  xxii.  3,)  that  he  was  born  in 
Cilicia,"  as  the  common  translation  has  it; — in  Greek,  ycytwrijicvuq  h  Tapau  rij?  K<X(- 
Kiof, — words  which  so  far  from  allowing  any  such  assertion  as  Jerome  makes,  even 
imply  that  Paul,  with  most  especial  particularity,  would  specify  that  he  was"6e- 
goUen  in  Cilicia."  Jerome's  ridiculous  blunder,  Witsius,  after  exposing  its  incon- 
sistency with  Jewish  history,  indignantly  condemns  as  "  a  most  nasty  fable,"  (piiti- 
dissima  tabula,)  which  is  as  hard  a  name  as  has  been  applied  to  any  thing  in  this 
book. 

But  if  this  blunder  is  so  shameful  in  Jerome,  what  shall  be  said  of  the  learned 
Fabricius,  who  (Biblioth.  Gr.  IV.  p.  795)  copies  this  story  from  Jerome  as  authentic 
history,  without  a  note  of  comment,  and  without  being  aware  that  it  most  positively 
contradicts  the  direct  assertion  of  Paul  1   And  this  blunder,  too,  is  passed  over  by  all 


482  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  great  critical  commentators  of  Fabricius,  in  Harles's  enlarged  edition.  Keil, 
Kuinoel,  Harles,  Gurlilt,  and  others  equally  eminent,  who  revised  all  this,  are  in- 
volved in  the  discredit  of  the  blunder.    "  Non  omnes  omnia." 

Born  of  such  parents,  the  destined  apostle  at  his  birth  was  made 
the  subject  of  the  minute  Mosaic  rituals.  "  Circumcised  the  eighth 
day,"  he  then  received  the  name  of  Saul,  a  name  connected  with 
some  glorious  and  some  mournful  associations  in  the  ancient  Jew- 
ish history,  and  probably  suggested  to  the  parents  on  this  occasion, 
by  a  reference  to  its  signification,  for  Hebrew  names  were  often 
thus  applied,  expressing  some  circumstance  connected  with  the 
child ;  and  in  this  name  more  particularly,  some  such  meaning 
might  be  expected,  since,  historically,  it  must  have  been  a  word  of 
rather  evil  omen.  The  original  Hebrew  means  "  desired,"  "  asked 
for,"  and  hence  it  has  been  rather  fancifully,  but  not  unreasonably 
conjectured  that  he  was  an  oldest  son,  and  particularly  desired  by 
his  expecting  parents,  who  were,  like  the  whole  Jewish  race,  very 
earnest  to  have  a  son  to  perpetuate  their  name, — a  wish,  however, 
by  no  means  peculiar  to  the  Israelites. 

The  name  Saul  is  in  Hebrew  'jiNtr,  the  regular  noun  from  the  passive  Kal  partici- 
ple of  '7N!f  {sha-al  and  ska-el)  "  ask  for,"  "  beg,"  "  request ;"  and  the  name  therefore 
means  "  asked  for,"  or  "  requested,"  which  affords  ground  for  Neander's  curious 
conjecture,  above  given. 

Of  the  time  of  his  birth  nothing  is  definitely  known,  though  it 
is  stated  by  some  ancient  authority,  of  very  doubtful  character,  that 
he  was  born  in  the  second  year  after  Christ.  All  that  can  be  said 
with  any  probability,  is,  that  he  was  born  several  years  after  Christ; 
for  at  the  time  of  the  stoning  of  Stephen,  (A.  D.  34,)  Saul  was  a 
''young  man." 

HIS  TRADE. 

There  was  an  ancient  Jewish  proverb, — often  quoted  with  great 
respect  in  the  Rabbinical  writings, — "  He  that  does  not  teach  his 
son  a  trade,  trains  him  to  steal."  In  conformity  with  this  respect- 
able adage,  every  Jewish  boy,  high  or  low,  was  invariably  taught 
some  mechanical  trade,  as  an  essential  part  of  his  education,  with- 
out any  regard  to  the  wealth  of  his  family,  or  to  his  prospect  of 
an  easy  life,  without  the  necessity  of  labor.  The  consequence  of 
this  was,  that  even  the  dignified  teachers  of  the  law  generally 
conjoined  the  practice  of  some  mechanical  business,  with  the  re- 
fined studies  to  which  they  devoted  the  most  of  their  time,  and 
the  surnames  of  some  of  the  most  eminent  of  the  Rabbins  are  de- 
rived from  the  trades  which  they  thus  followed  in  the  intervals  of 
study,  for  a  livelihood  or  for  mental  relaxation.     The  advantages 


SAUL.  483 

of  such  a  variation  from  intense  mental  labor  to  active  and  steady 
bodily  exercise,  are  too  obvious,  both  as  concerns  the  benefit  of  the 
body  and  the  mind,  to  need  any  elucidation ;  but  it  is  a  happy  co- 
incidence, worth  noticing,  that  the  better  principles  of  what  is  now 
called  "  Manual  Labor  Instruction,"  are  herein  fully  carried 
out,  and  sanctioned  by  the  authority  and  example  of  some  of  the 
most  illustrious  of  those  ancient  Hebrew  scholars,  whose  mighty 
labors  in  sacred  lore,  are  still  a  monument  of  the  wisdom  of  a  plan 
of  education,  which  combines  bodily  activity  and  exertion  with  the 
full  developments  of  the  powers  of  thonght.  The  labors  of  such 
men  still  remain  the  wonder  of  later  days,  and  form  in  themselves, 
subjects  for  the  excursive  and  penetrating  range  of  some  of  the 
greatest  minds  of  modern  times,  throwing  more  light  on  the  minute 
signification  and  local  application  of  scripture,  than  all  that  has 
been  done  in  any  other  field  of  illustrative  research. 

"  In  the  education  of  their  son,  the  parents  of  Saul  thought  it  their  duty,  according 
to  the  fashion  of  their  nation,  not  only  to  train  his  mind  in  the  higher  pursuits  of  a 
liberal  education,  but  also  to  accustom  his  hands  to  some  useful  trade.  As  we  learn 
from  Acts  xviii.  3,  '  he  was  by  trade  a  tent-maker,'  occupying  the  intervals  of  his 
study-hours  with  that  kind  of  work.  For  it  is  well  established  that  this  was  the  usual 
habit  of  the  most  eminent  Jewish  scholars,  who  adopted  it  as  much  for  the  sake  of 
avoiding  sloth  and  idleness,  as  with  a  view  to  provide  for  their  own  support.  The 
Jews  used  to  sum  up  the  duties  of  parents  in  a  sort  of  proverb,  that '  they  should  cir- 
cumcise their  son,  redeem  him,  (Leviticus,  chapter  xxvii.)  teach  him  the  law  and  a 
trade,  and  look  out  a  wife  for  him.'  And,  indeed,  the  importance  of  some  business 
of  this  kind  was  so  much  felt,  that  a  saying  is  recorded  of  one  of  the  most  eminent 
of  their  Rabbins,  that  '  he  who  neglects  to  teach  his  son  a  trade,  does  the  same  as  to 
bring  him  up  to  be  a  thief  Hence  it  is  that  the  wisest  Hebrews  held  it  an  honor  to 
take  their  surnames  from  iheir  trades  ;  as  '  Rabbins  Nahum  and  Meir,  the  scriveners 
or  book-writers,'  [a  business  corresponding  to  that  of  printers  in  these  times,]  '  Rabbi 
Johanan  the  shoemaker,  Rabbi  Juda  the  baker,  and  Rabbi  Jose  the  currier  or  tannerJ 
How  trifling  then  is  the  sneer  of  some  scoffers  who  have  said  that  Paul  was  nothing 
but  a  stitcher  of  skins,  and  thence  conclude  that  he  was  a  man  of  the  lowest  class  of 
the  populace!"    (Witsius  i.  12.) 

The  trade  which  the  parents  of  Saul  selected  for  their  son,  is 
described  in  the  sacred  apostolic  history  as  that  of  a  "  tent-maker." 
A  reference  to  the  local  history  of  his  native  province  throws  great 
light  on  this  account.  In  the  wild  mountains  of  Cilicia,  which 
everywhere  begin  to  rise  from  the  plains,  at  a  distance  of  seven 
or  eight  miles  from  the  coast,  anciently  ranged  a  peculiar  species 
of  long-haired  goats,  so  well  known  by  name  throughout  the  Gre- 
cian world,  for  their  rough  and  shaggy  aspect,  that  the  name  of 
"  Cilician  goat"  became  a  proverbial  expression,  to  signify  a  rongh, 
ill-bred  fellow,  and  occurs  in  this  sense  in  the  classic  writers. 
From  the  hair  of  these,  the  Cilicians  manufactured  a  thick,  coarse 
cloth, — somewhat  resembling  the  similar  product  of  the  camel's 
hair, — which,  from  the  country  where  the  cloth  was  made,  and 


484  LIVES  OP  THE   APOSTLES. 

where  the  raw  material  was  produced,  was  called  cilicium  or  d- 
licia,  and  under  this  name  it  is  very  often  mentioned,  both  by 
Grecian  and  Roman  authors.  The  peculiar  strength  and  incor- 
ruptibility of  this  cloth  were  so  well  known,  that  it  was  considered 
as  one  of  the  most  desirable  articles  for  several  very  important 
purposes,  both  in  war  and  navigation,  being  the  best  material  for 
the  sails  of  vessels,  as  well  as  for  military  tents.  But  it  was  prin- 
cipally used  by  the  Nomadic  Arabs  of  the  neighboring  deserts  of 
Syria,  who,  ranging  from  Amanus  and  the  sea,  to  the  Euphrates, 
and  beyond,  found  the  tents  manufactured  from  this  stout  cloth,  so 
durable  and  convenient,  that  they  depended  on  the  Cilicians  to 
furnish  them  with  the  material  of  their  moveable  homes ;  and 
over  all  the  east,  the  cilicium  was  in  great  demand,  for  shepherd's 
tents.  A  passage  from  Pliny  forms  a  splendid  illustration  of  this 
interesting  little  point.  "  The  wandering  tribes,  (Nomades,)  and 
the  tribes  who  plunder  the  Chaldeans,  are  bordered  by  Scenites, 
{tent-dwellers,)  who  are  themselves  also  wanderers,  but  take  their 
name  from  their  tents,  which  they  raise  of  Cilician  cloth,  wherever 
inclination  leads  them."  This  was  therefore  an  article  of  national 
industry  among  the  Cilicians,  and  afforded  in  its  manufacture, 
profitable  employment  to  a  great  number  of  workmen,  who  were 
occupied,  not  in  large  establishments  like  the  great  manufactories 
of  modern  European  nations,  but,  according  to  the  invariable  mode 
in  eastern  countries,  each  one  by  himself,  or  at  most  with  one  or 
two  companions.  Saul,  however,  seems  to  have  been  occupied 
only  with  the  concluding  part  of  the  manufacture,  which  was  the 
making  up  of  the  cloth  into  the  articles  for  which  it  was  so  well 
fitted  by  its  strength,  closeness,  and  durability.  He  was  a  maker 
of  tents  of  Cilician  camlet,  or  goat's-hair  cloth, — a  business  which, 
in  its  character  and  implements,  more  resembled  that  of  a  sail- 
maker  than  any  other  common  trade  in  this  country.  The  details 
of  the  work  must  have  consisted  in  cutting  the  camlet  of  the 
shape  required  for  each  part  of  the  tent,  and  sewing  it  together 
into  the  large  pieces,  which  were  then  ready  to  be  transported,  and 
to  form,  when  hung  on  tent-poles,  the  habitations  of  the  desert- 
wanderers. 

This  illustration  of  Saul's  trade  is  from  Hu?'s  Introduction,  Vol.  II.  note  on  §  85, 
pp.  328,  329,  original;  §  80,  pp.  335,  336,  translation.  On  the  manufacture  of  this 
cloth,  see  Gloss.  Basil,  sub  voc.  KiXkioj  rfjiyos,  &c.  "  Cilician  goat,— a  rough  fellow; 
—for  there  are  such  goals  in  Cilicia;  whence,  also,  things  made  of  their  hair  are 
called  cilicia."  He  quotes  also  Hesychius,  Suidas,  and  Salmasius  in  Solinum,  p. 
347.  As  to  the  use  of  the  cloths  in  war  and  navigation,  he  refers  to  Vegetius,  De  re 
milit.  IV.  6,  and  Servius  in  Georgic.  III.  312.— The  passage  in  Pliny,  showing  their 


SAUL.  485 

use  by  the  Nomadic  tribes  of  Syria  and  Mesopotamia  for  skepherd^s  tents,  is  in  his 
Nat.  Hist.,  VI.  28.  "  Nomadas  infestatoresque  Chaldaeorum,  Scenitae  ciaudiint,  et 
ipsi  vagi,  sed  a  tabernaculis  cognominati  quae  ciliciis  metantur,  ubi  libuit."  The 
reading  of  this  passage  which  I  have  adopted,  is  from  the  Leyden  Hackian  edition 
of  Pliny,  which  differs  slightly  from  that  followed  by  Hug,  as  the  critical  will  per- 
ceive. Hemsen  quotes  this  note  almost  verbatim  from  Hug.  (Hemsen's  "  Apostel 
Paulus,"  page  4.) 

Tlie  particular  species  or  variety  of  goat,  which  is  thus  described  as  anciently  in- 
habiting the  mountains  of  Cilicia,  can  not  now  be  distinctly  ascertained,  because  no 
scientific  traveler  has  ever  made  observations  on  the  animals  of  that  region,  owing 
to  the  many  difficulties  in  the  way  of  any  exploration  of  Asia  Minor,  under  the  bar- 
barous Ottoman  sway.  Neither  Griffith's  Cuvier  nor  Turton's  Linnaeus  contains 
any  reference  to  Cilicia,  as  inhabited  by  any  species  or  variety  of  the  genus  Capra. 
The  nearest  approach  to  certainty,  that  can  be  made  with  so  few  data,  is  the  reason- 
able conjecture  that  the  Cilician  goat  was  a  variety  of  the  species  Capra  Aegagrus, 
to  which  the  common  domestic  goat  belongs,  and  which  includes  several  remarkable 
varieties, — at  least  six  being  well  ascertained.  There  are  few  of  my  readers,  proba- 
bly, who  are  not  familiar  with  the  descriptions  and  pictures  of  the  famous  Angora 
goat,  which  is  one  of  these  varieties,  and  is  well  known  for  its  long,  soft,  silky  hair, 
which  is  to  this  day  used  in  the  manufacture  of  a  sort  of  camlet,  in  the  place  where 
it  is  found,  which  is  Angora,  and  the  region  around  it,  from  the  Halys  to  the  San- 
garius.  This  tract  of  country  is  in  Asia  Minor,  only  three  or  four  hundred  miles 
north  of  Cilicia,  and  therefore  at  once  suggests  the  probability  of  the  Cilician  goat 
being  something  very  much  like  the  Angora  goat.  (See  Mod.  Trav.  III.  p.  339.) 
On  the  other  side  of  Cilicia,  also,  in  Syria,  there  is  an  equally  remarkable  variety  of 
the  goat,  with  similar  long,  silky  hair,  used  for  the  same  manufacture.  Now  Cilicia, 
being  directly  on  the  shortest  route  from  Angora  to  Syria,  and  half-way  between 
both,  might  very  naturally  be  supposed  to  have  another  variety  of  the  Capra  Aega- 
grus,  between  the  Angoran  and  the  Syrian  variety,  and  resembling  both  in  the  com- 
mon characteristic  of  long  shaggy  or  silky  hair;  and  there  can  be  no  reasonable 
doubt  that  future  scientific  observation  will  show  that  the  Cilician  goat  forms  another 
well-marked  variety  of  this  widely  diffused  species,  which,  wherever  it  inhabits  the 
mountains  of  the  warm  regions  of  Asia,  always  furnishes  this  beautiful  product,  of 
which  we  have  another  splendid  and  familiar  specimen  in  the  Tibet  and  Cashmere 
goats,  whose  fleeces  are  worth  more  than  their  weight  in  gold.  The  hair  of  the  Sy- 
rian and  Cilician  goats,  however,  is  of  a  much  coarser  character,  producing  a  much 
coarser  and  stouter  fibre  for  the  cloth. 

On  the  subject  of  Paul's  trade,  the  learned  and  usually  accurate  Michaelis  was  led 
into  a  very  great  error,  by  taking  up  too  hastily  a  conjecture  founded  on  a  misappre- 
hension of  the  meaning  given  by  Julius  Pollux,  in  his  Onomasticon,  on  the  word 
(T/frji'orraid;,  {s/tenopoios,)  which  is  the  word  used  in  Acts  xiii.  3,  to  designate  the  trade 
of  Saul  and  Aquilas.  Pollux  mentions  that,  in  the  language  of  the  old  Grecian 
comedy,  aKiii/oirnlni  was  equivalent  to  /ji;  Y'"'<"'""f>  (jn.echanopoios,')  which  Michaelis  very 
erroneously  takes  in  the  sense  of  "  a  maker  of  mechanical  instruments,"'  and  this  he 
therefore  maintains  to  have  been  the  trade  of  Saul  and  Aquilas.  But  it  is  capable  of 
the  most  satisfactory  proof,  that  Julius  Pollux  used  the  words  here  merely  in  the 
technical  sense  of  theatrical  preparation, — the  first  meaning  simply  "  a  scene-maker," 
and  the  second  "  a  constructor  of  theatrical  machinery," — both  terms,  of  course,  na- 
turally applied  to  the  same  artist.  (Mich.  Int.  IV.  xxiii.  2,  pp.  183 — 186.  Marsh's 
translation.— Hug,  II.  §  85,  orig.  §  80,  trans.) 

The  Fathers  also  made  similar  blunders  about  the  nature  of  Saul's  trade.  They 
call  him  nKMrmoim,  {skidotomos,)  "  a  skin-cutter,"  as  well  as  aKr!vnpf,d<pos,  "  a  tent- 
maker."  This  was  because  they  were  entirely  ignorant  of  the  material  used  for  the 
manufacture  of  tents;  for,  living  themselves  in  the  civilized  regions  of  Greece,  Italy, 
&c.,  they  knew  nothing  of  the  habitations  of  the  Nomadic  tent-dwellers.  Chrysos- 
tom,  in  particular,  calls  him  "  one  who  worked  in  skins." 

Fabricius  gives  some  valuable  illustrations  of  this  point.  (Biblioth.  Gr.  IV.  p.  795, 
bb.)  He  quotes  Cotelerius,  (ad.  Apost.  Const.  II.  63,)  Erasmus,  &c.  (ad.  Act  xviii.  3,) 
and  Schurzflei.sch,  (in  diss,  de  Paulo,  &c.)  who  brings  sundry  passages  from  Dio 
Chrysostom  and  Libanius,  to  prove  that  there  were  many  in  Cilicia  who  worked  in 
leather,  as  he  says;  in  support  of  which  he  quotes  Martial,  (epig.  xiv.  114,)  alluding 
to  " udones  cilicii,"  or  "  cilician  cloaks"  (used  to  keep  off  rain,  as  water-proof,) — not 
knowing  that  this  word,  cilicium,  was  the  name  of  a  very  close  and  stout  cloth,  from 
the  goat's  hair,  equally  valuable  as  a  covering  for  a  single  person,  and  for  the  habita- 


486  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

tion  of  a  whole  family.  In  short,  Martial's  passage  shows  that  llie  Cilician  camlet 
was  used  like  the  modern  camlet, — for  cloaks.  Fabricius  himself  seems  to  make  no 
account  of  this  notion  of  Schurzfleisch ;  for  immediately  after,  he  states  (what  I 
cannot  find  on  any  other  authority)  that  "even  at  this  day,  as  late  books  of  travels 
testify,  variegated  cloths  are  exported  from  Cilicia."  This  is  certainly  true  of  An- 
gora in  Asia  Minor,  northwest  of  Cilicia,  (Mod.  Trav.  III.  p.  339,)  and  may  be  true 
of  Cilicia  itself  Fabricius  notices  2  Cor.  v.  1,  and  xii.  9,  as  containing  figures 
drawn  from  Saul's  trade. 

HIS  EARLY  EDUCATION. 

But  this  was  not  destined  to  be  the  most  important  occupation 
of  Saul's  life.  Even  his  parents  had  nobler  objects  in  view  for 
him,  and  evidently  devoted  him  to  this  handicraft,  only  in  con- 
formity with  those  ancient  Jewish  usages  which  had  the  force  of 
law  on  every  true  Israelite,  whether  rich  or  poor  ;  and  according- 
ly he  was  sent,  while  yet  in  his  youth,  away  from  his  home  in 
Tarsus,  to  Jerusalem,  the  fountain  of  religious  and  legal  know- 
ledge to  all  the  race  of  Judah  and  Benjamin,  throughout  the  world. 
To  what  extent  his  general  education  had  been  carried  in  Tarsus, 
is  little  known  ;  but  he  had  acquired  that  fluency  in  the  Greek, 
which  is  displayed  in  his  writings,  though  contaminated  with 
many  of  the  provincialisms  of  Cilicia,  and  more  especially  with 
the  barbarisms  of  Hebrew  usage.  Living  in  daily  intercourse,  both 
in  the  way  of  business  and  friendship,  with  the  active  Grecians 
of  that  thriving  city,  and  led,  no  doubt,  by  his  own  intellectual 
character  and  tastes,  to  the  occasional  cultivation  of  those  classics 
which  were  the  delight  of  his  Gentile  acquaintances,  he  acquired 
a  readiness  and  power  in  the  use  of  the  Greek  language,  and  a 
familiarity  with  the  favorite  writers  of  the  Asian  Hellenes,  that  in 
the  providence  of  God  most  eminently  fitted  him  for  the  sphere  to 
which  he  was  afterwards  devoted,  and  was  the  true  ground  of  his 
wonderful  acceptability  to  the  highly  literary  people  among  whom 
his  great  and  most  successful  labors  were  performed,  and  to  whom 
all  of  his  epistles,  but  two,  were  written.  All  these  writings  show 
proofs  of  such  an  acquaintance  with  Greek,  as  is  here  inferred 
from  his  opportunities  in  education.  His  well-known  quotations 
also,  from  Menander  and  Epimenides,  and  more  especially  his  happy 
impromptu  reference  in  his  discourse  at  Athens,  to  the  line  from  his 
own  fellow-Cilician,  Aratus,  are  instances  of  a  very  great  familiarity 
with  the  classics,  and  are  thrown  out  in  such  an  unstudied,  off- 
hand way,  as  to  imply  a  ready  knowledge  of  these  writers.  But 
all  these  were,  no  doubt,  learned  in  the  mere  occasional  manner 
already  alluded  to  in  connexion  with  the  reputation  and  literary 
character  of  Tarsus.     He  was  devoted  by  all  the  considerations  of 


SAUL.  487 

ancestral  pride  and  religious  zeal  to  the  study  of  "  a  classic,  the 
best  the  world  has  ever  seen, — the  noblest  that  has  ever  honored 
and  dignified  the  language  of  mortals." 

HIS  REMOVAL  TO  JERUSALEM. 

Strabo,  in  speaking  of  the  remarkable  literary  and  philosophical 
zeal  of  the  refined  inhabitants  of  Tarsus,  says,  that  "  after  having 
well  laid  the  foundations  of  literature  and  science  in  their  own 
schools  at  home,  it  was  usual  for  them  to  resort  to  those  in  other 
places,  in  order  to  pursue  zealously  the  cultivation  of  their  minds 
still  further,"  by  the  varied  modes  and  opportunities  presented  in 
different  schools  throughout  the  Hellenic  world, — a  noble  spirit  of 
literary  enterprise,  accordant  with  the  practice  of  the  most  ancient 
philosophers,  and  like  the  course  also  pursued  by  the  modern  Ger- 
man scholars,  many  of  whom  go  from  one  university  to  another, 
to  enjoy  the  peculiar  advantages  afforded  by  each  in  some  particu- 
lar department.  It  was,  therefore,  only  in  a  noble  emulation  of 
the  example  of  his  heathen  fellow-townsmen,  in  the  pursuit  of  pro- 
fane knowledge,  that  Saul  left  the  city  of  his  birth  and  his  father's 
house,  to  seek  a  deeper  knowledge  of  the  sacred  sources  of  He- 
brew learning,  in  the  capital  of  the  faith.  This  removal  to  so 
great  a  distance,  for  such  a  purpose,  evidently  implies  the  posses- 
sion of  considerable  wealth  in  the  family  of  Saul ;  for  a  literary 
sojourn  of  that  kind,  in  a  great  city,  could  not  but  be  attended  with 
very  considerable  expense  as  well  as  trouble. 

HIS  TEACHER. 

Saul  having  been  thus  endowed  with  a  liberal  education  at 
home,  and  with  the  principles  of  the  Jewish  faith,  as  far  as  his  age 
would  allow,  went  up  to  Jerusalem  to  enjoy  the  instruction  of 
Gamaliel.  There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  this  was  Gamaliel 
the  elder,  grandson  of  Hillel,  and  son  of  Simeon,  (probably  the 
same  who,  in  his  old  age,  took  the  child  Jesus  in  his  arms,)  and 
father  of  another  Simeon,  in  whose  time  the  temple  was  destroyed  ; 
for  the  Rabbinical  writings  give  a  minute  account  of  him,  as  con- 
nected with  all  these  persons.  This  Gamaliel  succeeded  his  an- 
cestors in  the  rank  which  was  then  esteemed  the  highest ;  this 
was  the  office  of  "  head  of  the  college,"  otherwise  called  "  Prince 
of  the  Jewish  senate."  Out  of  respect  to  this  most  eminent  Father 
of  Hebrew  learning,  as  it  is  recorded,  Onkelos,  the  renowned 
Chaldee  paraphrast,  burned  at  his  funeral  seventy  pounds  of  in- 


488  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

cense,  in  honor  to  the  high  rank  and  learning  of  the  deceased. 
This  eminent  teacher  was  at  first  not  ill-disposed  towards  the 
apostles,  who,  he  thought,  ought  to  be  left  to  their  own  fate  ;  being 
led  to  this  moderate  and  reasonable  course,  perhaps,  by  the  circum- 
stance that  the  Sadducees,  whom  he  hated,  were  most  active  in 
their  persecution.  The  sound  sense  and  humane  wisdom  that 
mark  his  sagely  eloquent  opinion,  so  wonderful  in  that  bloody 
time,  have  justly  secured  him  the  admiration  and  respect  of  all 
Christian  readers  of  the  record ;  and  not  without  regret  would 
they  learn,  that  the  after  doings  of  his  life,  unrecorded  by  the  sa- 
cred historian,  yet  on  the  testimony  of  others,  bear  witness  against 
him  as  having  changed  from  this  wise  principle  of  action.  If 
there  is  any  ground  for  the  story  which  Maimonides  tells,  it  would 
seem,  that  when  Gamaliel  saw  the  new  heretical  sect  multiplying 
in  his  own  days,  and  drawing  away  the  Israelites  from  the  Mosaic 
forms,  he,  together  with  the  Senate,  whose  President  he  was,  gave 
his  utmost  endeavors  to  crush  the  followers  of  Christ,  and  com- 
posed a  form  of  prayer,  by  which  God  was  besought  to  exterminate 
these  heretics ;  which  was  to  be  connected  to  the  usual  forms  of 
prayer  in  the  Jewish  liturgy.  This  story  of  Maimonides,  if  it  is 
adopted  as  true,  on  so  slight  grounds,  may  be  reconciled  with  the 
account  given  by  Luke,  in  two  ways.  First,  Gamaliel  may  have 
thought  that  the  apostles  and  their  successors,  although  heretics, 
were  not  to  be  put  down  by  human  force,  or  by  the  contrivances 
of  human  ingenuity,  but  that  the  whole  matter  should  be  left  to 
the  hidden  providence  of  God,  and  that  their  extermination  should 
be  obtained  from  God  by  prayers.  Or,  second, — to  make  a  more 
simple  and  rational  supposition, — he  may  have  been  so  struck  by 
the  boldness  of  the  apostles,  and  by  the  evidence  of  the  miracles 
performed  by  them,  as  to  express  a  milder  opinion  on  them  at  that 
particular  moment ;  but  afterwards  may  have  formed  a  harsher 
judgment,  when,  contrary  to  all  expectation,  he  saw  the  wonderful 
growth  of  Christianity,  and  heard,  with  his  wrathful  and  indig- 
nant brethren,  the  stern  rebuke  of  Stephen.  But  these  loose  relies 
of  tradition,  offered  on  such  very  suspicious  authority  as  that  of 
a  Jew  of  the  ages  when  Christianity  had  become  so  odious  to  Ju- 
daism by  its  triumphs,  may  without  hesitation  be  rejected  as  wholly 
inconsistent  with  the  noble  spirit  of  Gamaliel,  as  expressed  in  the 
clear,  impartial  account  of  Luke ;  and  both  of  the  suppositions 
here  offered  by  others,  to  reconcile  sacred  truth  with  mere  false- 
hood, are  thus  rendered  entirely  unnecessary. 


SAUL.  489 

At  the  feet  of  this  Gamaliel,  then,  was  Saul  brought  up.  (Acts  xxii.  3.)  It  has  been 
observed  on  this  passage,  by  learned  commentators,  that  this  expression  refers  to  the 
fashion  followed  by  students,  of  sitting  and  lying  down  on  the  ground  or  on  mats  at 
the  feet  of  their  leacher,  who  sat  by  himself  on  a  higher  place.  And  indeed  so  ma'ny 
are  the  traces  of  this  fashion  among  the  recorded  labors  of  the  Hebrews,  that  it  does 
not  seem  possible  to  call  it  in  question.  Scaliger  {Elench.  Trihaeres.)  has  brought  to 
light  many  illustrations  of  the  point ;  besides  which  another  is  oflered  in  a  well-known 
passage,  quoted  by  Witsius,  from  a  Talmudic  book,  entitled — ni2N  •>^-\s  Pjrke  Aboth 
or  "  Fragments  of  the  Fathers."  Speaking  of  the  wise,  it  is  said,  "  Make  thyself  dusty 
in  the  dust  of  their  feet," — ani'?j-i -\bj,'3  p^Nno  ■'in — meaning  that  the  young  student  is  to 
be  a  diligent  hearer  at  the  feet  of  the  wise.  The  same  thing  is  farther  illustrated  by 
a  passage  which  Buxtorf  has  given  in  his  Recension  of  the  Talmud,  in  the  portion 
entitled  noii  (Berachoth,)  D-nan  >TiD'rn  ■■^la  pi  Di^ic'ini  ]v;inn  la  d2-';3  iy:D  "  Take  away 
your  sons  from  the  study  of  the  Bible,  and  make  them  sit  between  the  knees  of  the 
disciples  of  the  wise  ;"  which  is  equivalent  to  a  recommendation  of  oral,  as  superior 
to  written  instruction.  The  same  principle,  of  varying  the  mode  in  which  the  mind 
receives  knowledge,  is  recognized  in  modern  systems  of  education,  with  a  view  to 
avoid  the  self-conceit  and  intolerant  pride  which  solitary  study  is  apt  to  engender,  as 
well  as  because,  from  the  living  voice  of  the  teacher,  the  young  scholar  learns  in  that 
practical,  simple  mode,  which  is  most  valuable  and  efficient,  as  it  is  that  in  which 
alone  all  his  knowledge  of  the  living  and  speaking  world  must  be  obtained.  It  should 
be  observed,  however,  that  Buxtorf,  in  his  Lexicon  of  the  Talmud,  seems  to  have  un- 
derstood this  passage  rather  differently  from  Witsius,  whose  construction  is  followed 
in  the  translation  given  above.  Buxtorf,  following  the  ordinary  meaning  of  pvn 
(heg-yon,)  seems  to  prefer  the  sense  of  "  meditation."  He  rejects  the  common  trans- 
lation— "  study  of  the  Bible,"  as  altogether  irreligious.  "In  hoc  sensu,  praeceptum 
impium  est."  He  says  that  other  Glosses  of  the  passage  give  it  the  meaning  of  "  boy- 
ish talk,"  (garritus  puerorum.)  But  this  is  a  sense  perfectly  contradictory  to  all  usage 
of  the  word,  and  was  evidently  invented  only  to  avoid  the  seemingly  irreligious  cha- 
racter of  the  literal  version.  (See  Buxtorf  Lexicon  Talmudicum.  s-ub  voc.)  But 
why  may  not  all  difficulties  be  removed  by  a  reference  to  the  primary  signification, 
which  is  "solitary  meditation,"  in  opposition  to  "  instruction  by  others'?"  See  this 
use  of  the  theme  r\m  in  Psalm  i.  2. 

We  have  in  the  gospel  history  itself,  also,  the  instance  of  Mary.  (Luke  x.  39.) 
The  passage  in  Mark  iii.  32,  "  The  multitude  sat  down  around  him,"  farther  illus- 
trates this  usage.  There  is  an  old  Hebrew  tradition,  mentioned  with  great  rev- 
erence by  Maimonides,  to  this  effect: — "  From  the  days  of  Moses  down  to  Rabban 
Gamaliel,  they  always  studied  the  law  standing;  but  after  Rabba.n  Gamaliel  was 
dead,  weakness  descended  on  the  world,  and  they  studied  the  law  silting."  (Wit- 
sius, i.  14.) 

The  name  "  Gamaliel"  was  common  among  the  Jews;  there  was  a  certain  patri- 
arch of  that  name  in  the  time  of  Honorius,  of  whom  mention  is  made  in  a  law  of 
Honorius,  in  the  Theodosian  code.  (Gro^.)— The  first  Gamaliel  was  the  teacher 
not  only  of  Paul,  but  also  of  Barnabas  and  Stephen,  {Cornelius  A  Lapide,) — called 
Gamaliel  the  elder,  to  distinguish  him  from  his  son  and  grandson  of  the  same  name. 
These  three  were  all  so  highly  eminent,  that  they  with  only  four  others  were  distin- 
guished by  that  peculiar  title  of  RABBAN,  which  was  the  highest  of  all.  This  cir- 
cumstance shows  his  fame  and  rank.  {Lightfoot.)  The  story  that  he  was  afterwards 
converted  to  Christianity,  is  proved  from  the  Talmudic  writings  to  be  false.  (Poole's 
Synopsis.     Acts  v.  34.) 

HIS  JEWISH  OPINIONS. 

Jerusalem  was  the  seat  of  what  may  be  called  the  great  Jewish 
University.  The  Rabbins,  or  teachers,  united  in  themselves,  not 
merely  the  sources  of  Biblical  and  theological  learning,  but  also 
the  whole  system  of  instruction  in  that  civil  law  by  which  their 
nation  were  still  allowed  to  be  governed,  with  only  some  slight 
exceptions  as  to  the  right  of  punishment.  There  was  no  distinc- 
tion, in  short,  between  the  professions  of  divinity  and  law,  the 


490  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

Rabbins  being  teachers  of  the  whole  Mosaic  system,  and  those 
who  entered  on  a  course  of  study  under  them,  aiming  at  the 
knowledge  of  both  those  departments  of  learning,  which,  through- 
out the  western  nations,  are  now  kept,  for  the  most  part,  entirely 
distinct,  Saul  was  therefore  a  student  both  of  theology  and  law, 
and  entered  himself  as  a  hearer  of  the  lectures  of  one,  who  may, 
in  modern  phrase,  be  styled  the  most  eminent  professor  in  the 
great  Hebrew  university  of  Jerusalem.  From  him  he  learned 
the  law  and  the  Jewish  traditional  doctrines,  as  illustrated  and 
perfected  by  the  Fathers  of  the  Pharisaic  order.  His  steady 
energy  and  resolute  activity  were  here  all  made  available  to  the 
very  complete  attainment  of  the  mysteries  of  knowledge ;  and 
the  success  with  which  he  prosecuted  his  studies  may  be  best  ap- 
preciated by  a  minute  examination  of  his  writings,  which  every- 
where exhibit  indubitable  marks  of  a  deep  and  critical  knowledge 
of  all  the  details  of  Jewish  theology  and  law.  He  shows  him- 
self to  have  been  deeply  versed  in  all  the  standard  modes  of  ex- 
plaining the  Scriptures  among  the  Hebrews, — by  allegory, — typol- 
ogy, accommodation,  and  tradition.  Yet  though  thus  ardently 
drinking  the  streams  of  Biblical  knowledge  from  this  great  foun- 
tain-head, he  seems  to  have  been  very  far  from  imbibing  the  mild 
and  merciful  spirit  of  his  great  teacher,  as  it  had  been  so  emi- 
nently displayed  in  his  sage  decision  on  the  trial  of  the  apostles. 
The  acquisition  of  knowledge,  even  under  such  an  instructor, 
was,  in  Saul,  attended  with  the  somewhat  common  evils  to  which 
a  young  mind,  rapidly  advanced  in  dogmatical  learning,  is  natu- 
rally liable, — a  bitter,  denunciatory  intolerance  of  any  opinions 
contrary  to  his  own, — a  spiteful  feeling  towards  all  doctrinal  op- 
ponents, and  a  disposition  to  punish  speculative  errors  as  actual 
crimes.  All  these  common  faults  were  very  remarkably  devel- 
oped in  Saul,  by  that  uncommon  harshness  and  fierceness  by  which 
he  was  so  strongly  characterized ;  and  his  worst  feelings  broke  out 
with  all  their  fury  against  the  rising  heretics,  who  without  any 
regular  education,  were  assuming  the  office  of  religious  teachers, 
and  were  understood  to  be  seducing  the  people  from  their  allegi- 
ance and  due. respect  to  the  qualified  scholars  of  the  law.  The 
occasion  on  which  these  unrighteous  passions  first  exhibited  them- 
selves in  decided  action  against  the  Christians,  was  the  murder 
of  Stephen,  of  which  the  details  have  already  been  fully  given 
in  that  part  of  the  Life  of  Peter  which  is  connected  with  it.  Of 
those  who  engaged  in  the  previous  disputes  with  the  proto-martyr, 


SAUL.  491 

the  members  of  the  CiHcian  synagogue  are  mentioned  amonff 
others  ;  and  with  these  Saul  would  very  naturally  be  numbered  • 
for,  residing  at  a  great  distance  from  his  native  province,  he  would 
with  pleasure  seek  the  company  of  those  residents  in  Jerusalem 
who  were  from  Cilicia,  and  join  with  them  in  the  study  of  the 
law  and  the  weekly  worship  of  God.  What  part  he  took  in  these 
animated  and  angry  discussions,  is  not  known  ;  but  his  well  known 
power  in  argument  affords  good  reason  for  believing,  that  the  elo- 
quence and  logical  acuteness  which  he  afterwards  displayed  in  the 
cause  of  Christ,  were  now  made  use  of,  against  the  ablest  defenders 
of  that  same  cause.  His  fierce  spirit,  no  doubt,  rose  with  the  rest 
in  that  burst  of  indignation  against  the  martyr,  who  fearlessly 
stood  up  before  the  council,  pouring  out  a  flood  of  invective  against 
the  unjust  destroyers  of  the  holy  prophets  of  God  ;  and  when  they 
all  rushed  upon  the  preacher  of  righteousness,  and  dragged  him 
away  from  the  tribunal  to  the  place  of  execution,  Saul  also  was 
consenting  to  his  death ;  and  when  the  blood  of  the  martyr  was 
shed,  he  stood  by,  approving  the  deed,  and  kept  the  clothes  of 
them  who  slew  him. 

"  Paul,  like  his  teacher,  Gamaliel,  was  also  of  the  sect  of  the  Pharisees.  This  he 
often  refers  to,  as  if  it  was  a  thing  held  in  high  honor  among  the  Jews.  As  in  Phi- 
lippians  iii.  5,  where  the  word  translated  law  may  be  taken  to  mean  either  the  sect 
characteristically  distinct  from  all  others — ('by  sect  a  Pharisee;')  or  it  may  mean  a 
peculiar  mode  of  explaining  the  law  of  Moses, — ('  a  Pharisee  in  my  modes  of  un- 
derstanding the  law.')  The  passage  in  Acts  ii.  3, — '  taught  after  the  strictest  rules 
of  the  law  of  the  fathers,'  also  illustrates  this  point.  For  the  same  reason  also,  in 
Acts  xxvi.  5,  he  is  said  to  have  been  '  of  the  strictest  sect  of  the  Jewish  religion.' 
A  like  phrase  is  used  by  Josephus,  in  his  history  of  the  Jewish  War,  Book  I.  chapter 
IV.  '  They  (the  Pharisees)  seem  to  be  more  pious  than  any  other  Jewish  sect,  and 
to  follow  the  laws  more  strictly.'     The  same  author  also  remarks,  in  his  own  life, — 

*  The  members  of  the  sect  of  the  Pharisees  differ  from  others  in  the  strictness  with 
which  they  observe  the  laws  of  the  Fathers.'  By  such  remarkable  preciseness  dis- 
tinguishing themselves  from  all  others,  they  took  great  pride  in  being  called  Pharisees, 
for  in  Hebrew  the  word  s-iis  (pharush)  is  by  some  taken  to  mean  '  separation'  and 

*  setting  aparf  from  others.  The  Rabbinical  commentators  say  that  the  name  Phari- 
see is  used  because  he  who  bore  it '  was  separated  from  the  ways  of  the  world,  to  wait 
on  the  name  of  the  Lord  in  prayer  and  the  celebration  of  the  praises  of  God.'  This 
strictness  of  which  Paul  speaks,  consisted  partly  in  doctrine,  and  partly  in  the  manner 
of  life.  As  to  doctrines,  they  embraced  as  most  perfect  all  those  which  were  in  the 
law  of  Moses,  and  also  all  others  which  were  believed  to  be  particularly  suitable  and 
efficacious  for  glorifying  God  and  engendering  piety  in  the  minds  of  men  ; — such  as 
the  articles  on  the  spiritual  nature  of  souls,  and  the  existence  of  them  out  of  the 
body, — on  the  resurrection  of  the  body, — on  the  distribution  of  rewards  and  punish- 
ments after  this  life,  and  on  other  things  which  are  connected  with  these.  So  that 
by  their  profession,  at  least,  they  seem  to  deserve  a  praise  far  above  what  the  Sad- 
ducees  can  claim.  (Acts  xxiii.  6,  7,  8.)  In  their  mode  of  life  the  Pharisees  were 
characterized  by  a  remarkable  stiffness,  and,  as  Epiphanius  calls  it,  'a  would-be- 
religious  parade,'  as  we  have  instances  in  Luke  xviii.  11,  12,  and  Matthew  xxiii.  5, 
23,  ib.  Of  the  same  character  was  their  fashion  of  sleeping  on  boards  but  nine  inches 
wide,  so  that  rolling  off  upon  the  floor  they  might  be  awaked  to  pray.  For  the  same 
reason  they  now  and  then  strewed  little  stones  under  them,  and  sometimes  thorns, 
either  to  hinder  themselves  from  sleeping  too  long,  or  at  all.    In  a  word,  they  with- 


492  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

drew  themselves  from  the  vulgar  herd  of  men,  and  kept  carefully  clear  from  un- 
cleanness  all  their  days,  which  Moses  Maimonides  declares  to  be,  as  it  were,  the 
summit  of  holiness  and  the  path  of  purest  religion."  (Witsius,  Vit.  Paul.  i.  15, 
pp.  14,  15.) 

Hug  gives  a  fine  sketch  of  Paul's  character  as  a  Pharisee,  a  scholar,  and  a  writer. 
(Hug,  latrod.  II.  86—89,  pp.  330—337,  original.) 

HIS  PERSECUTING  CHARACTER. 

The  very  active  share  which  Saul  took  in  this  and  the  subse- 
quent cruelties  of  a  similar  nature,  is  in  itself  a  decided  though 
terrible  proof  of  that  remarkable  independence  of  character,  which 
w-as  so  distinctly  displayed  in  the  greatest  events  of  his  apostolic 
career.  Saul  was  no  slave  to  the  opinions  of  others ;  nor  did  he 
take  up  his  active  persecuting  course  on  the  mere  dictation  of 
higher  authority.  On  the  contrary,  his  whole  behavior  towards 
the  followers  of  Jesus  was  directly  opposed  to  the  policy  so  dis- 
tinctly urged  and  so  efficiently  maintained,  in  at  least  one  instance, 
by  his  great  teacher,  Gamaliel,  whose  precepts  and  example  on  this 
subject  must  have  influenced  his  bold  young  disciple,  if  any  au- 
thority could  have  had  such  an  effect  on  him.  From  Gamaliel 
and  his  disciples,  Saul  must  have  received  his  earliest  impressions 
of  the  character  of  Christ  and  his  doctrines ;  for  it  is  altogether 
probable  that  he  did  not  reach  Jerusalem  until  some  time  after  the 
ascension  of  Christ,  and  there  is  therefore  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  he  himself  had  ever  heard  or  seen  him.  Nevertheless,  brought 
up  in  the  school  of  the  greatest  of  the  Pharisees,  he  would  receive 
from  all  his  teachers  and  associates,  an  impression  decidedly  un- 
favorable, of  the  Christian  sect ;  though  the  uniform  mildness  of 
the  Pharisees,  as  to  vindictive  measures,  would  temper  the  princi- 
ples of  action,  recommended  in  regard  to  the  course  of  conduct 
to  be  adopted  towards  them.  The  rapid  advance  of  the  new  sect, 
however,  soon  brought  them  more  and  more  under  the  invidious 
notice  of  the  Pharisees,  who  in  the  lifetime  of  Jesus  had  been  the 
most  determined  opposers  of  him  and  his  doctrines  ;  and  the  atten- 
tion of  Saul  would  therefore  be  constantly  directed  to  the  prepara- 
tion for  contest  with  them. 

Stephen's  murder  seems  to  have  unlocked  all  the  persecuting 
spirit  of  Saul.  He  immediately  laid  his  hand  to  the  work  of  per- 
secuting the  friends  of  Jesus,  with  a  fury  that  could  not  be  allayed 
by  a  single  act.  Nor  was  he  satisfied  with  merely  keeping  a 
watchful  eye  on  every  thing  that  was  openly  done  by  them ;  but 
under  authority  from  the  Sanhedrim,  breaking  into  the  retirement 
of  their  homes,  to  hunt  them  out  for  destruction,  he  had  them 


SAUL.  493 

thrown  into  prison,  and  scourged  in  the  synagogues,  and  threat- 
ened even  with  death ;  by  all  which  cruelties  he  so  overcame  the 
spirit  of  many  of  them,  that  they  were  forced  to  renounce  the 
faith  which  they  had  adopted,  and  blaspheme  the  name  of  Christ 
in  public  recantations.  This  furious  persecution  soon  drove  them 
from  Jerusalem  in  great  numbers,  to  other  cities.  Samaria,  as  well 
as  the  distant  parts  of  Judea,  are  mentioned  as  their  places  of  re- 
fuge, and  not  a  few  fled  beyond  the  bounds  of  Palestine  into  the 
cities  of  Syria.  But  even  these  distant  exiles  were  not,  by  their 
flight  into  far  countries,  removed  from  the  eflfects  of  the  burning 
zeal  of  their  persecutor.  Longing  for  an  opportunity  to  give  a 
still  wider  range  to  his  cruelties,  he  went  to  the  great  council, 
and  begged  of  them  such  a  commission  as  would  authorize  him  to 
pursue  his  vindictive  measures  wherever  the  sanction  of  their  name 
could  support  such  actions.  Among  the  probable  inducements  to 
this  selection  of  a  foreign  field  for  his  unrighteous  work,  may  be 
reasonably  placed,  the  circumstance  that  Damascus  wels  at  this 
time  under  the  government  of  Aretas,  an  Arabian  prince,  into 
whose  hands  it  fell  for  a  short  time,  during  which  the  equitable 
principles  of  Roman  tolerance  no  longer  operated  as  a  check  on 
the  murderous  spite  of  the  Jews  ;  for  the  new  ruler,  anxious  to  se- 
cure his  dominion  by  ingratiating  himself  with  the  subjects  of  it, 
would  not  be  disposed  to  neglect  any  opportunity  for  pleasing  so 
powerful  and  influential  a  portion  of  the  population  of  Damascus 
as  the  Jews  were, — who  lived  there  in  such  numbers,  that  in  some 
disturbances  which  arose  a  few  years  after,  between  them  and  the 
other  inhabitants,  ten  thousand  Jews  were  slain  unarmed,  while 
in  the  public  baths,  enjoying  themselves  after  the  fatigues  of  the 
day,  without  any  expectation  of  violence.  So  large  a  Jewish  po- 
pulation would  be  secure  of  the  support  of  Aretas  in  any  favorite 
measure.  Saul,  well  knowing  these  circumstances,  must  have 
been  greatly  influenced  by  this  motive,  to  seek  a  commission  to 
labor  in  a  field  where  the  firm  tolerance  of  Roman  sway  was  dis- 
placed by  the  baser  rule  of  a  petty  prince,  whose  weakness  ren- 
dered him  subservient  to  the  tyrannical  wishes  of  his  subjects.  In 
Jerusalem  the  Roman  government  would  not  suflfer  any  thing  like 
a  systematic  destruction  of  its  subjects,  nor  authorize  the  taking 
of  life  by  any  religious  tribunal,  though  it  might  pass  over,  unpun- 
ished, a  solitary  act  of  mob  violence,  like  the  murder  of  Stephen. 
It  is  perfectly  incontestable,  therefore,  that  the  persecution  in  Jeru- 
salem could  not  have  extended  to  the  repeated  destruction  of  life ; 


494  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

and  that  passage  in  Paul's  discourse  to  Agrippa,  which  has  been 
supposed  to  prove  a  phirahty  of  capital  punishments,  has  accord- 
ingly been  construed  in  a  more  limited  sense,  by  the  ablest  modern 
commentators. 

A  more  limited  sense. — Kuinoel,  on  Acts  xxv.  1, 10,  maintains  this  fully,  and  quotes 
other  authorities.    See  my  note  on  page  211. 

Prisons. — "  The  Jews  used  prisons  as  we  do,  for  two  purposes.  First,  for  the 
keeping  of  the  accused,  in  view  of  which  it  was  called  -ic»a  {mishmar,') — the  word 
used  in  Genesis  xi.  3 ;  but  in  Jeremiah  xxxviii.  28,  it  is  called  mm  {mattarah.) 
Secondly,  for  places  of  punishment,  to  which  use  a  miry  dungeon  was  sometimes 
applied,  like  that  into  which  tlie  prophet  was  put,  (Jeremiah  xxxviii.  6.)  This  was 
probably  a  more  secure  place,  in  the  heart  of  the  prison,  which  they  called  nsonn 
{mahepelcclh.)  Thus  Asa,  when  indignant  at  the  just  rebuke  of  the  prophet,  violating 
all  rii,'hl,  cast  him  into  the  nssnn  no  {beth  viahcpeketh,)  '  house  of  the  dungeon.' 
2  Chronicles  xvi.  10.  In  the  same  spirit,  Shemaiah,  the  spiteful  foe  of  Jeremiah, 
earnestly  trove  to  excite  Zephaniah  and  the  other  priests  who  were  set  over  the  house 
of  Jehovah,  to  put  Jeremiah  '  in  the  prison  and  the  stocks,'  [as  it  is  given  in  the 
English  version.]  Jeremiah  xxix.  26.  Here  the  "'Hebrew  word  translated  stocks, 
[derived  from  the  verb  3sn  (ha.phak,)  which  means  bend  or  turn,]  refers  to  the  crooked 
and  itvisted  position  of  the  body  while  thus  confined,  and  is  cognate  with  the  Chaldee 
word  H-i^z  (kipha,)  which  is  so  often  used  in  the  Talmud.  Of  this,  Cocceius  gives  the 
following  definition  in  his  Notes  on  the  Sanhedrim  :  '  It  is  a  dungeon  in  the  prison, 
equaling  the  size  of  a  man  so  exactly  that  it  gives  him  no  chance  to  stretch  himself 
out  to  sleep.'  Into  such  a  hole,  according  to  the  common  law  and  usages  of  the  Jews, 
were  those  thrust  who  had  for  a  third  time  been  guilty  of  an  oflfense  punishable  with 
excommunication,  after  having  been  twice  scourged.  '  Such  an  offender  is  beaten  no 
more,  but  is  shut  up  in  a  hole  made  for  that  purpose,  which  is  a  narrow  place,  corres- 
ponding to  the  length  of  a  man,  so  as  not  to  allow  him  to  sit  down;  there  he  is  kept 
on  the  bread  of  afliiction  and  the  water  of  distress,  even  until  his  bowels  are  pained 
and  sickened.  Afterwards  they  feed  him  on  barley  until  his  belly  bursts.'  (Schickard, 
De  jure  Reguvi,  ii.  2.)  As  history  is  silent  respecting  Paul's  object  in  so  furiously 
procuring  the  imprisonment  of  faithful  disciples  of  Jesus,  it  would  be  hard  now  to 
tell  whether  he  did  it  with  a  view  to  their  punishment,  or  merely  to  hold  them  com- 
mitted for  trial."    (Witsius  i.  18.) 

"  It  seems  to  some  a  strange  business,  that  Paul  should  have  had  the  Cliristians 
whipped  through  the  synagogues.  Why,  in  a  house  consecrated  to  prayer  and  reli- 
gion, were  sentences  of  a  criminal  court  passed,  and  the  punishment  executed  on  the 
criminal  1  This  difficulty  seemed  so  great,  even  to  the  learned  and  judicious  Beza, 
that  in  the  face  of  the  testimony  of  all  manuscripts,  he  would  have  us  suspect  the 
genuineness  of  the  passage  in  Matt.  x.  17,  where  Christ  uses  the  same  expression. 
Such  a  liberty  as  he  would  thus  take  with  the  sacred  text,  is  of  course  against  ail 
modern  rules  of  sacred  criticism.  For  what  should  we  do  then  with  Matt,  xxiii.  34, 
where  the  same  passage  occurs  again "?  Grotius,  to  explain  the  difficulty,  would  have 
the  word  synagogues  understood,  not  in  the  sense  of  houses  of  prayer,  but  of  civil 
courts  of  justice ;  since  such  a  meaning  may  be  drawn  from  the  etymology  of  the 
Greek  word  thus  translated,  {(^wayMyh,  '  a  gathering  together,  or  assembling  for  any 
purpose.')  But  that  too  is  a  forced  construction,  for  no  instance  can  be  brought  out 
of  the  New  Testament,  where  the  word  is  used  in  that  sense,  or  any  other  than  the 
common  one.  What  then  1  We  cannot  be  allowed  to  set  up  the  speculations  which 
we  have  contrived  to  agree  with  our  own  notions,  against  accounts  given  in  so 
full  and  clear  a  manner.  Suppose,  for  a  moment,  that  we  could  find  no  traces  of 
the  custom  of  scourging  in  the  synagogues,  in  other  writers  ;  ought  that  to  be  con- 
sidered doubtful,  which  is  thus  staled  by  Christ  and  Paul,  in  the  plainest  terms,  as  a 
fact  commonly  and  perfectly  well  known  in  their  time"?  Nor  is  there  any  reason 
■why  scourging  in  the  synagogues  should  seem  so  unaccountable  to  us,  since  it  was  a 
grade  of  discipline  less  than  excommunication,  and  less  disgraceful.  For  it  is  made 
to  appear  (hat  some  of  the  most  eminent  of  the  wise,  when  they  broke  the  law,  were 
thus  punished,— not  even  excepting  the  head  of  the  Senate,  nor  the  high  priest  him- 
self." (Witsius,  §  i.  TI  19.)  Witsius  illu.strates  it  still  farther,  by  the  stories  which 
follow. 

"  But  there  are  instances  of  flagellation  in  synagogues  found  in  other  accounts. 


1 


SAUL.  495 

Grotius  himself  quotes  from  Epiphanius,  that  a  certain  Jew  who  wished  to  revolt  to 
Christianity,  was  whipped  in  the  synagogue.  The  story  is  to  the  following  purport: 
'A  man,  named  Joseph,  a  messenger  of  the  Jewish  patriarch,  went  into  Cilicia  by 
order  of  the  patriarch,  to  collect  the  tithes  and  first-fruits  from  the  Jews  of  that  pro- 
vince; and  while  on  his  tour  of  duty,  lodged  in  a  house  near  a  Christian  church. 
Having,  by  means  of  this,  become  acquainted  with  the  pastor,  he  privately  begs  the 
loan  of  the  book  of  the  gospels,  and  reads  it.  But  the  Jews,  getting  wind  of  this, 
were  so  enraged  against  him,  that  on  a  sudden  they  made  an  assault  on  the  house,  and 
caught  Joseph  in  the  very  act  of  reading  the  gospels.  Snatching  the  book  out  of  his 
hands,  they  knocked  him  down,  and  crying  out  against  him  with  all  sorts  of  abuse, 
they  led  him  away  to  the  synagogue,  where  they  whipped  him  with  rods.' 

"  Very  much  like  this  is  the  more  modern  story  which  Uriel  Acosta  tells  of  him- 
self, in  a  little  book,  entitled,  '  The  Pattern  of  Human  Life.'  The  thing  took  place 
in  Amsterdam,  about  the  year  1630.  It  seems  this  Uriel  Acosta  was  a  Jew  by  birth, 
but  being  a  sort  of  Epicurean  philosopher,  had  some  rather  heretical  notions  about 
most  of  the  articles  of  the  Jewish  creed ;  and  on  this  charge,  being  called  to  account 
by  the  rulers  of  the  synagogue,  stood  on  his  trial.  In  the  end  of  it,  a  paper  was  read 
to  him,  in  which  it  was  specified  that  he  must  come  into  the  synagogue,  clothed  in  a 
mourning  garment,  holding  a  black  wax-light  in  his  hand,  and  should  utter  openly 
before  the  congregation  a  certain  form  of  words  prescribed  by  them,  in  which  the 
offenses  he  had  committed  were  magnified  beyond  measure.  After  this,  that  he 
should  be  flogged  with  a  cowskin  or  strap,  publicly,  in  the  synagogue,  and  then 
should  lay  himself  down  flat  on  the  threshold  of  the  synagogue,  that  all  might  walk 
over  him.  How  thoroughly  this  sentence  was  executed,  is  best  learned  from  his  own 
amusing  and  candid  story,  which  is  given  in  the  very  words,  as  literally  as  they 
can  be  translated.  'I  entered  the  synagogue,  which  was  full  of  men  and  women, 
(for  they  had  crammed  in  together  to  see  the  show,)  and  when  it  was  time,  I  mounted 
the  wooden  platform,  which  was  placed  in  the  midst  of  the  synagogue  for  convenience 
in  preaching,  and  with  a  loud  voice  read  the  writing  drawn  up  by  them,  in  which 
was  a  confession  that  I  really  deserved  to  die  a  thousand  times  for  what  I  had  done; 
namely,  fur  my  breaches  of  the  sabbath,  and  for  my  abandonment  of  the  faith,  which 
I  had  broken  so  far  as  even  by  my  words  to  hinder  others  from  embracing  Judaism, 
&c.  After  I  had  got  through  with  the  reading,  I  came  down  from  the  plailbrm,  and 
the  right  reverend  ruler  of  the  synagogue  drew  near  to  me,  and  whispered  in  my  ear 
that  I  must  turn  aside  to  a  certain  corner  of  the  synagogue.  Accordingly,  I  went  to 
the  corner,  and  the  porter  told  me  to  strip.  I  thei5  stripped  my  body  as  low  as  my 
waist, — bound  a  handkerchief  about  my  head, — took  off  my  shoes,  and  raised  my 
arms,  holding  fast  with  my  hands  to  a  sort  of  post.  The  porter  of  the  synagogue,  or 
sexton,  then  came  up,  and  with  a  bandage  tied  up  my  hands  to  the  "post.  When 
things  had  been  thus  arranged,  the  clerk  drew  near,  and  taking  the  cowskin,  struck 
my  sides  with  thirty-nine  blows,  according  to  the  tradition ;  while  in  the  mean  time 
a  psalm  was  chanted.  After  this  was  over,  the  preacher  approached,  and  absolved 
me  from  excommunication  ;  and  thus  was  the  gate  of  heaven  opened  to  me,  which 
before  was  shut  against  me  with  the  strongest  bars,  keeping  me  entirely  out.  I  next 
put  on  my  clothes,  went  to  the  threshold  of  the  synagogue,  and  laid  myself  down  on 
it,  while  the  porter  held  up  my  head.  Then  all  who  came  down  stepped  over  me, 
boys  as  well  as  old  men,  lifting  up  one  foot  and  stepping  over  the  lower  part  of  my 
legs.  When  the  last  had  passed  out,  I  got  up,  and  being  covered  with  dust  by  him 
who  helped  me,  went  home.'  This  .story,  though  rather  tediously  minute  in  its 
disgusting  particulars,  it  was  yet  thought  worth  while  to  copy,  because  this  compara- 
tively modern  scene  seemed  to  give,  to  the  life,  the  old  fashion  of  '  scourging  in  the 
synagogue.' "    (Witsius,  i.  20,  21.) 

HIS  JOURNEY  TO  DAMASCUS 

Thus  equipped  with  the  high  commission  and  letters  of  the  su- 
preme court  of  the  Jewish  nation,  Saul,  breathing  out  threatenings 
and  slaughter  against  the  disciples  of  the  Lord,  went  on  his  way 
to  Damascus,  where  the  sanction  of  his  superiors  would  have  the 
force  of  despotic  law,  against  the  destined  victims  of  his  cruelty. 
The  distance  from  Jerusalem  to  this  great  Syrian  city,  can  not 


496  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

be  less  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  or  three  hundred  miles,  and 
the  journey  must  therefore  have  occupied  as  many  as  ten  or  twelve 
days,  according  to  the  usual  rate  of  traveling  in  those  countries. 
On  this  long  journey,  therefore,  Saul  had  much  season  for  re- 
flexion. There  were,  indeed,  several  persons  in  his  company,  but 
probably  they  were  only  persons  of  an  inferior  order,  and  merely 
the  attendents  necessary  for  his  safety  and  speed  in  traveling. 
Among  these  therefore  he  would  not  be  likely  to  find  any  person 
with  whom  he  could  maintain  any  sympathy  which  could  enable 
them  to  hold  much  conversation  together,  and  he  must  therefore 
have  been  left  through  most  of  the  time  to  the  solitary  enjoyment 
of  his  own  thoughts.  In  the  midst  of  the  peculiar  fatigues  of  an 
eastern  journey,  he  must  have  had  many  seasons  of  bodily  ex- 
haustion and  consequent  mental  depression,  when  the  fire  of  his 
unholy  and  exterminating  zeal  would  grow  languid,  and  the  pain- 
ful doubts  which  always  come  in  at  such  dark  seasons,  to  chill  the 
hopes  of  every  great  mind, — no  matter  what  may  be  the  character 
of  the  enterprise, — must  have  had  the  occasional  effect  of  exciting 
repentant  feelings  in  him.  Why  had  he  left  the  high  and  sacred 
pursuits  of  a  literary  and  religious  life,  in  the  refined  capital  of 
Judaism,  to  endure  the  fatigues  of  a  long  journey  over  rugged 
mountains  and  sandy  deserts,  through  rivers  and  under  a  burning 
sun,  to  a  distant  city,  in  a  strange  land,  among  those  who  were 
perfect  strangers  to  him?  It  was  for  the  sole  object  of  carrying 
misery  and  anguish  among  those  whose  only  crime  was  the  belief 
of  a  doctrine  which  he  hated,  because  it  warred  against  that  so- 
lemn system  of  forms  and  traditions  to  which  he  so  zealously 
clung,  with  all  the  energy  that  early  and  inbred  prejudice  could 
inspire.  But  in  these  seasons  of  weariness  and  depression,  would 
now  occasionally  arise  some  chilling  doubt  about  the  certain  recti- 
tude of  the  stern  course  which  he  had  been  pursuing,  in  a  heat 
that  seldom  allowed  him  time  for  reflexion  on  its  possible  character 
and  tendency.  Might  not  that  faith  against  which  he  was  war- 
ring with  such  devotedness,  be  true  ? — that  faith  which,  amid  blood 
and  dying  agonies,  the  martyr  Stephen  had  witnessed  with  his  very 
last  breath?  At  these  times  of  doubt  and  despondency  would 
perhaps  arise  the  remembrance  of  that  horrible  scene,  when  he 
had  set  by,  a  calm  spectator,  drinking  in  with  delight  the  agonies 
of  the  martyr,  and  learning  from  the  ferocity  of  the  murderers, 
new  lessons  of  cruelty,  to  be  put  in  practice  against  others  who 
should  thus  adhere  to  the  faith  of  Christ.     No  doubt,  too,  an  oc- 


SAUL.  497 

casional  shudder  of  gloom  and  remorse  for  such  acts  would  creep 
over  him  in  the  chill  of  evening,  or  in  the  heat  of  noonday,  and 
darken  all  his  schemes  of  active  vengeance  against  the  brethren. 
But  still  he  journeyed  northward,  and  each  hour  brought  him 
nearer  the  scene  of  long-planned  cruelty.  On  the  last  day  of  his 
wearisome  journey,  he  at  length  drew  near  the  city,  just  at  noon ; 
and  from  the  terms  in  which  his  situation  is  described,  it  is  not 
unreasonable  to  conclude  that  he  was  just  coming  in  sight  of  Da- 
mascus, when  the  event  happened  which  revolutionized  his  pur- 
poses, hopes,  character,  soul,  and  his  whole  existence  through 
eternity, — an  event  connected  with  the  salvation  of  millions  that 
no  man  can  yet  number. 

Descending  from  the  northeastern  slope  of  Hermon,  over  whose 
mighty  range  his  last  day's  journey  had  conducted  him,  Saul  came 
along  the  course  of  the  Abana,  to  the  last  hill  which  overlooks  the 
distant  city.  Here  Damascus  bursts  upon  the  traveler's  view,  in 
the  midst  of  a  mighty  plain,  embosomed  in  gardens,  and  orchards, 
and  groves,  which,  with  the  long  known  and  still  bright  streams 
of  Abana  and  Pharphar,  and  the  golden  flood  of  the  Chrysorrhoas, 
give  the  spot  the  name  of  "  one  of  the  four  paradises."  So  lovely 
and  charming  is  the  sight  which  this  fair  city  has  in  all  ages  pre- 
sented to  the  traveler's  view,  that  the  Turks  relate  that  their  pro- 
phet, coming  near  Damascus,  took  his  station  on  the  mountain 
Salehiyeh,  on  the  west  of  the  hill-girt  plain  in  which  the  city 
stands ;  and  as  he  thence  viewed  the  glorious  and  beauti/ul  spot, 
encompassed  with  gardens  for  thirty  miles,  and  thickl;  set  with 
domes  and  steeples,  over  which  the  eye  glances  as  fsr  as  it  can 
reach, — considering  the  ravishing  beauty  of  the  plfce,  he  would 
not  tempt  his  frailty  by  entering  into  it,  but  instantly  turned  away 
with  this  reflexion :  that  there  was  but  one  paradise  designed  for 
man,  and,  for  his  part,  he  was  resolved  not  to  take  his,  in  this 
world.  And  though  there  is  not  the  slightest  foundation  for  such 
a  story,  because  the  prophet  never  came  near  to  Damascus,  nor 
had  an  opportunity  of  entering  into  it,  yet  the  conspiring  testimony 
of  modern  travelers  justifies  the  fable,  in  the  impression  it  conveys 
of  the  surpassing  loveliness  of  the  view  from  this  very  spot, — 
called  the  Arch  of  Victory,  from  an  unfinished  mass  of  stonework, 
which  here  crowns  the  mountain's  top.  This  spot  has  been  marked 
by  a  worthless  tradition,  as  the  scene  of  Saul's  conversion;  and 
the  locality  is  made  barely  probable,  by  the  much  better  authority 


498  LIVES  OF  THE   APOSTLES. 

of  the  circumstance,  that  it  accords  with  the  sacred  narrative,  in 

being  on  the  road  from  Jerusalem,  and  "  nigh  unto  the  city." 

"  Damascus  is  a  very  ancient  city,  which  the  oldest  records  and  traditions  show  by 
their  accordant  testimony  to  have  been  founded  by  Uz,  the  son  of  Aram,  and  grand- 
son of  Shem.  It  was  the  capital  or  mother  city  of  that  Syria  which  is  distinguished 
by  the  name  of  Aram  Dammesek,  or  Damascene  Syria,  lying  between  Libanus  and 
Anti-Libanus.  Tlie  city  stands  at  the  base  of  Mount  Hermon,  from  which  descend 
the  famous  streams  of  Abana  and  Pharphar  ;  the  latter  washing  the  walls  of  the  city, 
while  the  former  cuts  it  through  the  middle.  It  was  a  very  populous,  delightful,  and 
wealthy  place;  but  as  in  the  course  of  its  existence  it  had  suffered  a  variety  of  for- 
tune, so  it  had  often  changed  masters.  To  pass  over  its  earlier  history,  we  will  only 
observe,  that  before  the  Christian  era,  on  the  defeat  of  Tigranes,  the  Armenian  mon- 
arch, it  was  yielded  to  the  Romans,  being  taken  by  the  armies  of  Pompey.  In  the 
time  of  Paul,  as  we  are  told  in  Corinthians  xi.  32,  it  was  held  under  the  (temporary) 
sway  of  Aretas,  a  king  of  the  Arabians,  falher-in-law  of  Herod  the  tetrarch.  It  had 
then  a  large  Jewish  population,  as  we  may  gather  from  the  fact,  that  in  the  reign  of 
Nero,  10,000  of  that  nation  were  slaughtered,  unarmed,  and  in  the  public  baths,  by 
the  Damascenes,  as  Josephus  records  in  his  history  of  the  Jewish  War,  II.  Book, 
chap.  25.  Among  the  Jews  of  Damascus,  also,  were  a  considerable  number  of 
Christians,  and  it  was  raging  for  the  destruction  of  these,  that  Saul,  furnished  with 
the  letters  and  commission  of  the  Jewish  high  priest,  now  flew  like  a  hawk  upon  the 
doves."    (Witsius,  §  ii.  IT  1,) 

The  sacred  narrative  gives  no  particulars  of  the  other  circum- 
stances connected  with  this  remarkable  event,  in  either  of  the  three 
statements  presented  in  different  parts  of  the  book  of  Acts.  All 
that  is  commemorated,  is,  that  at  mid-day,  as  Saul  with  his  com- 
pany dreAV  near  to  Damascus,  he  saw  a  light  exceeding  the  sun  in 
brightness,  which  flashed  upon  them  from  heaven,  and  struck 
them  all  to  the  earth.  And  while  they  were  all  fallen  to  the 
ground,  Saul  alone  heard  a  voice  speaking  to  him  in  the  Hebrew 
tongue,  and  saying — "  Saul !  Saul !  Why  persecutest  thou  me  ?  It 
is  hard  for  thee  to  lock  against  thorns."  To  this,  Saul  asked,  in 
reply — "  ^^^ho  art  thou.  Lord  ?"  The  answer  was — "  I  am  Jesus 
the  Nazarent,  whom  thou  persecutest."  Saul,  trembling  and  as- 
tonished, replied—"  Lord,  what  wilt  thou  that  I  should  do  ?"  And 
the  voice  said—."  Rise  and  stand  upon  thy  feet,  and  go  into  the 
city ;  there  thou  shalt  be  told  what  to  do,  since  for  this  purpose  I 
have  appeared  to  thee,  to  make  use  of  thee  as  a  minister  and  a 
witness,  both  of  what  thou  hast  seen  and  of  what  I  will  cause 
thee  to  see, — choosing  thee  out  of  the  people,  and  of  the  heathen 
nations  to  whom  I  now  send  thee, — to  open  their  eyes,— to  turn 
them  from  darkness  to  light,  and  from  the  dominion  of  Satan  unto 
God,  that  they  may  receive  remission  of  sins,  and  an  inheritance 
among  them  that  are  sanctified,  by  faith  in  me." 

These  words  are  given  thus  fully  only  in  Saul's  own  account  of  his  conversion,  in 
his  address  to  king  Agrippa.  (Acts  xxvi.  14—18.)  The  original  Greek  of  verse 
17,  is  most  remarkably  and  expressively  significant,  containing,  beyond  all  doubt, 
the  formal  commission  of  Saul  as  the  "  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles."  The  first  word 
in  that  verse  is  translated  in  the  common  English  version,  "  delivering ;"  whereas, 


SAUL.  499 

the  original,  E^aipov/icvni,  means  also  "  taking  out,"  "  choosing ;"  and  is  clearly  shown 
by  Bretschneider,  sub  voc.  in  numerous  references  to  the  usages  of  the  Alexandrine 
translators,  and  by  Ivuinoel,  in  loc,  to  bear  this  latter  meaning  here.  Rosenmiiller 
and  others,  however,  have  been  led,  by  the  circumstance  that  Hesychius  gives  the 
meaning  of  "  rescue,"  to  prefer  that.  Rosenmviller's  remark,  that  the  context  demands 
this  meaning,  is,  however, certainly  unauthorized;  for,  on  this  same  ground,  Kuinoel 
bases  the  firmest  support  of  the  meaning  of  "choice."  The  meaning  of  ''  rescue" 
was  indeed  the  only  one  formerly  received,  but  the  lights  of  modern  exegesis  have 
added  new  distincmess  and  aptness  to  the  passage,  by  the  meaning  adopted  above. 
Beza,  Piscator,  Pagninus,  Arias  Montauus,  Castalio,  &c.,  as  well  as  the  Oriental 
versions,  are  all  quoted  by  Poole  in  defense  of  the  common  rendering,  nor  does  he 
seem  to  know  of  the  sense  now-  received.  But  Saul  was  truly  chosen,  both  "  out  of 
the  people"  of  Israel,  (because  he  was  a  Jew  by  birth  and  religion,)  "  and  out  of  the 
heathen,"  (because  he  was  born  and  brought  up  among  the  Grecians,  and  therefore 
was  taken  out  from  among  them,  as  a  minister  of  grace  to  them,)  and  the  whole  pas- 
sage is  thus  shown  to  be  most  beautifully  just  to  the  circumstances  which  so  eminently 
fitted  him  for  his  Gentile  aposlleship.     The  Greek  verb  used  in  the  conclusion  of  the 

Eassage,  is  the  consecrating  word,  uroartAAo),  {apoUdlo,)  and  makes  up  the  formula  of 
is  apostolic  commission,  which  is  there  given  in  language  worthy  of  the  vast  and 
eternal  scope  of  the  sense, — words  fit  to  be  spoken  from  heaven,  in  thunder,  amid  ihe 
flash  of  lightnings,  that  called  the  bloody-minded,  bitter,  maddened  persecutor,  to  the 
peaceful,  devoted,  unshrinking  testimony  of  the  cause,  against  the  friends  of  which  he 
before  breathed  only  threatenings  and  slaughter. 

All  this  took  place  while  the  whole  company  of  travelers  were 
lying  prostrate  on  the  ground,  stunned,  and  almost  senseless.  Of 
all  those  present,  however,  Saul  only  heard  these  solemn  words  of 
warning,  command,  and  prophecy,  thus  sent  from  heaven  in  thun- 
der ;  for  he  himself  afterwards,  in  narrating  these  awful  events 
before  the  Jewish  multitude,  expressly  declares,  "the  men  that  were 
with  me,  saw  the  light,  indeed,  and  were  afraid ;  but  they  heard 
NOT  the  voice  of  him  who  spoke  to  me."  And  though  in  the  pre- 
vious statement  given  by  Luke,  in  the  regular  course  of  the  nar- 
rative, it  is  said  that  "  the  men  who  journeyed  with  Saul  were 
speechless, — hearing  a  voice,  but  seeing  no  man ;"  yet  the  two 
statements  are  clearly  reconciled  by  the  consideration  of  the  differ- 
ent meanings  of  the  word  translated  "  voice!''''  in  both  passages,  but 
which  the  accompanying  expressions  sufficiently  limit  in  the  latter 
case  only  to  the  articulate  sounds  of  a  human  voice,  while  in  the 
former  it  is  left  in  such  terms  as  to  mean  merely  a  "  sound,"  as  of 
thunder,  or  any  thing  else  which  can  be  supposed  to  agree  best 
with  the  other  circumstances.  To  them,  therefore,  it  seemed  only 
surprising,  not  miraculous ;  for  they  are  not  mentioned  as  being 
impressed,  otherwise  than  by  fear  and  amazement,  while  Saul,  who 
alone  heard  the  words,  was  moved  thereby  to  a  complete  conver- 
sion. The  whole  circumstances,  therefore,  allow  and  require,  in 
accordance  with  other  similar  passages,  that  the  material  phe- 
nomena which  were  made  the  instruments  of  this  miraculous  con- 
version, were  as  they  are  described,  first,  a  flash  of  light  from  the 
sky,  which  struck  the  company  to  the  earth,  giving  all  a  severe 


500  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

shock,  but  affecting  Saul  most  of  all,  and  second,  a  tremendous 
noise  accompanying  the  flash,  heard  only  as  such  by  all,  except 
Saul,  who  distinguished  in  those  awful,  repeated  sounds,  the  words 
of  a  heavenly  voice,  with  which  he  held  distinct  converse,  while 
his  wondering  companions  thought  him  only  muttering  incohe- 
rently to  himself,  between  the  peals  of  the  noise ; — ^just  as  in  the 
passage  related  by  John,  when  Jesus  called  to  God — "  Father  ! 
glorify  thy  name ;"  and  then  there  came  a  voice  from  heaven,  say- 
ing— "  I  both  have  glorified  it  and  will  glorify  it ;"  yet  the  people 
who  then  stood  by,  said — "  It  thundered^'' — having  no  idea  of  the 
expressive  utterance  which  was  so  distinctly  heard  by  Jesus  and 
his  disciples.  The  sequel  of  the  effects^  too,  are  such  as  would 
naturally  follow  these  material  agencies.  The  men  who  were 
least  stunned,  rose  to  their  feet  soon  after  the  first  shock  ;  and  when 
the  awful  scene  was  over,  they  bestirred  themselves  Xo  lift  up  Saul, 
who  was  now  found,  not  only  speechless,  but  blind, — the  eyes 
being  so  dazzled  by  such  excess  of  light,  that,  as  is  well  known 
in  similar  cases,  the  nerve  loses  all  its  power,  generally,  for  ever. 
Saul  being  now  raised  from  the  ground,  was  led,  helplfiss  and 
thunder-struck,  by  his  distressed  attendents,  into  the  city,  which 
he  had  hoped  to  make  the  scene  of  his  cruel  persecutions,  but 
which  he  now  entered,  more  surely  bound,  than  could  have  been 
the  most  wretched  of  his  destined  captives. 

Kuinoel  and  Bloomfield  will  furnish  the  inquiring  reader  with  the  amusing  details 
of  the  hypotheses,  by  which  some  of  the  moderns  have  attempted  to  explain  away 
the  whole  of  Saul's  conversion,  into  a  mere  remarkable  succession  of  natural  occur- 
rences, without  any  miracle  at  all. 

The  date  of  Saul's  conversion  is  a  point  much  mooted  among  the  chronologists. 
Baronius  fixes  it  in  A.  D.  36,  (corrected  by  Pagi  to  A.  D.  34,)  in  the  twentieth  year 
of  Tiberius,  (corrected  by  Pagi  to  the  twenty-first,')  two  years  after  the  crucifixion, 
and  a  little  more  than  one  year  after  Stephen's  death.  Cave  says  A.  D.  33.  (Hist. 
Lit.)  Pearson  and  Usher,  with  many  others,  prefer  A.  D.  35, — of  Tiberius  22.  Eu- 
sebius  (Chron.)  places  it  in  Tiberius  23.  ]L.ouis  Cappell  in  A.  D.  38,  which  he 
reckons  i\\e  fifth  from  the  crucifixion,  and  the  scco?^(^  of  Caligula's  reign.  Spanheim, 
followed  by  Witsius,  decides  in  favor  of  A.  D.  40,  the  fourth  of  Caligula,  the  seventh 
from  the  crucifixion.  Schmidt  (Chron.  Apost.  in  Keil.  &  Tschirner  Analect.  quoted 
by  Hcmsen)  takes  A.  D.  41.  But  Bengal  (Ord.  temp.)  is  quoted  as  fixing  this  event 
in  A.  D.  31,  just  ten  years  earlier  than  the  date  last  quoted.  So,  as  Hemsen  well  re- 
marks— "  there  is  from  A.  D.  31  to  A.  D.  41  hardly  a  year  in  which  the  conversion 
of  Paul  has  not  been  placed."  Hemsen  gives  the  fullest  and  best  view  that  I  have 
ever  seen  of  this  chronological  question;  and  the  argumenis  on  which  he  rests  his 
conclusions  are  so  new,  and  so  little  noticed  by  any  other  writer,  that  his  opinion  is 
entitled  to  the  highest  regard.  He  connects  the  date  with  the  conquest  of  Damascus 
by  Aretas,  (2  Cor.  xi.  32,) — a  point  which  can  be  nearly  fixed,  by  a  reference  to  con- 
temporary heathen  annals.  On  this  valuable  ground  Hemsen,  after  a  full  discussion, 
bases  the  conclusion  that  A.  D.  36  was  the  year  of  Saul's  conversion.  (Hem.sen's 
Apostel  Paulus,  i.  cap.  Anhang.  pp.  16 — 23.)  This  is  the  best  article  that  I  know  of, 
on  this  subject;  but  to  some  parts  of  his  opinion  as  to  the  time  of  Paul's  flight  into 
Arabia  I  must  object.    Neander  coincides  with  Hemsen.    (Apostelg.  iii.  1,  pp.  80, 81."^ 


SAUL.  *"  501 

HIS  STAY  IN  DAMASCUS. 

Thus  did  the  commissioned  persecutor  enter  the  ancient  capital 
of  Aram.  But  as  they  led  him  along  the  flowery  ways  into  this 
Syrian  paradise,  how  vain  were  its  splendors,  its  beauties,  and  its 
historic  glories,  to  the  eyes  which  had  so  long  strained  over  the 
far  horizon,  to  catch  the  first  gleam  of  its  white  towers  and  rosy 
gardens  beyond  tlie  mountain-walls.  In  vain  did  Damascus  invite 
the  admiring  gaze  of  the  passing  traveler,  to  those  damask  roses, 
embowering  and  hedging  his  path,  which  take  their  name  in  mo- 
dern times  from  the  gardens  where  they  first  bloomed  under 
the  hand  of  man.  In  vain  did  their  fragrance  woo  his  nobler 
sense  to  perceive  their  beauty  of  form  and  hue ;  in  vain  did  the 
long  line  of  palaces  and  towers  and  temples,  still  bright  in  the 
venerable  splendor  of  the  ancient  Aramaic  kings,  rise  in  majesty 
before  him.  The  eyes  that  had  so  often  dwelt  on  these  historical 
monuments,  in  the  distant  and  brilliant  fancies  of  studious  youth, 
were  now  closed  to  the  not  less  brilliant  splendors  of  the  reality ; 
and  through  the  ancient  arches  of  those  mighty  gates,  and  along 
the  crowded  streets,  amid  the  noise  of  bustling  thousands,  the  com- 
missioned minister  of  wrath  now  moved,  distressed,  darkened, 
speechless,  and  horror-struck, — marked,  like  the  first  murderer,  (of 
whose  crime  that  spot  was  the  fabled  scene,)  by  the  hand  of  God, 
The  hand  of  God  was  indeed  on  him,  not  in  wrath,  but  in  mercy, 
sealing  his  abused  bodily  visiorf  for  a  short  space,  until  his  mental 
eyes,  purified  from  the  scales  of  prejudice  and  unholy  zeal,  should 
have  become  fitted  for  the  perception  of  objects,  whose  beauty  and 
glory  should  be  the  theme  of  his  thoughts  and  words,  through  all 
his  later  days,  and  of  his  discourse  to  millions  for  whom  his  heart 
now  felt  no  love,  but  for  whose  salvation  he  was  destined  to  freely 
spend  and  ofier  up  his  life.  Passing  along  the  crowded  ways  of 
the  great  city,  under  the  guidance  of  his  attendents,  he  was  at 
last  led  into  the  street,  which  for  its  regularity  was  called  the 
"  Straight  Way,"  and  there  was  lodged  in  the  house  of  a  per- 
son named  Judas, — remaining  for  three  di.  j  in  utter  darkness, 
without  the  presence  of  a  single  friend,  and  without  the  glimmer 
of  a  hope  that  he  should  ever  again  see  the  light  of  day.  Dis- 
consolate and  desolate,  he  passed  the  whole  of  this  period  in  fast- 
ing, without  one  earthly  object  or  call,  to  distract  his  attention 
from  the  solemn  themes  of  his  heavenly  vision.  He  had  all  this 
long  interval  for  reflexion  on  the  strange  reversion  of  destiny 


502  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

pointed  out  by  this  indisputable  decree,  which  summoned  him 
from  works  of  cruelty  and  destruction,  to  deeds  of  charity,  kind- 
ness, and  devotion,  to  those  whose  ruin  he  had  lately  sought  with 
his  whole  iieart.  At  the  close  of  this  season  of  lonely  but  blessed 
meditation,  a  new  revelation  of  the  commanding  presence  of  the 
Deity  was  made  to  a  humble  and  devout  Christian  of  Damascus, 
named  Ananias,  known  even  among  the  Jews  as  a  man  of  blame- 
less character.  To  him,  in  a  vision,  the  Lord  appeared,  and  call- 
ing him  by  name,  directed  him  most  minutely  to  the  house  where 
Saul  was  lodging,  and  gave  him  the  miraculous  commission  of 
restoring  to  sight  that  same  Saul,  now  deprived  of  this  sense  by 
the  visitation  of  God,  but  expecting  its  restoration  by  the  hands  of 
Ananias  himself,  who,  though  yet  unkno^vn  to  him  in  the  body,  had 
been  distinctly  seen  in  a  vision  by  the  blind  sufferer,  as  his  healer, 
in  the  name  of  that  Jesus  who  had  met  him  in  the  way  and  smote 
him  with  this  blindness,  dazzling  him  with  the  excess  of  his  un- 
veiled heavenly  glories.  Ananias,  yet  appalled  by  the  startling 
view  of  the  bright  messenger,  and  doubting  the  nature  of  the 
vision  which  summoned  him  to  a  duty  so  strangely  inconsistent 
with  the  dreadful  fame  and  character  of  the  person  named  as  the 
subject  of  his  miraculous  ministrations,  hesitated  to  promise  obedi- 
ence, and  parleyed  with  his  summoner.  "  Lord !  I  have  heard  by 
many  of  this  man,  how  much  evil  he  has  done  to  thy  saints  at 
Jerusalem  ;  and  here,  he  has  commission  from  the  chief  priests  to 
bind  all  that  call  on  thy  name."  ^he  merciful  Lord,  not  resent- 
ing the  rational  doubts  of  his  devout  but  alarmed  servant,  replied 
in  words  of  considerate  explanation,  renewing  his  charge,  with 
assurances  of  the  safe  and  hopeful  accomplishment  of  his  appointed 
task.  "  Go  thy  way :  for  he  is  a  chosen  instrument  of  mercy  for 
me,  to  bear  my  name  before  nations  and  kings,  and  the  children 
of  Israel :  for  I  will  show  him  how  great  things  he  must  suffer  for 
the  sake  of  my  name."  Ananias,  no  longer  doubting,  now  went 
his  way  as  directed,  and  finding  Saul,  clearly  addressed  him  in 
terms  of  confidence  and  even  of  affection,  recognizing  him,  on  the 
testimony  of  the  vision,  as  already  a  friend  of  those  companions 
of  Jesus  whom  he  had  lately  persecuted.  He  put  his  hands  on 
him,  in  the  usual  form  of  invoking  a  blessing  on  any  one,  and 
said — "  Brother  Saul !  the  Lord  Jesus,  who  appeared  to  thee  in  the 
way,  as  thou  camest,  has  sent  me,  that  thou  mightest  receive  thy 
sight,  and  be  filled  with  a  holy  spirit."  And  immediately  there 
fell  from  the  eyes  of  the  blinded  persecutor,  something  like  scales, 


i: 


SAUL.  503 

and  he  saw  now,  in  bodily,  real  presence,  him  who  had  already 
been  in  form  revealed  to  his  spirit,  in  a  vision.  At  the  same  mo- 
ment, fell  from  his  inward  sense,  the  obscuring  film  of  prejudice 
and  bigotry.  Renewed  in  mental  vision,  he  saw  with  the  clear 
eye  of  confiding  faith  and  eternal  hope,  that  Jesus,  who  in  the  full 
revelation  of  his  vindictive  majesty  having  dazzled  and  blinded 
him  in  his  murderous  career,  now  appeared  to  his  purified  sense 
in  the  tempered  rays  and  mild  efi;ulgence  of  redeeming  crace. 
Changed,  too,  in  the  whole  frame  of  his  mind,  he  felt  no  more  the 
promptings  of  that  dark  spirit  of  cruelty,  but  filled  with  a  spirit, 
before  unknown  to  him,  he  began  a  new  existence,  replete  with 
the  energies  of  a  divine  influence.  No  longer  fasting  in  token  of 
distress,  he  now  ate,  by  way  of  thanksgiving  for  his  joyful  resto- 
ration, and  was  strengthened  thereby  for  the  great  task  which  he 
had  undertaken.  He  was  now  admitted  to  the  fellowship  of  the 
disciples  of  Jesus,  and  remained  many  days  among  them  as  a 
brother,  mingling  in  the  most  friendly  intercourse  with  those  very 
persons  against  whom  he  came  to  wage  exterminating  ruin.  Nor 
did  he  confine  his  actions  in  his  new  character  to  the  privacies  of 
Christian  intercourse.  Going  immediately  into  the  spiao^ogues, 
he  there  publicly  proclaimed  his  belief  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  boldly 
maintained  him  to  be  the  Son  of  God.  Great  was  the  amazement 
of  all  who  heard  him.  The  fame  of  Saul  of  Tarsus,  as  a  fero- 
cious and  determined  persecutor  of  those  who  professed  the  faith  of 
Jesus,  had  already  pervaded  Palestine,  and  spread  into  Syria ;  and 
what  did  this  strange  display  now  mean?  They  saw  him,  whom 
they  had  thus  known  by  his  dreadful  reputation  as  a  hater  and 
exterminator  of  the  Nazarene  doctrine,  now  preaching  it  in  the 
schools  of  the  Jewish  law  and  the  houses  of  worship  for  the  ad- 
herents of  Mosaic  forms,  and  with  great  power  persuading  others 
to  a  similar  renunciation  of  all  opposition  to  the  name  of  Jesus ; 
and  they  said — "  Is  not  this  he  who  destroyed  them  that  called  on 
this  name  in  Jerusalem,  and  came  hither,  with  the  very  purpose 
of  taking  them  bound,  to  the  Sanhedrim,  for  pimishment  ?''  But 
Saul,  each  day  advancing  in  the  knowledge  and  faith  of  the  Chris- 
tian doctrine,  soon  grew  too  strong  in  argument  for  the  most  skil- 
ful of  the  defenders  of  the  Jewish  faith ;  and  utterly  confounded 
them  with  his  proofs  that  Jesus  was  the  very  Messiah.  This  tri- 
umphant course  he  followed  for  a  long  time  ;  until,  at  last,  the 
stubborn  Jews,  provoked  to  the  highest  degree  by  the  defeats  which 
they  had  sufiered  from  this  powerful  disputant,  lately  their  most 


504  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

zealous  defender,  took  counsel  to  put  him  to  death,  as  a  renegade 
from  the  faith,  of  which  he  had  been  the  trusted  professor,  as  well 
as  the  commissioned  minister  of  its  vengeance  on  the  heretics 
whose  cause  he  had  now  espoused,  and  was  defending,  to  the  great 
injury  and  discredit  of  the  Judaical  order.  In  contriving  the 
means  of  executing  this  scheme,  they  received  the  support  and 
assistence  of  the  government  of  the  city, — Damascus  being  then 
held,  not  by  the  Romans,  but  by  Aretas,  a  petty  king  of  northern 
Arabia.  The  governor  appointed  by  Aretas,  did  not  scruple  to 
aid  the  Jews  in  their  murderous  project ;  but  even  himself,  with  a 
detachment  of  the  city  garrison,  kept  watch  at  the  gates,  to  kill 
Saul  at  his  first  outgoing.  But  all  their  wicked  plots  were  set  at 
nought  by  a  very  simple  contrivance.  The  Christian  friends  of 
Saul,  hearing  of  the  danger,  determined  to  remove  him  from  it  at 
once ;  and  accordingly,  one  night,  put  the  destined  apostle  of  the 
Gentiles  in  a  basket ;  and  through  the  window  of  some  one  of 
their  houses,  which  adjoined  the  wall  of  the  city,  they  let  him 
down  outside  of  the  barriers,  while  the  spiteful  Jews,  with  the 
complaisant  governor  and  his  detachment  of  the  city  guard,  were 
to  no  purpose  watching  the  gates  with  unceasing  resolution,  to 
wreak  their  vengeance  on  this  dangerous  convert. 

Michaelis  alludes  to  the  difficulties  which  have  arisen  about  the  possession  of  Da- 
mascus by  Aretas,  and  concludes  as  follows  : 

"  The  force  of  these  objections  has  been  considerably  weakened,  in  a  dissertation 
published  in  1775,  '  De  elhnarcha  Aretae  Arabum  regis  Paulo  insidianle,'  by  J.  G. 
Heyne,  who  has  shown  it  to  be  highly  probable,  first,  that  Aretas,  against  whom  the 
Romans,  not  long  before  the  deaih  of  Tiberius,  made  a  declaration  of  war,  which 
they  neglected  to  put  in  execution,  took  the  opportunity  of  seizing  Damascus,  which 
had  once  belonged  to  his  ancestors ;  an  event  omitted  in  Josephus,  as  forming  no  part 
of  the  Jewish  history,  and  by  the  Roman  historians,  as  being  a  matter  not  flattering  in 
itself,  and  belonging  only  to  a  distant  province.  Secondly,  that  Aretas  was  by  reli- 
gion a  Jew, — a  circumstance  the  more  credible,  when  we  reflect  that  Judaism  had 
been  widely  propagated  in  that  country,  and  that  even  kings  in  Arabia  Felix  had  re- 
cognized the  law  of  Moses.  *  *****  And  hence  we  may 
explain  the  reason  why  the  Jews  were  permitted  to  exercise,  in  Damascus,  persecu- 
tions still  severer  than  those  in  Jerusalem,  where  the  violence  of  their  zeal  was  awed 
by  the  moderation  of  the  Roman  policy.  Of  this  we  find  an  example  in  the  ninth 
chapter  of  the  Acts,  where  Paul  is  sent  by  the  high  priest  to  Damascus,  to  exercise 
against  the  Christians,  cruelties  which  the  return  of  the  Roman  governor  had  check- 
ed in  Judea.  These  accounts  agree  likewise  with  what  is  related  in  Josephus,  that 
the  number  of  Jews  in  Damascus  amounted  to  ten  thousand,  and  that  almost  all  the 
women,  even  those  whose  husbands  were  heathens,  were  of  the  Jewish  religion." 
(Michael.  Introd.  Vol.  IV.  Part  I.  c.  ii.  §  12.) 

Acts  ix.  22—24.—"  In  2  Cor.  ix.  32,  we  read  that  the  Ethnarch  of  Aretas,  king  of 
Arabia,  had  placed  a  guard  at  the  gates  of  Damascus,  to  seize  Paul.  Now  it  appears 
that  Syria  Damascene  was,  at  the  end  of  the  Mithridatic  war,  reduced  by  Pompey  to 
the  Roman  yoke.  It  has  therefore  been  inquired,  how  it  could  happen  that  Aretas 
should  then  have  the  government,  and  appoint  an  Ethnarch.  That  Aretas  had,  on 
account  of  the  repudiation  of  his  daughter  by  Herod  Antipas,  commenced  hostilities 
against  that  monarch,  and  in  the  last  year  of  Tiberius  (A.  D.  37)  had  completely  de- 
feated his  army,  we  learn  from  Joseph.  Ant.  18,  5,  1.  seqq.    Herod  had,  we  find, 


SAUL.  505 

signified  this  by  letter  to  Tiberius,  who,  indignant  at  this  audacity,  (Joseph.  L.  c.,) 
gave  orders  to  Vitellius,  prefect  of  Syria,  to  declare  war  against  Aretas,  and  take 
him  alive,  or  send  him  his  head.  Vitellius  made  preparations  for  the  war,  but  on 
receiving  a  message  acquainting  him  with  the  death  of  Tiberius,  he  dismissed  his 
troops  into  winter  quarters.  And  thus  Aretas  was  delivered  from  the  danger.  At 
the  time,  however,  that  Vitellius  drew  off  his  forces,  Aretas  invaded  Syria,  seized 
Damascus,  and  continued  to  occupy  it,  in  spite  of  Tiberius's  stupid  successor,  Ca- 
ligula. This  is  the  opinion  of  most  commentators,  and  among  others.  Wolf,  Mi- 
chaelis,  and  Eichhorn.  But  I  have  already  shown  in  the  Proleg.  §  de  chronologia  lib. 
2,  3,  that  Aretas  did  not  finally  subdue  Damascus  until  Vitellius  had  already  depart- 
ed from  the  province."    Kuinoel.    (Bloomfield's  Annotations,  Vol.  IV.  pp.  Sa-^— 324.) 

HIS  RESIDENCE  IN  ARABIA. 

On  his  escape  from  this  murderous  plot,  Saul,  having  now  re- 
eeived  from  God,  who  called  him  by  his  grace,  the  revelation  of 
his  Son,  that  he  might  preach  him  among  the  heathen,  immediately 
resolved  not  to  confer  with  any  mortal,  on  the  subject  of  his  task, 
and  therefore  refrained  from  going  up  to  Jerusalem,  to  visit  those 
who  were  apostles  before  him.  Turning  his  course  southeastward, 
he  found  refuge  from  the  rage  of  the  Damascan  Jews,  in  the  soli- 
tudes of  the  eastern  deserts,  where,  free  alike  from  the  persecutions 
and  the  corruptions  of  the  city,  he  sought  in  meditation  and  lonely 
study,  that  diligent  preparation  which  was  necessary  for  the  high 
ministry  to  which  God  had  so  remarkably  called  him.  A  long 
time  was  spent  by  him  in  this  wise  and  profitable  seclusion  ;  but 
the  exact  period  cannot  be  ascertained.  It  is  only  probable  that 
more  than  a  year  was  thus  occupied  ;  during  which  he  was  not  a 
mere  hermit,  indeed,  but  at  any  rate,  was  a  resident  in  a  region 
destitute  of  most  objects  which  would  be  apt  to  draw  off  his  atten- 
tion from  study.  That  part  of  Arabia  in  which  he  took  refuge, 
was  not  a  mere  desert,  nor  a  wilderness,  yet  had  very  few  towns, 
and  those  only  of  a  small  size,  with  hardly  any  inhabitants  of  such 
a  character  as  to  be  attractive  companions  to  Saul.  After  some 
time,  changes  having  taken  place  in  the  government  of  Damascus, 
he  was  enabled  to  return  thither  with  safety,  the  Jews  being  now 
checked  in  their  persecuting  cruelty  by  the  re-establishment  of  the 
Roman  dominion  over  that  part  of  Syria.  He  did  not  remain  there 
long ;  but  having  again  displayed  himself  as  a  bold  assertor  of  the 
faith  of  Jesus,  he  next  set  his  face  towards  Jerusalem,  on  his  re- 
turn, to  make  known  in  the  halls  of  those  who  had  sent  him  forth 
to  deeds  of  blood,  that  their  commission  had  been  reversed  by  the 
Father  of  all  spirits,  who  had  now  not  only  summoned,  but  fully 
equipped,  their  destined  minister  of  wrath,  to  be  "  a  chosen  instru- 
ment of  mercy"  to  nations  who  had  never  yet  heard  of  Israel's  God. 

The  different  accounts  given  of  these  events,  in  Acts  ix.  19 — 25,  and  in  Galatians 


506  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

i.  IS— 2^1,  as  well  as  2  Cor.  xi.  32,  33,  have  been  united  in  very  opposite  ways  by  dif- 
ferent commentators,  and  form  the  most  perplexing  passages  in  the  life  of  Saul.  The 
journey  into  Arabia,  of  which  he  speaks  in  Galatians  i.  17,  is  supposed  by  most  wri- 
ters to  have  been  made  during  the  time  when  Luke  mentions  him  as  occupied  in  and 
about  Damascus;  and  it  is  said  that  he  went  thence  into  Arabia  immedialely  after  his 
conversion,  before  he  had  preached  anywhere ;  and  such  writers  maintain  that  the 
word  '^  airaig/dwaij,"  or  "immediatcLij,"  in  Acts  ix.  20,  (tietojf,)  really  means,  that  it 
was  not  until  a  Ion?  time  after  his  conversion  that  he  preached  in  the  synagogues! 
Into  this  remarkable  opinion  they  have  been  led  by  the  fact,  that  Saul  himself  says, 
(Galat.  i.  l(j,)  that  when  he  was  called  by  God  to  the  aposileship,  "  immediately  he 
conferred  not  with  flesh  and  blood,  nor  went  up  to  Jerusalem,  but  went  into  Arabia." 
All  this,  however,  is  evidently  specified  by  him  only  in  reference  to  the  point  that  he 
did  not  derive  his  title  to  the  aposileship  from  "  those  that  were  apostles  before  him," 
nor  from  any  human  authority ;  and  full  justice  is  therefore  done  to  his  words,  by 
applying  them  only  to  the  fact,  that  he  went  to  Arabia  before  he  went  to  Jerusalem, 
without  supposing  them  to  mean  that  he  left  Damascus  immediately  after  his  baptism 
by  Ananias.  All  the  historical  writers,  however,  seem  to  take  this  latter  view. 
Witsius,  Cappel,  Pearson,  Lardner,  Murdock,  Hemsen,  &c.,  place  his  journey  to 
Arabia  between  his  baptism  and  the  time  of  his  escape,  and  suppose  that  when  he  fled 
from  Damascus,  he  went  directly  to  Jerusalem.  In  the  different  arrangement  which 
I  make  of  these  events,  however,  I  find  myself  siipported  by  most  of  the  great  exegeti- 
cal  writers,  as  Wolf,  Kuinoel,  and  Bloomfield  ;  and  I  cannot  better  support  this  view 
than  in  the  words  of  the  two  latter. 

Acts  ix.  10. — "  Paul  (Galat.  i.  17)  relates  that  he,  after  his  conversion,  did  not  pro- 
ceed to  Jerusalem,  but  repaired  to  Arabia,  and  from  thence  returned  to  Damascus. 
Hence,  according  to  the  opinion  of  Pear.son,  in  his  Annal.  Paul.  p.  2,  the  words 
iyevcTo  6i  o  JlavXog  are  to  be  separated  from  the  preceding  passage,  and  constitute  a  new 
story,  in  which  is  related  what  happened  at  Damascus  after  Saul's  return  from  Arabia. 
But  the  words  kaful  hucuat  may  and  ought  to  be  referred  to  the  whole  time  of  Paul's 
abode  at  Damascus,  before  he  went  into  Arabia ;  and  thus  with  the  u-ui/ui  liiicpat  be 
numbered  the  ))iupat  rtwis,  mentioned  at  ver.  19;  for  the  sense  of  the  words  is  this: 
'Saul,  when  he  spent  some  days  with  the  Damascene  Christians,  immediately  taught 
in  the  synagogues.  Now  Luke  entirely  passes  by  Paul's  journey  into  Arabia. 
(Kuin.)  Doddridge  imagines  that  his  going  into  Arabia,  (to  which,  as  he  observes, 
Damascus  now  belonged,)  was  only  making  excursions  from  that  city  into  the  neigh- 
boring parts  of  the  country,  and  perhaps  taking  a  large  circuit  about  it,  which  might 
be  his  employment  between  the  time  in  which  he  began  to  preach  in  Damascus,  and 
his  quitting  it  after  having  been  conquered  by  the  Romans  under  Pompey.'  But  in 
view  of  this  subject  I  cannot  agree  with  him.  The  country  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Damascus  is  not  properly  Araiia."  (Blooiiofield's  Annotations  on  the  New  Testa- 
ment, vol.  IV.  p.  322.) 

HIS  RETURN  TO  JERUSALEM. 

Arriving  in  the  city,  whence  only  three  years  before  he  had  set 
out,  in  a  frame  of  mind  so  different  from  that  in  which  he  return- 
ed, and  with  a  purpose  so  opposite  to  his  present  views  and  plans, 
— he  immediately,  with  all  the  confidence  of  Christian  faith,  and 
ardent  love  for  those  to  whom  his  religious  sympathies  now  so 
closely  fastened  him,  assayed  to  mingle  in  a  familiar  and  friendly 
manner  with  the  apostolic  company,  and  offered  himself  to  their 
Christian  fellowship  as  a  devout  believer  in  Jesus,  But  they, 
already  having  too  well  known  him  in  his  previous  character  as 
the  persecutor  of  their  brethren,  the  aider  and  abettor  in  the  murder 
of  the  heroic  and  innocent  Stephen,  and  the  greatest  enemy  of  the 
faithful, — very  decidedly  repulsed  his  advances,  as  only  a  new 
trick  to  involve  them  in  difficulties,  that  would  make  them  liable 


SAUL.  507 

to  punishment,  which  their  prudence  had  before  enabled  them  to 
escape.  They  therefore  altogether  refused  to  receive  Saul ;  for 
"  they  were  all  afraid  of  him,  and  believed  not  that  he  was  a  dis- 
ciple." In  this  disagreeable  condition, — cast  out  as  a  hypocrite 
by  the  apostles  of  that  faith,  for  which  he  had  sacrificed  all  earthly 
prospects, — he  was  fortunately  found  by  Barnabas,  who  being,  like 
Saul,  a  Hellenist  Jew,  naturally  felt  some  special  sympathy  with 
one  whose  country  was  within  a  few  miles  of  his  own ;  and  by 
this  circumstance,  being  induced  to  notice  the  professed  convert, 
soon  recognized  in  him  the  indubitable  signs  of  a  regenerated  and 
sanctified  spirit,  and  therefore  brought  him  to  the  chief  apostles, 
Peter  and  James,  the  Lord's  brother  ;  for  with  these  alone  did 
Saul  commune,  at  this  visit,  as  he  himself  distinctly  testifies.  Still 
avoiding  the  company  of  the  great  mass  of  the  apostles  and  disci- 
ples, he  confined  himself  almost  wholly  to  the  acquaintance  of 
Peter,  with  whom  he  abode  in  close  familiarity  for  fifteen  days. 
In  order  to  reconcile  the  narrative  of  Luke  in  the  Acts,  with  the 
account  given  by  Saul  himself,  in  the  first  chapter  of  the  epistle  to 
the  Galatians,  it  must  be  understood  that  the  "  apostles'^  spoken  of 
by  the  former  are  only  the  two  above-mentioned,  and  it  was  with 
these  only  that  he  "  went  in  and  out  at  Jerusalem," — the  other 
apostles  being  probably  absent  on  som.e  missionary  duties  among 
the  new  churches  throughout  Judea  and  Palestine.  Imitating  the 
spirit  of  the  proto-martyr,  whose  death  he  had  himself  been  in- 
strumental in  eflfecting,  "  he  spoke  boldly  in  the  name  of  the  Lord 
Jesus,  and  disputed  against  the  Hellenists,"  doubtless  the  very  same 
persons  among  whom  he  himself  had  formerly  been  enrolled  as  an 
unshrinking  opposer  of  that  faith  which  he  was  now  advocating. 
By  them  he  was  received  with  all  that  vindictive  hate  which  might 
have  been  expected  ;  and  he  was  at  once  denounced  as  a  vile  rene- 
gade from  the  cause  which  in  his  best  days  he  had  maintained  as 
the  only  right  one.  To  show  most  satisfactorily  that,  though  he 
might  change,  they  had  not  done  so,  they  directly  resolved  to  pun- 
ish the  bold  disowner  of  the  faith  of  his  fathers,  and  would  soon 
have  crowned  him  with  the  fate  of  Stephen,  had  not  the  disciples 
heard  of  the  danger  which  threatened  the  life  of  their  new  brother, 
and  provided  for  his  escape  by  means  not  less  efficient  than  those 
before  used  in  his  behalf,  at  Damascus.  Before  the  plans  for  his 
destruction  could  be  completed,  they  privately  withdrew  him  from 
Jerusalem,  and  had  him  safely  conducted  down  to  Caesarea,  on 
the  coast,  whence,  with  little  delay,  he  was  shipped  for  some  of 


508  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  northern  parts  of  Syria,  from  which  he  found  his  way  to  Tar- 
sus,— whether  by  land  or  sea,  is  unknown. 

HIS  VISIT  TO  TARSUS. 

This  return  to  his  native  city  was  probably  the  first  visit  which 
he  had  made  to  it,  since  the  day  when  he  departed  from  his  fa- 
ther's house,  to  go  to  Jerusalem  as  a  student  of  Jewish  theology. 
It  must  therefore  have  been  the  occasion  of  many  interesting  re- 
flexions and  reminiscences.  What  chano'es  had  the  events  of  that 
interval  wrought  in  him — in  his  faith,  his  hopes,  his  views,  his 
purposes  for  life  and  for  death  !  The  objects  which  were  then  to 
him  as  idols, — the  aims  and  ends  of  his  being, — had  now  no  place 
in  his  reverence  or  his  afiection ;  but  in  their  stead  was  now 
placed  a  name  and  a  theme,  of  which  he  could  hardly  have  heard 
before  he  first  left  Tarsus, — and  a  cause  whose  triumph  would  be 
the  overthrow  of  all  those  traditions  of  the  Fathers,  of  which  he 
had  been  taught  to  be  so  exceedingly  zealous.  To  this  new  cause 
he  now  devoted  himself,  and  probably  at  this  time  labored  "  in  the 
regions  of  Cilicia,"  until  a  new  apostolic  summons  called  him  to  a 
distant  field.  He  was  yet  "  personally  unknown  to  the  churches 
of  Judea,  which  were  in  Christ ;  and  they  had  only  heard,  that  he 
who  persecuted  them  in  times  past,  now  preached  the  faith  which 
once  he  destroyed ;  they  therefore  glorified  God  on  his  account." 
The  very  beginnings  of  his  apostolic  duties  were  therefore  in  a 
foreign  field,  and  not  within  the  original  premises  of  the  lost  sheep 
of  the  house  of  Israel,  where  indeed  he  was  not  even  known  but 
by  fame,  except  to  a  few  in  Jerusalem.  In  this  he  showed  the 
great  scope  and  direction  of  his  future  labors, — among  the  Gentiles, 
not  among  the  Jews ;  leaving  the  latter  to  the  sole  care  of  the 
original  apostles,  while  he  turned  to  a  vast  field,  for  which  they 
were  in  no  way  fitted,  by  nature,  or  by  apostolic  education,  nor 
were  destined  in  the  great  scheme  of  salvation. 

HIS  APOSTOLIC  LABORS  IN  ANTIOCH. 

During  this  retirement  of  Saul  to  his  native  home,  the  first 
great  call  of  the  Gentiles  had  been  made  through  the  summons  of 
Simon  Peter  to  Cornelius.  There  was  manifest  wisdom  in  this 
arrangement  of  events.  Though  the  original  apostles  were  plainly 
never  intended,  by  providence,  to  labor  to  any  great  extent  in  the 
Gentile  field,  yet  it  was  most  manifestly  proper  that  the  first  open- 
ing of  this  new  field  should  be  made  by  those  directly  and  per- 


SAUL.  609 

sonally  commissioned  by  Jesus  himself,  and  who,  from  having  en- 
joyed his  bodily  presence  for  so  long  a  time,  would  be  considered 
best  qualified  to  judge  of  the  propriety  of  a  movement  so  novel 
and  unprecedented  in  its  character.  The  great  apostolic  chief  was 
therefore  made  the  first  minister  of  grace  to  the  Gentiles ;  and  the 
violent  opposition  with  which  this  innovation  on  Judaical  sanctity 
was  received  by  the  more  bigoted,  could,  of  course,  be  much  more 
efiiciently  met,  and  disarmed,  by  the  apostle  specially  commissioned 
as  the  keeper  of  the  keys  of  the  heavenly  kingdom,  than  by  one 
who  had  been  but  lately  a  persecutor  of  the  faithful,  and  who,  by 
his  birth  and  partial  education  in  a  Grecian  city,  had  acquired 
such  a  familiarity  with  Gentile  usages,  as  'to  be  reasonably  liable 
to  suspicion,  in  regard  to  an  innovation  which  so  remarkably  fa- 
vored them.  This  great  movement  having  been  thus  made  by 
the  highest  Christian  authority  on  earth, — and  the  controversy  im- 
mediately resulting  having  been  thus  decided, — the  way  was  now 
fully  open  for  the  complete  extension  of  the  gospel  to  the  heathen, 
and  Saul  was  therefore  immediately  called,  in  providence,  from 
his  retirement,  to  take  up  the  work  of  evangelizing  Syria,  which 
had  already  been  partially  begun  at  Antioch,  by  some  of  the  Hel- 
lenistic refugees  from  the  persecution  at  the  time  of  Stephen's 
martyrdom.  The  apostles  at  Jerusalem,  hearing  of  the  success 
which  attended  these  incidental  efibrts,  dispatched  their  trusty 
brother  Barnabas,  to  confirm  the  good  work,  under  the  direct  com- 
mission of  apostolic  authority.  He,  having  come  to  Antioch,  re- 
joiced his  heart  with  the  sight  of  the  success  which  had  crowned 
tbe  work  of  those  who,  in  the  midst  of  the  personal  distress  of  a 
malignant  persecution,  that  had  driven  them  from  Jerusalem,  had 
there  sown  a  seed  that  was  already  bringing  forth  glorious  fruits. 
Perceiving  the  immense  importance  of  the  field  there  opened,  he 
immediately  felt  the  want  of  some  person  of  different  qualifications 
from  the  original  apostles,  and  one  whose  education  and  habits 
would  fit  him  not  only  to  labor  among  the  professors  of  the  Jew- 
ish faith,  but  also  to  communicate  the  doctrines  of  Christ  to  the 
Grecians.  In  this  crisis,  he  bethought  himself  of' the  wonder- 
ful young  convert  with  whom  he  had  become  acquainted,  under 
such  remarkable  circumstances,  a  few  years  before,  in  Jerusalem, 
— whose  daring  zeal  and  masterly  learning  had  been  so  signally 
manifested  among  the  Hellenists,  with  whom  he  had  formerly  been 
associated  as  an  equally  active  persecutor.  Inspired  both  by  con-  ^ 
siderations  of  personal  regard,  and  by  wise  convictions  of  the  pe- 


510  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

culiar  fitness  of  this  zealous  disciple  for  the  field  now  opened  in 

Syria,  Barnabas  immediately  left  his  apostolic  charge  at  Antioch, 

and  Avent  over  to  Tarsus,  to  invite  Saul  to  this  great  labor.     The 

journey  was  but  a  short  one,  the  distance  by  water  being  not  more 

than  one  hundred  miles,  and  by  land,  around  through  the  "  Syrian 

gates,"  about  one  hundred  and  fifty.    He  therefore  soon  arrived  at 

Saul's  home,  and  found  him  ready  and  willing  to  undertake  the 

proposed   apostolic  duty.      They  immediately  returned  together 

to  Antioch,  and  earnestly  devoted  themselves  to  their  interesting 

labors. 

"  Antioch,  the  metropolis  of  Syria,  was  built,  according  to  some  authors,  by  Anti- 
ochus  Epiphanes;  others  affirm,  by  Seleucus  Nicanor,  the  first  king  of  Syria  after 
Alexander  the  Great,  in  memory  of  his  father  Antiochus,  and  was  the  '  royal  seat 
of  the  kings  of  Syria.'  For  power  and  dignity,  Strabo  (lib.  xvi.  p.  517)  says  it  was 
not  much  inferior  to  Seleucia,  or  Alexandria.  Josephus  (lib.  iii.  cap.  3)  says,  it  was 
the  third  great  city  of  all  that  belonged  to  the  Roman  provinces.  It  was  frequently 
called  Antiochia  Epidaphne,  from  its  neighborhood  to  Daphne,  a  village  where  the 
temple  of  Daphne  stood,  to  distinguish  it  from  other  fourteen  of  the  same  name  men- 
tioned by  Stephanus  de  Urbibus,  and  by  Eustathius  in  Dionys.  p.  170;  or  as  Appi- 
anus  (in  Syriacis)  and  others,  sixteen  cities  in  Syria,  and  elsewhere,  which  bore  that 
name.  It  was  celebrated  among  the  Jews  for  '  Jus  civitatis,'  which  Seleucus  Nicanor 
had  given  them  in  that  city  with  the  Grecians  and  Macedonians,  and  which,  says  Jo- 
sephus, they  still  retain,  Antiq.  lib.  xii.  cap.  13;  and  for  the  wars  of  the  Maccabeans 
with  those  kings.  Among  Christians,  for  being  the  place  where  they  first  received 
that  name,  and  where  Saul  and  Barnabas  began  their  apostolic  labors  together.  la 
the  flourishing  times  of  the  Roman  empire,  it  was  the  ordinary  residence  of  the  pre- 
fect or  governor  of  the  eastern  provinces,  and  also  honored  with  the  residence  of 
many  of  the  Roman  emperors,  especially  of  Verus  and  Valens,  who  spent  here  the 
greatest  part  of  their  time.  It  lay  on  both  sides  of  the  river  Orontes,  about  twelve 
miles  from  the  Mediterranean  sea."  (Wells's  Geography  N.  T. — Whitby's  Table.) 
(J.  M.  Williams's  Notes  on  Pearson's  Annales  Paulinae.) 

Having  arrived  at  Antioch,  Saul  gave  himself,  with  Barnabas, 
zealously  to  the  work  for  which  he  had  been  summoned,  and  la- 
bored among  the  people  to  good  purpose,  assembling  the  churcU, 
and  imparting  to  all  that  would  hear,  the  knowledge  of  the  Chris- 
tian doctrine.  Under  these  active  exertions,  the  professors  of  the 
faith  of  Jesus  became  so  numerous  and  so  generally  known  in  An- 
tioch, that  the  heathen  inhabitants  found  it  convenient  to  designate 
them  by  a  distinct  appellation,  which  they  derived  from  the  great 
founder  and  object  of  their  religion, — calling  them  Christians, 
because  the  heathen  inhabitants  of  Syria  were  not  acquainted 
with  the  terms,  "  Nazarene"  and  "  Galilean,"  which  had  been 
applied  to  the  followers  of  Christ  by  the  Jews,  partly  from  the 
places  where  they  first  appeared,  and  partly  in  opprobrium  for  their 
low  provincial  origin. 

The  name  now  first  created  by  the  Syrians  to  distinguish  the  sect,  is  remarkable, 
because,  being  derived  from  a  Greek  word,  Christos,  it  has  a  Latin  adjective  termina- 
tion, Christ7ffi»Mt5,  and  is  therefore  inconteslably  shown  to  have  been  applied  by  the 
Roman  inhabitants  of  Antioch;  for  no  Grecian  would  ever  have  been  guilty  of  such 


SAUL.  511 

a  barbarism,  in  the  derivation  of  one  word  from  another  in  his  own  language.  The 
proper  Greek  form  of  the  derivative  would  have  been  Christicos,  or  Christenos,  and 
the  substantive  would  have  been,  not  Christianity,  but  Christicism,  or  ChrisLeni&m,— 
words  so  awkward  in  sound,  however,  that  it  is  very  well  for  all  Christendom,  that 
the  Roman  barbarism  took  the  place  of  the  pure  Greek  termination.  And  since  the 
Latin  form  of  the  first  derivative  has  prevailed,  and  Christirt?i  thus  been  made  the 
name  of  "  a  believer  in  Christ,"'  it  is  evident  to  any  classical  scholar,  that  Christian^ 
is  the  only  proper  form  of  the  substantive  secondarily  derived.  For  though  the  ap- 
pending of  «  Latin  termination  upon  a  Greek  word,  as  in  the  case  of  Christz«?ms, 
was  unquestionably  a  blunder  and  a  barbarism  in  the  first  place,  it  yet  can  not  com- 
pare, for  absurdity,  with  the  notion  of  deriving  from  this  Latin  form,  the  substantive 
ChristianJ5wm.s  with  a  Greek  termination  foolishly  pinned  to  a  Latin  one, — a  folly  of 
which  the  French  are  nevertheless  guilty.  The  error,  of  course,  cannot  now  be  cor- 
rected in  that  language;  but  those  who  stupidly  copy  the  barbarism  from  them,  and 
try  to  introduce  the  monstrous  word,  GhristianisM,  into  English,  deserve  the  reproba- 
tion of  every,  man  of  taste. 

"  Before  this  they  were  •called  '  disciples,'  as  in  this  place — '  believers,'  Acts  v.  14 
— '  men  of  the  church,'  Acts  xii.  1 — '  men  of  the  way,'  Acts  ix.  2 — '  the  saints,'  Acts 
ix.  13 — '  those  that  called  on  the  name  of  Christ,'  ver.  14 — and  by  their  enemies, 
JVazarenes  and  Galileans,  and  '  men  of  the  sect-'— 4)ut  now,  by  the  conversion  of  so 
many  heathens,  both  in  Caesarea  and  Antioch,  the  believing  Jews  and  Gentiles  being 
made  all  one  church,  this  new  name  was  given  them,  as  more  expressive  of  their 
common  relation  to  their  Master,  Christ.  Whitby  slightly  alludes  to  the  prophecy, 
Isa.  ixv."    (J.  M.  Williams's  Notes  on  Pearson.) 

While  Saul'was  thus  effectually  laboring  in  Antioch,  there  came 
down  to  that  city,  from  Jerusalem,  certain  persons,  indued  with 
the  spirit  of  prophecy,  among  whom  was  one,  named  Agabus, 
who,  under  the  influence  of  inspiration,  made  known  that  there 
would  be  a  great  famine  throughout  the  world ; — a  prediction 
which  was  verified  by  the  actual  occurrence  of  this  calamity  in 
the  days  of  Claudius  Caesar,  during  whose  reign, — as  appears  on 
the  impartial  testimony  of  the  historians  of  those  times,  both  Ro- 
man and  Jewish, — the  Roman  empire  suffered  at  different  periods 
in  all  its  parts,  from  the  capital  to  Jerusalem, — and  at  this  latter 
city,  more  especially,  in  the  sixth  year  of  Claudius,  (A.  D.  46,)  as 
is  testified  by  Josephus,  who  narrates  very  particularly  some  cir- 
cumstances connected  with  the  prevalence  of  this  famine  in  Jeru- 
salem. The  disciples  at  Antioch,  availing  themselves  of  this  in- 
formation, determined  to  send  relief  to  their  brethren  in  Judea, 
before  the  famine  should  come  on  ;  and  having  contributed  each 
one  according  to  his  ability,  they  made  Barnabas  and  Saul  the 
messengers  of  their  charity,  who  were  accordingly  dispatched  to 
Jerusalem,  on  this  noble  errand.  They  remained  in  Jerusalem 
through  the  period  of  Agrippa's  attack  upon  the  apostles,  by  mur- 
dering James,  and  imprisoning  Peter ;  but  they  do  not  seem  to 
have  been  any  way  immediately  concerned  in  these  events  ;  and 
when  Peter  had  escaped,  they  returned  to  Antioch.  How  long 
they  remained  here,  is  not  recorded ;  but  the  date  of  subsequent 
events  seems  to  imply  that  it  was  a  space  of  some  years,  during 


512  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

which  they  labored  at  Antioch  in  company  with  several  other  emi- 
nent prophets  and  teachers,  of  whom  are  mentioned  Simeon,  who 
had  the  Roman  surname  of  Niger,  Lucius  the  Cyrenian,  and  Ma- 
naen,  a  foster-brother  of  Herod  the  tetrarch.  During  their  common 
ministrations,  at  a  season  of  fasting,  they  received  a  direction  from 
the  Spirit  of  truth  which  guided  them,  to  set  apart  Saul  and  Barna- 
bas for  the  special  work  to  which  the  Lord  had  called  them.  This 
work  was,  of  course,  understood  to  be  that  for  which  Saul,  in  par- 
ticular, had,  at  his  conversion,  been  so  remarkably  commissioned, 
— "  to  open  the  eyes  of  the  Gentiles, — to  turn  them  from  dark- 
ness to  light,  and  from  the  dominion  of  Satan  to  God."  His 
brethren  in  the  ministry,  therefore,  understanding  at  once  the  na- 
ture and  object  of  the  summons,  now  specially  consecrated  both 
him  and  Barnabas  for  their  missionary  work ;  and  after  fasting 
and  praying,  they  invoked  on  them  the  blessing  of  God,  in  the 
usual  Oriental  form  of  laying  their  hands  on  them,  and  then  bade 
them  farewell. 

"  That  this  famine  was  felt  chiefly  in  Judea  may  be  conjectured  with  great  reason 
from  the  nature  of  the  context,  for  we  find  that  the  disciples  are  resolving  to  send 
relief  to  the  elders  in  Judea ;  consequently  they  must  have  understood  that  those  in 
Judea  would  suffer  more  than  themselves.  Josephus  declared  that  this  famine  raged 
so  much  there,  that  many  perished  for  want  of  victuals." 

"  '  Throughout  the  whole  world,'  irSaav  tiiv  olKoviAtfriv,  is  first  to  be  understood,  orbis 
terrarum  habitabilis:  Demosth.  in  Coron.  iEschines  contr.  Ctesiph.  Scapula.  Then 
the  Roman  and  other  empires  were  styled  otKov^Uvri,  '  the  world.'  Thus  Isaiah  xiv. 
17,  26,  the  counsel  of  God  against  the  empire  of  I3abylon,  is  called  his  counsel,  im  rhv 
SXriv  oiKovfiivriv,  '  against  all  the  earth.' — (Elsley,  Whitby.)  Accordingly,  Eusebius 
says  of  this  famine,  that  it  oppressed  almost  the  whole  empire.  And  as  for  the  truth 
of  the  prophecy,  this  dearth  is  recorded  by  historians  most  averse  to  our  religion, 
viz.,  by  Suetonius,  in  the  life  of  Claudius,  chap.  18,  who  informs  us  that  it  happened 
'  ob  assiduas  sterilitates ;'  and  Dion.  Cassius  Hist.  lib.  Ix.  p.  146,  that  it  was  Xi/jos 
:oxvpds,  '  a  very  great  famine.'  Whitby's  Annot.  Doddridge  enumerates  nine  fa- 
mines in  various  years,  and  parts  of  the  empire,  in  the  reign  of  Claudius;  but  the 
first  was  the  most  severe,  and  affected  particularly  Judea,  and  is  that  here  meant." 
(J.  M.  Williams's  notes  on  Pearson.) 

HIS  FIRST  APOSTOLIC  MISSION. 

Going  from  Antioch  directly  eastward  to  the  sea,  they  came  to 
Seleucia,  the  nearest  port,  only  twelve  miles  from  Antioch,  and 
there  embarked  for  the  island  of  Cyprus,  the  eastern  end  of  which 
is  not  more  than  eighty  miles  from  the  coast  of  Syria.  The  cir- 
cumstance that  more  particularly  directed  them  first  to  this  island, 
was  probably  that  it  was  the  native  home  of  Barnabas,  and  with 
this  region  therefore  he  would  feel  so  much  acquainted  as  to  know 
its  peculiar  wants,  and  the  facilities  which  it  afforded  for  the  ad- 
vancement of  the  Christian  cause ;  and  he  would  also  know 
where  he  might  look  for  the  most  favorable  reception.     Landing 


BAUL.  513 

at  Salamis,  on  the  southeastern  part  of  the  island,  they  first 
preached  in  the  synagogues  of  the  Jews,  who  were  very  numer 
ous  in  Cyprus,  and  constituted  so  large  a  part  of  the  population  of 
the  island,  that  some  time  afterwards  they  attempted  to  get  com- 
plete possession  of  it,  and  were  put  down  only  by  the  massacre  of 
many  thousands.  Directing  their  efforts  first  to  these  wandering 
sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel,  the  apostles  everywhere  preached  the 
gospel  in  the  synagogues,  never  forsaking  the  Jews  for  the  Gen- 
tiles, until  they  had  been  driven  away  by  insult  and  injury,  that 
thus  the  ruin  of  their  nation  might  lie,  not  upon  the  apostles,  but 
upon  them  only,  for  their  rejection  of  the  repeated  oifers  of  salva- 
tion. Here,  it  would  seem,  they  were  joined  by  John  Mark,  the 
nephew  of  Barnabas,  who  was  probably  staying  upon  the  island 
at  that  time,  and  who  now  accompanied  them  as  an  assistent  in 
their  apostolic  ministry.  Traversing  the  whole  island  from  east 
to  west,  they  came  to  Paphos,  a  splendid  city  near  the  western 
end,  famed  for  the  magnificent  temple  and  lascivious  worship  of 
the  Paphian  Venus,  a  deity  to  whom  all  Cyprus  was  consecrated ; 
and  from  it  she  derived  one  of  her  numerous  appellatives,  Cypris 
being  a  name  under  which  she  was  frequently  worshiped ;  and 
the  females  of  the  island  generally,  were  so  completely  devoted  to 
her  service,  not  merely  in  temple- worship,  but  in  life  and  manners, 
that  throughout  the  world,  the  name  Cyprian  woman,  even  to  this 
day,  is  but  a  polite  expression  for  one  abandoned  to  wantonness 
and  pleasure.  The  worship  of  this  lascivious  goddess,  the  apostles 
now  came  to  exterminate,  and  to  plant  in  its  stead  the  dominion 
of  a  faith,  whose  essence  is  purity  of  heart  and  action.  At  this 
place,  preaching  the  gospel  with  openness,  they  soon  attracted 
such  general  notice,  that  the  report  of  their  remarkable  character 
soon  reached  the  ears  of  the  proconsul  of  Cyprus,  then  resident  in 
Paphos.  This  great  Roman  governor,  by  name  Sergius  Paulus, 
Wcis  a  man  of  intelligence  and  probity,  and  hearing  of  the  apostles, 
soon  summoned  them  to  his  presence,  that  he  might  have  the  satis- 
faction of  hearing  from  them,  in  his  own  hall,  a  full  exposition  of 
the  doctrine  which  they  called  the  word  of  God.  This  they  did 
with  such  energy  and  efiiciency,  that  they  won  his  attention  and 
regard ;  and  he  was  about  to  profess  his  faith  in  Jesus,  when  a 
new  obstacle  to  the  success  of  the  gospel  was  presented  in  the 
conduct  of  one  of  those  present  at  the  discourse.  This  was  an 
impostor,  called  Elymas, — a  name  which  seems  to  be  a  Greek  form 
of  the  Oriental  "  Alim,"  meaning  "  a  magician," — who  had,  by 


614  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

his  tricks,  gained  a  great  renown  throughout  that  region,  and  was 
received  into  high  favor  by  the  proconsul  himself,  with  whom  he 
was  then  staying.  The  rogue,  apprehending  the  nature  of  the 
doctrines  taught  by  the  apostles  to  be  no  way  agreeable  to  the 
schemes  of  self-advancement  which  he  was  so  successfully  pursu- 
ing, was  not  a  little  alarmed  when  he  saw  that  they  were  taking 
hold  of  the  mind  of  the  proconsul,  and  therefore  undertook  to  re- 
sist the  preaching  of  the  apostles  ;  and  attempted  to  argue  the 
noble  convert  into  a  contempt  of  these  new  teachers.  At  this, 
Saul,  (now  first  called  Paul,)  fixing  his  eyes  on  the  miserable  im- 
postor, in  a  burst  of  inspired  indignation,  denounced  on  him  an 
awful  punishment  for  his  resistence  of  the  truth.  "  O,  full  of  all 
guile  and  all  tricks  !  son  of  the  devil !  enemy  of  all  honesty  !  wilt 
thou  not  stop  perverting  the  ways  of  the  Lord  ?  And  now,  lo  !  the 
hand  of  the  Lord  is  on  thee,  and  thou  shalt  be  blind,  not  seeing  the 
sun  for  a  time."  And  immediately  there  fell  on  him  a  mist  and  a 
darkness  ;  and  turning  around,  he  sought  some  persons  to  lead 
him  by  the  hand.  At  the  sight  of  this  manifest  and  appalling 
miracle,  thus  following  the  denunciation  of  the  apostle,  the  pro- 
consul was  so  struck,  that  he  no  longer  delayed  for  a  moment  his 
profession  of  faith  in  the  religion  whose  power  was  thus  attested, 
but  believed  in  the  doctrine  of  Jesus,  as  communicated  by  his 
apostles. 

"  Seleucia  was  a  little  northwest  of  Antioch,  upon  the  Mediterranean  sea,  named 
from  its  founder,  Seleucus.— C7/;)rM5,  so  called  from  the  flower  of  the  Cypress-tiees 
growing  there.— Pliny,  lib.  xii.  cap.  24. — Eustalh.  In  Dionys.  p.  110.  It  was  an  island, 
having  on  the  east  the  Syrian,  on  the  west  the  Pamphylian,  o*:  ine  south  the  Phoeni- 
cian, on  the  north  the  Cilician  sea.  It  was  celebrated  n'.^iong  the  heathens  for  its 
fertility,  as  being  sufficiently  provided  with  all  thin?":  within  itself  Strabo,  lib.  xiv. 
468,  469.  It  was  very  infamous  for  the  worship  oi  Venus,  who  had  thence  her  name 
KvTrpi;.  It  was  memorable  among  the  Jews  as  being  an  island  in  which  they  so  much 
abounded  ;  and  among  Christians  for  being  the  place  where  Joses,  called  Barnabas, 
had  the  land  he  sold.  Acts  iv.  36;  and  where  Mnason,  an  old  disciple,  lived.  Acts 
xxi.  16.— (Whitby's  Table.)  Salamis  was  once  a  famous  city  of  Cyprus,  opposite  to 
Seleucia,  on  the  Syrian  coast.— (Wells.)  It  was  in  the  eastern  part  of  Cyprus.  It 
was  famous  among  the  Greek  writers  for  the  story  of  the  Dragon  killed  by  Chycreas, 
their  king ;  and  for  the  death  of  Anaxarchus,  whom  Nicocreon,  the  tyrant  of  that 
island,  pounded  to  death  with  iron  pestles."— (Bochart.  Canaan,  lib.  i.  c.  2.— Laert.  lib. 
ix.  p.  579.)    Williams's  Pearson. 

Proconsul.— The  Greek  title  'AvdiTraroi,  was  applied  only  to  those  governors  of 
provinces  who  were  invested  with  proconsul-ar  dignity .  "  And  on  the  supposition  that 
Cyprus  was  not  a  province  of  this  description,  it  has  been  inferred  that  the  title  given 
to  Sergius  Paulus  in  this  place,  was  a  title  that  did  not  properly  belong  to  him.  A 
passage  has  indeed  been  quoted  from  Dion  Cassius,  (Hist.  Rom.  lib.  liv.  p.  523,  ed. 
Hanoviae,  1690,)  who,  speaking  of  the  governors  of  Cyprus  and  some  other  Roman 
provinces,  applies  lo  them  the  same  title  which  is  applied  to  Sergius  Paulus.  But, 
as  Dion  Cassius  is  speaking  of  several  Roman  provinces  at  the  same  time,  one  of 
which  was  certainly  governed  by  a  proconsul,  it  has  been  supposed,  that  for  the  sake 
of  brevity,  he  used  one  term  for  all  of  them,  whether  it  applied  to  all  of  them  or  not. 
That  Cyprus,  however,  ought  to  be  excluded,  and  that  the  title  which  he  employed, 


PAUL.  616 

as  well  as  St.  Luke,  really  did  belong  to  the  Roman  governors  of  Cyprus,  appears 
from  the  inscription  on  a  coin  belonging  to  Cyprus  itself.  It  belonged  to  the  people 
of  that  island,  a^  appears  from  the  word  KYIIPIS2N  on  the  reverse  :  and,  though  not 
struck  while  Sergius  Paulus  himself  was  governor,  it  was  struck,  as  appears  from 
the  inscription  on  the  reverse,  in  the  time  of  Proclns,  who  was  next  to  Sergius  Pau- 
lus in  the  government  of  Cyprus.  And,  on  this  coin  the  same  title,  ANGYIIATOE, 
is  given  to  Proclus,  which  St.  Luke  gives  Sergius  Paulus."  (Bp.  Marsh's  Lect.  part 
V.  pp.  85,  86^  That  Cyprus  was  a  proconsulate,  is  also  evident  from  an  ancient  in- 
scription of  Caligula's  reign,  in  which  Aquius  Scaura  is  called  the  proconsul  of  Cy- 
prus. (Gruteri  Corpus  Inscriptionem,  tom.  i.  part  ii.  p.  cccix.  No.  3,  edit.  Graevii 
Amst.  1707.)    Home's  Introduction, — quoted  by  Williams  on  Pearson. 

Bar-Jcsus. — This  name  means  the  son  of  Joshua,  or,  in  the  Greek  form,  Jesus, 
which  was  a  common  name  among  the  Jews,  and  was  probably  that  of  the  sorcerer's 
father.  Some  have  sought  an  explanation  of  the  term  by  a  reference  to  the  primary 
meaning,  and  have  translated  it  "  son  of  health,"  or  "  son  of  healing,"  with  a  supposed 
allusion  to  his  pretensions  to  the  power  of  curing  disease  and  imparting  health. 
Others,  following  the  Syriac  version,  give  it  the  meaning — "  son  of  inspiration,"  and 
others,  by  a  different  construction  of  the  Syriac,  make  it  "  son  of  disease,"  from  his 
medical  character.    (See  Poole  on  Actsxiii.  6.) 

Elyvias. — This  has  also  received  a  variety  of  interpretations.  It  is  commonly  derived 

from  the  Arabic  j,-^A^  (alim,)  from  which  comes  the  derivative  Alima,  both  words 

meaning  "  magician."  Others  have  suggested  the  Hebrew  nm^n  (hhaluma,)  mean- 
ing "  a  healer  of  diseases."    (See  Poole.) 

HIS  CHANGE  OF  NAME. 

In  connexion  with  this  first  miracle  of  the  apostle  of  Tarsus,  it 
is  mentioned  by  the  historian  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  that  Saul 
thenceforth  bore  the  name  of  Paul,  and  the  reader  is  thence  fairly- 
led  to  suppose,  that  the  name  was  taken  from  that  of  Sergius  Paul, 
who  is  the  most  important  personage  concerned  in  the  event ;  and 
being  the  first  eminent  man  who  is  specified  as  having  been  con- 
verted by  the  apostle,  seems  therefore  to  deserve,  in  this  case,  the 
honor  of  conferrinor  a  new  name  on  the  wonder-workinof  Saul. 
This  coincidence  between  the  name  and  the  occasion,  may  be 
justly  esteemed  sufficient  ground  for  assuming  this  as  the  true 
origin  of  the  name  by  which  the  apostle  was  ever  after  designa- 
ted,— which  he  applies  to  himself  in  his  writings,  and  by  which 
he  is  always  mentioned  throughout  the  Christian  world,  in  all  ages. 
With  the  name  of  "  Saul  of  Tarsus,"  there  were  too  many  evil 
associations  already  inseparably  connected,  in  the  minds  of  all  the 
Jewish  inhabitants  of  the  east,  and  the  troublesome  character  of 
those  prevalent  impressions  having  been  perhaps  particularly  ob- 
vious to  the  apostle,  during  his  first  missionary  tour,  he  seized  this 
honorable  occasion,  to  exchange  it  for  one  that  had  no  such  evil 
associations ;  and  he  was  therefore  afterwards  known  only  by  the 
name  of  PAUL. 

Various  reasons  have  been  offered  by  different  commentators  and  critics,  to  ac- 
count for  the  apostle's  change  of  name.  From  its  historical  connexion  M'ith  the  con- 
version of  the  proconsul  Sergius  Paul,  it  has  commonly  been  inferred,  with  much 
reason,  that  the  name  of  this,  his  first  great  convert,  suggested  itself  to  the  apostle  as 


616  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

an  appropriate  Roman  designation,-  for  one  whose  labors  were  thenceforth  to  be  almost 
wholly  among  the  Gentiles.  Jerome  gives  this  as  the  prominent  reason  for  the  apos- 
tle's selection  of  this  name,  nor  is  there  any  weight  in  Beza's  objection,  ihat  he  is 
called  Paul  by  Luke  before  he  announces  the  conversion  of  the  proconsul.  It  is 
enough  that  he  is  first  so  named  in  the  account  of  this  transaction ;  and  the  difference 
of  three  verses  made  by  Luke  in  anticipating  the  event,  is  of  no  consequence  what- 
ever. Some  (as  Kuinoel,  Witsius,  &c.)  have  condemned  this  supposition  as  far  from 
accordant  with  the  modesty  which  they  consider  characteristic  of  the  apostle.  Wit- 
sius, on  this  account,  rejects  Jerome's  idea  of  Paul's  assuming  this  name  as  a  trophy 
of  his  first  great  apostolic  conquest,  but  still  very  justly  makes  the  name  of  the  pro- 
consul the  immediate  suggestion  for  the  apostle's  adoption  of  the  name  of  Paul.  He 
accepts  the  hypothesis  of  Baronius,  which  is,  that  Sergius  Paulus  himself  (who  was 
of  the  Aemilian  gens  or  race)  gave,  as  a  pledge  of  friendly  and  grateful  feeling,  this 
name  of  his  family  to  the  apostle.  In  illustration  of  this,  is  quoted  the  instance  of 
Josephus,  who,  taken  prisoner  in  the  Jewish  war,  and  gifted,  by  Flavins  Vespasian 
and  Flavins  Tiius,  with  freedom  and  citizenship,  was  furthermore  honored  by  those 
whose  favors  he  returned  in  grateful  historic  commemoration,  with  the  name  of  the 
Flavian  gens  or  race  ;  and  thenceforth  the  historian  became  known  by  the  name  of 
Flavius  Josephus.  (Witsius.  Melet.  Leid.  Vit.  Paul.  iii.  14.  Baronius.  Annal.  A.  C. 
36,  pp.  2(53,  264.)  The  earliest  hypothesis  on  record  is  that  of  Origen — that  Paul 
originally  had  only  a  Hebrew  name,  (Saul,)  which  he  bore  as  a  Jew  of  the  tribe  of 
Benjamin,  and  that  his  Latin  name  (Paul)  was  assumed  by  him  as  a  Roman  citizen, 
when  the  duties  of  the  apostleship  called  him  among  the  heathen, — being  known  to 
the  Jews  by  the  former,  and  to  the  Gentiles  by  the  latter;  a  species  of  accommodation 
which  is  supposed  to  be  illustrated  by  his  own  expression,  "  becoming  all  things  to  all 
then,  that  he  might  win  souls."  This  is,  beyond  doubt,  an  unexceptionable  explana- 
tion, and  one  not  inconsistent  with  the  view  here  adapted  as  to  the  immediate  occasion 
which  suggested  this  particular  name,  when  the  necessity  or  propriety  of  a  Roman 
appellative  began  to  be  felt  by  the  apostle.  But  the  hypothesis  of  Ambrose  of  Milan — 
that  he  received  the  name  Paul  at  his  baptism  by  Ananias — must  be  rejected  not  only 
as  inconsistent  with  the  previous  view,  but  as  an  unwarranted  and  audacious  as- 
sumption of  a  fact  tacitly  contradicted  by  the  silence  of  the  apostolic  record  respect- 
ing any  such  change  of  name  at  his  baptism.  Equally  gratuitous  and  unsupported 
is  Chrysostom's  declaration,  that  the  apostle  received  this  new  name  directly  from 
God  himself,  as  was  the  case  with  Abraham  and  Jacob,  and  as  Christ  gave  new 
names  to  Peter  and  to  the  sons  of  Zebedee.  Witsius  also  objects  to  it  that  God  in  no 
instance  changed  a  name  that  had  an  honorable  meaning,  for  one  more  insignificant, 
— such  being  the  change  from  Saul,  (^■^su)  which  means  "  desired,"  or  "  desirable," 
to  Paul,  which,  in  the  Latin,  (paulus,)  and  in  the  Greek,  (iraiSpof,)  means  "  little." 
But  from  this  difference  in  the  significations  of  the  names,  others  have  been  induced 
to  suppose  that  the  modesty  and  humility  of  the  apostle  led  him  to  take  an  appellation 
of  humble  character,  as  more  suited  to  one  who,  after  his  conversion,  accounted 
himself  "  the  least  of  all  men."  Others,  without  referring  to  a  moral  sense,  take  it  to 
have  been  suggested  by  his  own  personal  appearance,  being  a  small  man,  as  is  infer- 
red from  some  passages  in  his  writings.  Baronius  also,  giving  this  as  an  additional 
reason  for  his  adoption  of  the  proconsul's  name,  mentions  the  fact,  that  the  first  of 
the  Aemilian  ge7is  who  took  the  name  of  Paulns,  which  afterwards  clung  to  the 
family  of  his  descendents,  (and  to  Sergius  Aemilius  Paulus  among  the  rest,)  derived 
it  from  the  circumstance  of  his  small  stature.  Kuinoel  accepts  none  of  these  suppo- 
sitions, but  suggests,  as  a  new  one,  that  the  Romans  in  the  family  of  Sergius  Paulus, 
first  made  the  change  from  the  foreign  and  unusual  sound  of  Saail,  to  the  familiar  and  ■ 
smoother  name  of  Paul, — a  change  very  similar  to  many  which  the  Romans  made 
without  scruple  in  the  names  of  Hebrews  and  Greeks,  as  in  numerous  instances  quo- 
ted by  Grotius,  Hemsen,  and  Rosenmuller.  Kuinoel's  notion  is  that  the  change  in 
the  apostle's  name  was  made  by  the  Romans  for  their  own  convenience ;  but  Grotius 
and  Rosenmuller  suppose  with  Origen,  that  the  apostle  made  the  change  himself  as  a 
matter  of  expediency.  Neander  supposes  that  he  had  originally  two  names,  and  that 
the  Greek  form,  Paulus,  became  the  predominant  one  after  he  had  devoted  himself  to 
the  conversion  of  the  Gentiles.  (I.  iii.  1.  p.  G'JA  It  should  be  remembered,  however, 
(though  all  these  commentators  seem  to  have  iorgotten  it,)  that  the  apostle  may  have 
been  influenced  by  several  reasons,  and  probably  was  so.  The  connexion  of  the 
change  with  the  conversion  of  Sergius  Paulus,  justly  marks  that  as  the  occasion  and 
hint  of  this  name;  but  this  of  itself  could  be  no  reason  for  a  change,  unless  other  mo- 
tives had  previously  induced  him  to  resolve  to  make  such  a  change.    Among  these 


PAUL.  517 

motives,  were  doubtless  several  that  have  been  here  named ; — the  unfortunate  ideas 
of  persecution  connected  with  the  name  of  Saul,  the  desire  of  conforming  his  appella- 
tion more  to  the  genius  of  the  Latin  and  Greek  languages,  the  disposition  to  signify 
his  affectionate  and  respectful  regard  for  his  eminent  convert,  and  some  incidental 
thought  of  a  peculiar  justness  in  the  meaning  of  the  new  name,  as  referring  to  his 
own  humble  opinion  of  his  own  merits,  or  to  his  diminutive  stature— probably  all 
operated  as  reasons  for  the  adoption  of  the  name  of  Paulus, — a  name  thus  transmitted 
to  all  ages  with  a  lustre  that  far  outshines  the  consular  honors  of  the  Roman  family 
from  whom  he  took  it,  and  gilded  with  a  glory  that  shall  long  outlive  and  far  out- 
spread the  triumphs  of  the  Aemilian  conquerors  of  Macedonia  and  Africa. 

JOURNEY  IN  SOUTHEASTERN  ASIA  MINOR. 

Embarking  at  Paphos,  the  apostles,  after  doubling  cape  Acamas, 
the  most  western  point  of  the  island,  sailed  northwestward,  to- 
wards the  northern  coast  of  Asia  Minor,—  and  after  a  voyage  of 
about  two  hundred  miles,  reached  Perga,  a  city  in  Pamphylia. 
This  place  was  not  a  sea-port,  but  stood  on  the  west  bank  of  the 
river  Oestrus,  about  eight  miles  from  the  sea.  It  was  there  built 
by  the  Attalian  kings  of  southwestern  Asia,  and  was  by  them  made 
the  most  splendid  city  of  Pamphylia.  Near  the  town,  and  on  a 
rising  ground,  was  a  very  famous  temple  of  Diana,  to  which  every 
year  resorted  a  grand  religious  assembly,  to  celebrate  the  worship 
of  this  great  Asian  goddess.  In  such  a  strong  hold  of  heathen- 
ism, the  apostles  must  have  found  much  occasion  for  the  preach- 
ing of  the  gospel ;  but  the  historian  of  their  Acts  gives  no  account 
of  any  thing  here  said  or  done  by  them,  and  only  mentions  that 
at  this  place  their  companion,  John  Mark,  gave  up  his  ministra- 
tion with  them,  and  returned  to  Jerusalem.  Paul  and  Barnabas 
then  went  on  without  him,  to  the  north,  and  proceeded,  Avithout 
any  material  delay,  directly  through  Pamphylia,  and  over  the 
ranges  of  Taurus,  through  Pisidia,  into  Phrygia  Katakekaumene, 
where  they  made  some  stay  at  the  city  of  Antioch,  which  was  dis- 
tinguished from  the  great  capital  of  Syria  bearing  the  same  royal 
name,  by  being  called  "  Antioch  of  Pisidia,"  because,  though  really 
within  the  boundaries  of  Phrygia,  it  was  often  numbered  among 
the  cities  of  the  province  next  south,  near  Avhose  borders  it  stood, 
and  was  therefore  associated  with  the  towns  of  Pisidia  by  those 
who  lived  south  and  east  of  them.  At  this  place  the  apostles  pro- 
bably arrived  towards  the  last  of  the  w:eek,  and  reposing  here  on 
the  sabbath,  they  went  into  the  Jewish  synagogue,  along  with  the 
usual  worshiping  assembly,  and  took  their  seats  quietly  among  the 
rest.  After  the  regular  service  of  the  day  (consisting  of  the  reading 
of  the  select  portions  of  the  law  and  prophets)  was  over,  the  minis- 
ter of  the  synagogue,  according  to  custom,  gave  an  invitation  to  the 
apostles  to  preach  to  the  people,  if  they  felt  disposed  to  do  so.     It 


518  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

should  be  noticed,  that  in  the  Jewish  synagogues,  there  was  no  re- 
gular person  appointed  to  preach,  the  minister  being  only  a  sort  of 
reader,  who  conducted  the  devotions  of  the  meeting,  and  chanted 
the  lessons  from  the  scriptures,  as  arranged  for  each  sabbath. 
When  these  regular  duties  were  over,  the  custom  was  to  invite  a 
discourse  from  any  person  disposed  or  qualified  to  address  the 
people.  On  this  day,  the  minister,  noticing  two  grave  and  intel- 
ligent looking  persons  among  the  worshipers,  joining  devoutly  in 
the  service  of  God,  and  perceiving  them  to  be  of  a  higher  order 
than  most  of  the  assembly,  or  perhaps  having  received  a  previous 
hint  of  the  fact  that  they  were  well-qualified  religious  teachers, 
who  had  valuable  doctrines  to  communicate  to  the  people, — sent 
word  to  them — "  Brethren  !  if  you  have  any  word  of  exhortation 
for  the  people,  say  on."'  Paul,  then, — as  usual,  taking  the  prece- 
dence of  Barnabas  in  speaking,  on  account  of  his  own  superior 
endowments,  as  an  orator, — addressed  the  meeting,  beginning  with 
the  usual  form  of  words,  accompanied  with  a  graceful  gesticula- 
tion, beseeching  their  favor,  "  Men  of  Israel !  and  you  that  fear 
God !  give  your  attention."  The  two  difierent  classes  of  persons 
included  in  this  formula,  are  evidently,  first,  those  who  were  Jews 
by  birth  and  education,  and  second,  those  devout  Gentiles  who  re- 
verenced the  God  of  Israel  and  conformed  to  the  law  of  Moses, 
worshiping  with  the  Jews  on  the  sabbath.  Paul,  in  his  sermon, 
which  was  of  considerable  length,  began  in  the  usual  form  of  an 
apostolic  discourse  to  the  Jews,  by  recurring  to  the  early  Hebrew 
history,  and  running  over  the  great  leading  events  and  persons 
mentioned  in  their  sacred  writinors,  that  migrht  be  considered  as 
preparing  the  way  for  the  Messiah.  Then  proceeding  to  the  nar- 
ration of  the  most  important  points  in  the  history  of  the  new  dis- 
pensation, he  applied  all  the  quoted  predictions  of  the  inspired 
men  of  old,  to  the  man  Christ  Jesus,  whom  they  now  preached. 
The  substance  of  his  discourse  was,  that  in  Jesus  Christ  were  fully 
accomplished  those  splendid  prophecies  contained  in  the  Psalms, 
concerning  the  future  glories  of  the  line  of  David ;  and  more  es- 
pecially that  by  his  attested  resurrection  he  had  fulfilled  the  words 
spoken  by  the  Psalmist,  of  the  triumphs  of  the  "  Holy  One"  over 
the  grave  and  corruption.  Paul  thus  concluded, — "  Be  it  known 
to  you,  therefore,  brethren,  that  through  this  man  is  preached  to 
you  forgiveness  of  sins ;  and  every  one  that  believes  in  him  is  jus- 
tified from  all  things,  from  which  you  could  not  be  justified  by  the 
law  of  Moses.     Beware,  therefore,  lest  that  come  upon  you  which 


PAVL.  619 

is  spoken  by  the  prophets, — '  See  !  you  despisers  !  and  wonder  and 
be  amazed ;  for  I  will  do  a  work  in  your  days,  which  you  shall 
not  believe,  even  if  one  should  tell  it  to  you.'  "  These  denuncia- 
tory concluding  words  are  from  the  prophet  Habakkuk,  where  he 
is  foretelling  to  the  Israelites  of  his  day,  the  devastating  invasion 
of  the  Chaldeans ;  and  the  apostle,  in  quoting  them,  aimed  to  im- 
press his  hearers  with  the  certainty  of  similar  evils  to  fall  upon 
their  nation, — evils  so  tremendous,  that  they  might  naturally  dis- 
believe the  warning,  if  it  should  give  them  the  awful  particulars 
of  the  coming  ruin,  but  whose  solemn  truth  they  would,  never- 
theless, too  soon  learn  in  its  actual  accomplishment.  These  words 
being  directed  in  a  rather  bitter  tone  of  warning  to  the  Jews  in 
particular,  that  portion  of  the  audience  do  not  appear  to  have  been 
much  pleased  with  his  address ;  but  while  the  most  of  them  were 
retiring  from  the  synagogue,  the  Gentiles  declared  their  high  satis- 
faction with  the  discourse,  and  expressed  an  earnest  desire  that  it 
might  be  repeated  to  them  on  the  next  sabbath.  After  the  meet- 
ing broke  up,  many  of  the  audience  were  so  loth  to  part  with 
preachers  of  this  extraordinary  character,  that  they  followed  the 
apostles  to  their  lodgings.  These  were  mostly  the  religious  pro- 
selytes from  the  heathen,  who  worshiped  with  the  Jews  in  the  sy- 
nagogue, but  some  even  of  the  Jews  were  so  well  satisfied  with 
what  they  had  heard,  that  they  also  accompanied  the  throng  that 
followed  the  apostles.  Paul  and  Barnabas  did  not  suffer  this  oc- 
casion to  pass  unimproved ;  but  as  they  went  along,  discoursed  to 
the  company,  exhorting  them  to  stand  fast  in  the  grace  of  God. 
They  continued  in  the  city  through  the  week,  and  meanwhile  the 
fame  of  their  doctrines  and  their  eloquence  extended  so  fast  and 
so  far,  that  when  on  the  next  sabbath  they  went  to  the  synagogue 
to  preach  according  to  promise,  almost  the  whole  city  came  pour- 
ing in,  along  with  them,  to  hear  the  M^ord  of  God.  But  when  the 
Jews,  who  had  already  been  considerably  displeased  by  the  man- 
ner in  which  they  had  been  addressed  the  last  sabbath,  saw  the 
multitudes  that  were  thronging  to  hear  these  new  interlopers, 
they  were  filled  with  envy,  and  when  Paul  renewed  his  discourse, 
they  openly  disputed  him, — denied  his  conclusions,  and  abused 
him  and  his  doctrine.  Paul  and  Barnabas,  justly  indignant  at 
this  exhibition  of  meanness,  that  thus  set  itself  against  the  pro- 
gress of  the  truth  among  the  Gentiles,  from  whom  the  Jews,  not 
content  with  rejecting  the  gospel  themselves,  would  also  exclude 
the  light  of  the  word, — boldly  declared  to  them — "  It  was  neces- 


520  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

sary  that  the  word  of  God  should  first  be  spoken  to  you ;  but  since 
you  have  cast  it  off,  and  thus  evince  yourselves  unworthy  of  ever- 
lasting life, — behold,  we  turn  to  the  heathen.  For  thus  did  God 
command  us, — '  I  have  set  thee  for  a  light  to  the  heathen,  that  thou 
mightest  be  for  their  salvation,  even  to  the  uttermost  part  of  the 
earth.'  "  And  the  heathen  hearing  this,  rejoiced,  and  glorified  the 
word  of  the  Lord,  and  many  of  them  believed,  to  their  everlasting 
salvation.  And  the  word  of  God  was  spread  throughout  that 
whole  country ;  but  the  opposition  of  the  Jews  increasing  in  pro- 
portion to  the  progress  of  the  faith  of  Christ,  a  great  disturbance 
was  raised  against  the  apostles  among  the  aristocracy  of  the  city, 
who  favored  the  Jews,  and  more  especially  among  the  women  of 
high  family,  who  were  proselytes ;  and  the  result  of  the  commo- 
tion was,  that  the  apostles  were  driven  out  of  the  city.  Paul  and 
Barnabas,  in  conformity  to  the  original  injunction  of  Jesus  to  the 
twelve,  shook  off  the  dust  of  their  feet,  as  an  expressive  testimony 
against  them, — and  turning  eastward,  came  to  another  city,  named 
Iconium,  in  Lycaonia,  the  most  eastern  province  of  Phrygia. 

Ymc  that  fear  God.  Acts  xiii.  16. — That  there  were  two  classes  of  hearers  pre- 
sent, is  very  plain  from  verses  42, 43 ;  and  the  believing  Gentiles  could  not  be  referred 
to  in  the  address,  unless  this  term  were  applied  to  them.  This  is  the  view  of  Corne- 
lius a  Lapide,  Medonachus,  Tirinus,  Grotius,  &c.  (See  Poole.)  It  does  not  follow 
of  course,  however,  that  all  to  whom  this  term  was  applied,  were  proselytes  conform- 
ing to  the  Mosaic  observances,  any  more  than  Cornelius  the  centurion,  who  is  cha- 
racterized by  this  phrase  in  Acts  x.  2.  (See  B'.oornfield  and  Kuinoel  on  that  passage, 
and  Lardner,  in  his  life  of  Peter.) 

LAjcaonia  is  a  province  of  Asia  Minor,  accounted  the  southern  part  of  Cappadocia, 
having  Isauria  on  the  west,  Armenia  Minor  on  the  east,  and  Cilicia  on  the  south.  Its 
chief  cities  are  all  mentioned  in  this  chapter  xiv. — viz.,  Iconium,  Lystra,  and  Derbe. 
They  spake  m  the  Lycaonian  tongue,  v.  10,  which  is  generally  understood  to  have 
been  a  corrupt  Greek,  intermingled  with  many  Syriac  words. — (Home's  Introduc- 
tion,— quoted  by  Williams  on  Pearson.) 

Iconmm,  a  populous  city  of  distinction,  (now  Konieh,)  stood  at  the  foot  of  Mount 
Taurus,  on  the  northern  side.  It  is  mentioned  by  Xenophon,(Anab.  1,2, 19,)  Strabo, 
(Lib.  xii.  p.  853,)  Pliny,  (Hist.  nat.  v.  27,)  and  Cicero,  (ad  famil.  xv.  4.) — (Hemsen, 
Apost.  Paul,  p.  76.) 

Iconium  was  the  capital  of  Lycaonia,  and  is  mentioned  by  the 
Grecian  and  Roman  writers,  before  and  after  the  apostolic  times, 
as  a  place  of  some  importance ;  but  nothing  definite  is  known  of 
its  size  and  character.  It  appears,  at  any  rate,  from  the  apostolic 
record,  th.at  this  flourishing  city  was  one  of  the  numerous  centres 
of  the  Jewish  population,  that  filled  so  much  of  Asia  Minor ;  and 
here,  according  to  their  custom,  the  apostles  made  their  first  com- 
munication of  the  gospel  in  the  Jewish  synagogue.  Entering  this 
place  of  worship,  they  spoke  with  such  effect,  that  a  great  number 
both  of  Greeks  and  Jews  were  thoroughly  convinced  of  the  truth 
of  the  Christian  doctrine,  and  professed  their  faith  in  Jesus.     But, 


PAUL.  521 

as  usual,  there  was  in  Iconium  a  great  residue  of  bigoted  adhe- 
rents to  the  Mosaic  faith,  who  could  appreciate  neither  the  true 
scope  of  the  ancient  dispensation,  nor  the  perfection  of  the  gospel 
truth ;  and  a  set  of  these  fellows  undertook  to  make  trouble  for 
the  apostles,  in  the  same  way  that  it  had  been  done  at  the  Pisidian 
Antioch.  Not  having  power  and  influence  enough  among  them- 
selves to  effect  any  great  mischief,  they  were  obliged  to  resoit  to 
the  expedient  of  exciting  the  ill-will  of  the  Gentile  inhabitants  and 
rulers  of  the  city,  against  the  objects  of  their  mischievous  designs, 
— and  in  this  instance  were  successful,  inasmuch  as  "  they  made 
their  minds  disaffected  against  the  brethren,"  But  in  spite  of  all 
this  opposition,  thus  powerfully  manifested,  "  long  time  they  abode 
there,  speaking  boldly  in  the  Lord,"  who  did  not  fail  to  grant  them 
the  ever-promised  support  of  his  presence,  but  "  gave  testimony 
to  the  word  of  his  grace,  and  caused  signs  and  miracles  to  be  done 
by  their  hands."  The  immediate  effect  of  this  bold  maintenance 
of  the  truth  was,  that  they  soon  made  a  strong  impression  on  the 
feelings  of  the  mass  of  the  people,  and  created  among  them  a  dis- 
position to  defend  the  preachers  of  the  word  of  heavenly  grace, 
against  the  malice  of  their  haters.  The  consequence,  of  course, 
was,  that  the  whole  city  was  directly  divided  into  two  great  par- 
ties, one  for  and  the  other  against  the  apostles.  On  one  hand  the 
supporters  of  the  Jewish  faction  were  bent  upon  driving  out  the 
innovators  from  the  city,  and  on  the  other,  the  numerous  audi- 
ences, who  had  been  interested  in  the  preaching  of  Paul  and  Bar- 
nabas, were  perfectly  determined  to  stand  by  the  apostles  at  all 
hazards,  and  the  whole  city  seems  to  have  been  on  the  eve  of  a 
battle  about  this  difference.  But  it  did  not  suit  the  apostles'  scheme 
to  make  use  of  such  means  for  their  own  advancement  or  defense  ; 
and  hearing  that  a  grand  crisis  in  affairs  was  approaching,  in  the 
opposition  of  the  Jewish  faction,  they  took  the  resolution  of  evading 
the  difficulty,  by  withdrawing  themselves  quietly  from  the  scene 
of  commotion,  in  which  there  was  but  very  little  prospect  of  being 
useful,  just  then.  The  whole  gang  of  their  opponents,  both  Gen- 
tiles and  Jews,  rulers  and  commonalty,  having  turned  out  for  the 
express  purpose  of  executing  popular  vengeance  on  these  odious 
agitators,  by  abusing  and  pelting  them,  the  apostles,  on  getting  no- 
tice of  the  scheme,  moved  off,  before  the  mob  could  lay  hands  on 
them,  and  soon  got  beyond  their  reach,  in  other  cities. 

These  fugitives  from  popular  vengeance,  after  having  so  nar- 
rowly escaped  being  sacrificed  to  public  opinion,  turned  their 


522  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

course  southward,  and  stopped  next  on  their  adventurous  route  at 
the  city  of  Lystra,  also  within  Lycaonia,  where  they  preached  the 
gospel ;  and  not  only  in  the  city  and  its  immediate  vicinity,  but 
also  throughout  the  whole  surrounding  region,  and  in  the  neigh- 
boring towns.  In  the  progress  of  their  labors  in  Lystra,  they  one 
day  were  preaching  in  the  presence  of  a  man  who  had  been  lame 
from  his  birth,  being  in  exactly  the  same  predicament  with  the 
cripple  who  was  the  subject  of  the  first  miracle  of  Peter  and 
John,  in  the  temple.  This  unfortunate  auditor  of  Paul  and 
Barnabas  believed  the  word  of  truth  which  they  preached ;  and 
as  he  sat  among  the  rest,  being  noticed  by  the  former  apostle,  was 
recognized  as  a  true  believer.  Looking  earnestly  on  him,  Paul, 
without  questioning  him  at  all  as  to  his  faith,  said  to  him  at  once, 
in  a  loud  voice,—"  Rise,  and  stand  on  thy  feet."  Instantly  the  man 
sprang  up,  and  walked.  When  the  people  saw  this  amazing  and 
palpable  miracle,  they  cried  out,  in  their  Lycaonian  dialect, — "  The 
gods  are  come  down  to  us  in  the  likeness  of  men."  Struck  with 
this  notion,  they  immediately  sought  to  designate  the  individual 
deities  who  had  thus  honored  the  city  of  Lystra  with  their  pre- 
sence ;  and  at  once  recognized  in  the  stately  form,  and  solemn,  si- 
lent majesty  of  Barnabas,  the  awful  front  of  Jupiter,  the  Father 
of  all  the  gods  ;  and  as  for  the  lively,  mercurial  person  attending 
upon  him,  and  acting,  on  all  occasions,  as  the  spokesman,  with  such 
vivid,  burning  eloquence, — who  could  he  be  but  the  attendent  and 
agent  of  Jupiter,  Hermes,  the  god  of  eloquence  and  of  travelers? 
Full  of  this  conceit,  and  anxious  to  testify  their  devout  sense  of 
this  condescension,  the  citizens  bustled  about,  and  with  no  small 
parade  brought  out  a  solemn  sacrificial  procession,  with  oxen  and 
garlands,  headed  by  the  priests  of  Jupiter,  and  were  proceeding  to 
offer  a  sacrifice  in  solemn  form  to  the  divine  personages  who  had 
thus  veiled  their  dignity  in  human  shape,  when  the  apostles,  hor- 
ror-struck at  this  degrading  exhibition  of  the  idolatrous  spirit 
against  which  they  were  warring,  and  without  a  single  sensation 
of  pride  or  gratitude  for  this  great  compliment  done  them,  ran  in 
among  the  people,  rending  their  clothes  in  the  significant  gesture 
of  true  Orientals,  and  cried  out  with  great  earnestness, — ^"Sirs !  what 
do  you  mean  ?  We  also  are  men  of  like  constitutions  with  your- 
selves, and  we  preach  to  you  with  the  express  intent  that  you 
should  turn  from  these  follies  to  the  living  God,  who  made  heaven 
and  earth  and  sea,  and  all  that  is  in  them.— He,  indeed,  in  times 
past,  left  all  nations  to  walk  in  their  own  ways.     Yet  he  left  him- 


PAUL.  523 

self  not  wholly  without  witness  of  his  being  and  goodness,  in  that 
he  did  good,  and  gave  us  rain  from  heaven,  and  fruitful  seasons, 
filling  our  hearts  with  food  and  gladness."  With  these  words  of 
splendid  eloquence  and  magnificent  conception  bursting  from  their 
lips  in  the  inspiration  of  the  moment, — the  apostles,  with  no  small 
ado,  stopped  the  idolatrous  folly  of  the  Lystrans,  when  the  mistake 
into  which  they  had  been  drawn  by  a  mere  mob-cry,  was  shown 
to  them.  Indignant,  not  so  much  at  themselves,  who  alone  were 
truly  blamable  for  the  error,  as  against  the  persons  who  were  the 
nobly  innocent  occasions  of  it, — they  were  in  a  state  of  feeling  to 
overbalance  this  piece  of  extravagance  by  another, — much  more 
wicked,  because  it  was  not  mere  nonsense,  but  downright  cruelty. 
When,  therefore,  certain  spiteful  Jews  came  to  Lystra  from  Antioch 
and  Iconium,  from  which  places  they  had  been  hunting,  like  hounds, 
on  the  track  of  the  apostles,  and  told  their  abusive  lies  to  the  people 
about  the  character  of  these  two  strange  travelers,  the  foolish  Lys- 
trans were  easily  persuaded  to  crown  their  absurdity  by  falling 
upon  Paul,  who  seemed  to  be  the  person  most  active  in  the  busi- 
ness. Having  seized  him,  before  he  could  escape  out  of  their 
hands,  as  he  usually  did  from  his  persecutors,  they  pelted  him  with 
such  efiect  that  he  fell  down  as  if  dead ;  and  they,  with  no  small 
alacrity,  dragged  him  out  of  the  city  as  a  mere  carcass.  But  the 
mob  had  hardly  dispersed,  when  he  rose  up,  to  the  great  wonder 
of  the  brethren  who  stood  mourning  about  him,  and  went  back 
with  them  into  the  city.  The  whole  of  this  interesting  series  of 
events  is  a  firm  testimony  to  the  honesty  of  the  apostolic  narrative, 
exhibiting,  as  it  does,  so  fairly,  the  most  natural,  and  at  the  same 
time,  the  most  contemptible  tendencies  of  the  human  character. 
Never  was  there  given  such  a  beautiful  illustration  of  the  value 
and  moral  force  of  public  opinion  !  unless,  perhaps,  in  the  very 
similar  case  of  Jesus,  in  Jerusalem : — "  Hosanna,"  to-day,  and 
"  Crucify  him,"  to-morrow.  One  moment,  exalting  the  apostles  to 
the  name  and  honors  of  the  highest  of  all  the  gods  ;  the  next,  pelt- 
ing them  through  the  streets,  and  driving  them  out  of  the  city  as 
a  nuisance.  The  Bible  is  everywhere  found  to  be  just  so  bitterly 
true  to  human  nature,  and  the  whole  world  cannot  fiirnish  a  story 
in  which  the  character  and  moral  value  of  popular  movements  are 
better  exhibited  than  in  the  adventures  of  the  apostles,  as  recorded 
by  Luke. 

Acts  xiv.  12. — "  It  has  been  inquired,  why  the  Lystrans  suspected  that  Paul  and 
Barnabas  were  Mercury  and  Jupiter  ■?    To  this  it  may  be  answered,  1st.  that  the  an- 


694  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

cients  supposed  the  gods  especially  visited  those  cities  which  were  sacred  to  them. 
Now  from  ver.  13,  it  appears  that  Jupiter  was  worshiped  among  these  people;  and 
that  Mercury  too  was,  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt,  considering  how  general  his  wor- 
ship would  be  in  so  commercial  a  tract  of  Maritime  Asia.  (Gughling  de  Paulo 
Mercurio,  p.  9,  and  Walch  Spic.  Antiq.  Lystr.  p.  9.)  How  then  was  it  that  the  priest 
of  Mercury  did  not  also  appear  1  Tliis  would  induce  one  rather  to  suppose  that  there 
was  no  temple  to  Mercury  at  Lystra.  Probably  the  worship  of  that  god  was  confined 
to  the  sea-coast;  whereas  Lystra  was  in  the  interior  and  mountainous  country.  2.  It 
appears  from  mythological  history,  that  Jupiter  was  thought  to  generally  descend  on 
earth  accompanied  by  Mercury.  (See  Plant.  Amphytr.  1,  1,  1.  Ovid.  Met.  8,  626, 
and  Fast.  5.  495.)  3.  It  was  a  very  common  story,  and  no  doubt  familiar  to  the  Lys- 
trans,  that  Jupiter  and  Mercury  formerly  traversed  Phrygia  together,  and  were  re- 
ceived by  Philemon  and  Baucis.  (See  Ovid.  Met.  8,  611.  Gelpke  in  Symbol,  ad  In- 
terp.  Acts  xiv.  12.)  Mr.  Harrington  has  yet  more  appositely  observed,  (m  hnWorks, 
p.  330,)  that  this  persuasion  might  gain  the  more  easily  on  the  minds  of  the  Lycaoni- 
ans,  on  account  of  the  well-known  fable  of  Jupiter  and  Mercury,  who  were  .said  to 
have  descended  from  heaven  in  human  shape,  and  to  have  been  entertained  by  Ly- 
caon,  from  whom  the  Lycaonians  received  their  name. 

"  But  it  has  been  further  inquired  why  ihey  took  Barnabas  for  Jupiter,  and  Paul 
for  Mercury.  Chrysostom  observes,  (and  after  him  Mr.  Fleming,  Christol.  Vol.  II. 
p.  226,)  that  the  heathens  represented  Jupiter  as  an  old  but  vigorous  man,  of  a  noble 
and  majestic  aspect,  and  a  large  robust  make,  which  therefore  he  supposes  might  be 
the  form  of  Barnabas ;  whereas  Mercury  appeared  young,  little,  and  nimble,  as  Paul 
might  probably  do,  since  he  was  yet  in  his  youth.  A  more  probable  reason,  however, 
and  indeed  the  true  one,  (as  given  by  Luke,)  is,  that  Paul  was  so  named,  because  he 
was  the  leading  speaker.  Now  it  was  well  known  that  Mercury  was  the  god  of  elo- 
quence. So  Horn.  Carra.  1,  10,  1.  Mercuri  facunde  nepos  Atlantis  Q,ui  feros  cultus 
hominum  recentum  Voce  formasti  cantus.  Ovid.  Fast.  5,  688.  Macrob.  Sat.  8,  8. 
Hence  he  is  called  by  Jamblich.  de  Myst.  Qc6q  'o  twv  Aoywi/  iiy£//<ji',  a  passage  exactly 
the  counterpart  to  the  present  one,  which  we  may  render,  '  for  he  had  led  the  dis- 
course.' "    (Bloomfield's  Annot.  N.  T.  Vol.  IV.  c.  xiv.  §  12.) 

"  They  called  Paul  Mercury,  because  he  was  the  chief  speaker,"  ver.  12.  Mercu- 
ry was  the  god  of  eloquence.  Justin  Martyr  says  Paul  is  Xdyo?  IpurwzvTiKoi  koX  irdvrwv 
6t6a>TKa\os,  the  vjord;  that  is,  the  interpreter  and  teacher  of  all  men.  Ap.  ii.  p.  67. 
Philo  informs  us  that  Mercury  is  called  Hermes,  ws  'Kpnr)via  KaX  irpncpfiTriv  tuv  duaiv,  as 
being  the  interpreter  and  prophet  of  divine  things,  apud  Euseb.  Praep.  Evang.  Lib.  iii. 
c.  2.  He  is  called  by  Porphyry  -napaaTariKoi,  the  exhibitor  or  representor  of  reason  and 
eloquence.  Seneca  says  he  was  called  Mercury,  quia  ratio  penes  ilium  est.  De  Benef. 
Lib.  iv.  cap.  7. — (Calmet,  Whitby,  Stackhouse, — quoted  by  Williams  on  Pearson.) 

All  this  commotion,  however,  made  not  the  slightest  impression 
on  Paul  and  Barnabas,  nor  had  the  effect  of  deterring  them  from 
the  work,  which  they  had  so  unpropitiously  carried  on.  Knowing, 
as  they  did,  how  popular  violence  always  exhausts  itself  in  its 
frensy,  they  without  hesitation  immediately  returned  by  the  same 
route  over  which  they  had  been  just  driven  by  such  a  succession 
of  popular  outrages.  The  day  after  Paul  had  been  stoned  by  the 
people  of  Lystra,  he  left  that  city  with  Barnabas,  and  both  directed 
their  course  eastward  to  Derbe,  where  they  preached  the  gospel 
and  taught  many.  Then  turning  directly  back,  they  came  again 
to  Lystra,  then  to  Iconium,  and  then  to  Antioch,  in  all  of  which 
cities  they  had  just  been  so  shamefully  treated.  In  each  of  these 
places,  they  sought  to  strengthen  the  faith  of  the  disciples,  earnestly 
exhorting  them  to  continue  in  the  Christian  course,  and  warning 
them  that  they  must  expect  to  attain  the  blessings  of  the  heavenly 


PAUL.  535 

kingdom,  only  through  much  trial  and  suffering.  On  this  return 
journey  they  now  formally  constituted  regular  worshiping  assem- 
blies of  Christians  in  all  the  places  from  which  they  had  before 
been  so  tumultuously  driven  as  to  be  prevented  from  perfecting 
their  good  work, — ordaining  elders  in  every  church  thus  constitu- 
ted, and  solemnly,  with  fasting  and  prayer,  commending  them  to 
the  Lord  on  whom  they  believed.  Still  keeping  the  same  route 
on  which  they  had  come,  they  now  turned  southward  into  Pam- 
phylia,  and  came  again  to  Perga.  From  this  place  they  went 
down  to  Attalia,  a  great  city  south  of  Perga,  on  the  coast  of  Pam- 
phylia,  founded  by  Attalus  Philadelphus,  king  of  Pergamus.  At 
this  port  they  embarked  for  the  coast  of  Syria,  and  soon  arrived  at 
Antioch,  from  which  they  had  been  coimnended  to  the  favor  of 
God.  on  this  adventurous  journey.  On  their  arrival,  the  whole 
church  was  gathered  to  hear  the  story  of  their  doings  and  suffer- 
ings, and  to  this  eager  assembly  the  apostles  then  recounted  all 
that  happened  to  them  in  the  providence  of  God,  their  labors,  their 
trials,  dangers,  and  hair-breadth  escapes,  and  the  crowning  suc- 
cesses in  which  all  these  providences  had  resulted ;  and  more 
especially  did  they  they  set  forth  in  what  a  signal  manner,  during 
this  journey,  the  door  of  Christ's  kingdom  had  been  opened  to  the 
Gentiles,  after  the  rejection  of  the  truth  by  the  unbelieving  Jews ; 
and  thus  happily  ended  Paul's  first  great  apostolic  mission. 

Bishop  Pearson  here  allots  three  years  for  these  journeys  of  the  apostles,  viz.  45, 
46,  and  47,  and  something  more.  But  Calmet,  Tillemont,  Dr.  Lardner,  Bishop  Tom- 
line,  and  Dr.  Hales,  allow  two  years  for  this  purpose,  viz.  45  and  46  ;  which  period 
corresponds  with  our  Bible  chronology.    (Williams  on  Pearson.) 

THE  DISPUTES  ON  THE  CIRCUMCISION. 

The  great  apostle  of  the  Gentiles  now  made  Antioch  his  home, 
and  resided  there  for  many  years,  during  which  the  church  grew 
prosperously.  But  at  last  some  persons  came  down  from  Jerusa- 
lem, to  observe  the  progress  which  the  new  Gentile  converts  were 
making  in  the  faith ;  and  found,  to  their  great  horror,  that  all 
were  going  on  their  Christian  course,  in  utter  disregard  of  the  an- 
cient ordinances  of  the  holy  Mosaic  covenant,  neglecting  altogether 
even  that  grand  seal  of  salvation,  which  had  been  enjoined  on 
Abraham  and  all  the  faithful  who  should  share  in  the  blessings 
of  the  promise  made  to  him ;  they  therefore  took  these  back- 
sliders and  loose  converts  to  task,  for  their  irregularities  in  this 
matter,  and  said  to  them,  "  Unless  you  be  circumcised  according 
to  the  Mosaic  usage,  you  cannot  be  saved."     This  denunciation 


^6  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

of  eternal  ruin  on  the  Gentile  non-conformists,  of  course  made  a 
great  commotion  among  the  Antiochians,  who  had  been  so  hope- 
fully progressing  in  the  pure,  spiritual  faith  of  Christ, — and  were 
not  prepared  by  any  of  the  instructions  which  they  had  received 
from  their  apostolic  teachers,  for  any  such  stiff  subjection  to  te- 
dious rituals.     Nor  were  Paul  and  Barnabas  slow  in  resisting  this 
vile  imposition  upon  those  who  were  just  rejoicing  in  the  glorious 
light  and  freedom  of  the  gospel ;  and  they  at  once,  therefore,  reso- 
lutely opposed  the  attempts  of  the  bigoted  Judaizers  to  bring  them 
under  the  servitude  of  the  yoke  which  not  even  the  Jews  them- 
selves were  able  to  bear.     After  much  disputing  on  this  knotty 
point,  it  was  determined  to  make  a  united  reference  of  the  whole 
question  to  the  apostles  and  elders  at  Jerusalem,  and  that  Paul  and 
Barnabas  should  be  the  messengers  of  the  Antiochian  church,  in 
this  consultation.      They  accordingly  set  out,  escorted  beyond  the 
city  by  the  church  ;  and  passing  first  directly  southward,  along  the 
Phoenician  coast,  they  next  turned  inland,  through  Samaria,  every- 
where visiting  the  churches  on  the  route,  and  making  known  to 
them  the  joyful  story  of  the  conversions  among  the  Gentiles  of 
Asia  Minor,  which  was  news  to  the  Christians  of  Palestine,  and 
caused  great  congratulations  among  them,  at  these  unexpected  tri- 
umphs of  their  common  faith.     Arriving  at  Jerusalem,  they  there, 
for  the  first  time,  gave  to  the  twelve  apostles  a  detailed  account  of 
their  long  Asian  mission ;  and  then  brought  forward  the  grand 
question  under  debate.     As  soon  as  this  point  was  presented,  all 
the  Jewish  prejudices  of  that  portion  of  the  church  who  were  of 
the  order  of  the  Pharisees,  were  instantly  aroused, — and  with  great 
earnestness  they  insisted  "  that  it  was  necessary  to  circumcise  them, 
and  to  command  them  to  keep  the  law  of  Moses."     This  first 
meeting,  however,  adjourned  without  coming  to  any  conclusion ; 
and  the  apostles  and  elders  were  called  together  again  to  consider 
upon  the  matter.     As  soon  as  they  were  assembled,  they  fell  to 
disputing  with  great  violence,  and,  of  course,  with  no  decisive  or 
profitable  result ;  but  at  last  the  apostolic  chief  rising  up,  ended 
the  debate  with  a  very  clear  statement  of  the  results  of  his  own 
personal  experience  of  the  divine  guidance  in  this  matter,  and 
with  brief  but  decisive  eloquence  hushed  their  clamors,  that  they 
might  give  Barnabas  and  Paul  a  chance  to  declare  in  what  man- 
ner God  had  sanctioned  their  similar  course.     The  two  apostles 
of  the  Gentiles  then  narrated  what  miracles  and  wonders  God  had 
wrought  among  the  heathen  by  them.     Such  was  the  decisive 


PAUL.  627" 

effect  of  their  exposition  of  these  matters  of  fact,  that  all  debate 
was  checked  at  once ;  and  James  himself,  the  great  leader  of  the 
Judaical  order,  rose  to  express  his  perfect  acquiescence  in  the  de- 
cision of  the  apostolic  chief  and  the  Hellenists.     His  opinion  was, 
that  only  so  much  conformity  to  the  Mosaic  institutions  should  be 
required  of  the  Gentile  converts,  as  they  might  without  inconve- 
nience submit  to,  out  of  respect  to  the  old  covenant,  and  such  ob- 
servances as  were  necessary  for  the  moral  purity  of  a  professing 
Christian  of  any  nation.     The  whole  assembly  concurred  ;  and  it 
was  resolved  to  despatch  two  select  persons  out  of  their  own  com- 
pany, to  accompany  Paul  and  Barnabas  to  Antioch,  and  thus  by 
their  special  commission,  enforce  the  decision  of  the  apostolic  and 
presbyterial  council.     The  decision  of  the  council  was  therefore 
committed  to  writing,  in  a  letter  which  bore  high  testimony  to  the 
zeal  and  courage  of  Barnabas  and  Paul,  as  "  men  who  had  ha- 
zarded their  lives  for  the  sake  of  the  gospel," — and  it  was  an- 
nounced as  the  inspired  decision  of  the  apostles,  elders,  and  bre- 
thren, that  the  Gentile  converts  should  not  be  troubled  with  any 
greater  burden  than  these  necessary  things  : — "  That  you  abstain 
from  things  offered  to  idols,  and  from  blood,  and  from  things 
strangled,  and  from  fornication ;"  and  if  they  should  only  keep 
themselves  from  these,  they  would  do  well.     Jude  and  Silas  were 
the  envoys  commissioned  with  the  charge  of  this  epistle,  and  ac- 
cordingly accompanied  Paul  and  Barnabas  back  to  Antioch. 

"  Those  who  maintained  this  position  were  Jews,  of  the  sect  of  the  Pharisees,  Acts 
XV.  5,  converted  to  Christianity,  but  still  too  zealous  for  the  observance  of  the  law  ; 
and  their  coming  immediately  from  Judea  might  make  it  rather  believed,  that  the  ne- 
cessity of  circumcision,  in  order  to  salvation,  was  a  tenet  of  the  apostles.  The  Jews 
themselves  indeed  were  of  different  opinions  in  this  matter,  even  as  to  the  admission 
of  a  man  into  their  religion.  For  some  of  them  would  allow  those  of  other  nations 
who  owned  the  true  God,  and  practised  moral  duties,  to  live  quietly  among  them,  and 
even  without  circumcision,  to  be  admitted  into  their  religion;  whilst  others  were  de- 
cidedly opposed  to  any  such  thing.  Thus  Josephus  tells  us  that  when  Izates,  the  son 
of  Helen,  queen  of  Adiabene,  embraced  the  Jews'  religion,  Ananias,  who  converted 
him,  declared  that  he  might  do  it  without  circumcision ;  but  Eleazar,  another  emi- 
nent Jew,  maintained,  that  it  was  a  great  impiety  in  such  circumstances,  to  remain 
uncircumcised  ;  and  this  difference  of  opinion  continued  among  the  Jewish  Christian 
converts,  some  allowing  Gentiles  to  become  converts  to  Christianity ,  without  submitting 
to  circumcision  and  the  Jewish  law :  whilst  others  contended  that  without  circumcision, 
and  the  observance  of  the  law,  their  profession  of  the  Christian  faith  would  not  save 
them."    (Staclihouse,  from  Whitby  and  Beausobre, — quoted  by  Williams  on  Pearson.) 

"  It  is  very  evident,  that  this  is  the  same  journey  to  which  the  apostle  alludes  in 
Gal.  ii.  First,  fwtn  the  agreement  of  the  history  here  and  the  apostle's  relation  in 
the  epistle,  as  that '  he  communicated  to  them  the  gospel,  which  he  preached  among 
the  Gentiles,'  Gal.  ii.  2,  which  he  now  did,  Acts  xv.  4.  That  circumcision  was  not  then 
judged  necessary  to  the  Gentiles,  ver.  3,  as  we  find,  Acts  xv.  24,  '  that,  when  they  .saw 
the  gospel  of  uncircumcision  was  committed  to  him,  they  gave  to  him  and  Barnabas 
the  right  hand  of  fellowship,' Gal.  ii.  9,  as  they  did  here,  sending  their  very  decree 
with  one  consent  to  the  Gentiles,  '  bij  the  hands  of  Paul  and  BarnaJbas^  Acts  xv.  22, 
25,  who  were  received  by  the  '  whole  church,'  ver.  4,  and  styled  '  beloved,'  ver.  25. 


S28  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

"  Secondly,  it  appears  unlikely  that  the  apostle,  writing  this  epistle  about  nine  years 
after  this  council,  should  make  no  mention  of  a  thing  so  advantageous  to  a  cause  he 
is  pleading  here,  and  so  proper  to  confute  the  pretenses  of  the  adversaries  he  disputes 
against.    And, 

"  Thirdly,  James,  Peter,  and  John,  being  all  the  apostles  now  present  at  the  council, 
the  mention  of  their  consent  to  his  doctrine  and  practice  was  all  that  was  necessary 
to  his  purpose  to  be  mentioned  concerning  that  council.  It  is  no  objection  to  this 
opinion,  that  we  find  no  mention  in  Acts  xv.  of  Titus's  being  with  him ;  for  he  is  not 
mentioned  in  the  whole  of  the  Acts,  during  which  interval  the  journey  must  have 
happened."    (Whitby, — quoted  by  Williams.) 

"  The  Council  of  Jerusalem  was  assembled  in  the  fourteenth  year  after  St.  Paul's 
conversion.  For  the  apostle  adverts  to  this  same  journey,  and  determinately  speci- 
fies the  time  in  Gal.  ii.  1,  2.  Grolius  is  of  opinion  that  four  years  should  be  here 
written  instead  of  fourteen;  who,  nevertheless,  allows  that  the  one  mentioned  in 
Galatians,  is  this  journey  to  the  Council.  But  the  reason  is  evident  why  the  apostle 
should  date  these  years  from  the  epoch  of  his  conversion,  from  the  scope  of  the  first 
and  second  chapters.  He  styles  himself  an  apostle,  not  of  men,  neither  by  man, 
chap.  i.  1 :  he  declared  that  his  gospel  was  not  according  to  men,  and  that  he  neither 
received  nor  learned  it  from  men,  but  by  the  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ,  ver.  11,  12. 
And  this  he  proves  to  the  Galatians  by  his  conversion,  which  was  not  unknown  to 
them.  He  begins  with  his  strict  profession  of  the  Jewish  religion,  according  to  the 
tenets  of  the  Pharisees,  which  ended  in  a  most  violent  persecution  of  the  Christians. 
Then  he  goes  on  to  show  how  God  revealed  his  Son  to  him,  and  that  immediately 
he  conferred  not  with  flesh  and  blood,  he  neither  held  communion  with  any  man, 
neither  did  he  go  up  to  Jerusalem  to  them  that  were  apostles  before  him,  by  whom 
he  could  have  been  taught  more  fully  the  mind  of  God,  '  but  went  into  Arabia,' 
where  he  received  the  gospel  by  revelation ;  and  he  returned  to  Damasci\s,  and 

E reached  the  word  of  God  to  the  confounding  of  the  Jews :  '  Then  after  three  years 
e  went  up  to  Jerusalem  to  see  Peter.'  From  all  this  it  appears  evident,  that  the 
epoch  of  these  three  years  should  commence  at  the  time  of  his  conversion.  The 
same  is  to  be  said  of  the  other  epoch  of  the  fourteen  years.  '  Then,  after  fourteen 
years,  I  went  up  again  to  Jerusalem,'  chap.  ii.  1,  because  the  scope  of  both  is  the 
same, — and  they  both  date  from  the  same  period  of  time.  The  word  '^mira  does  not 
connect  this  sentence  with  that  of  the  three  years,  as  if  the  beginning  of  these  should 
be  dated  from  the  close  of  those,  because  there  is  another  Unttra  which  comes  between 
these  two  texts,  viz.  in  ver.  21  of  chap,  i.,  where  he  begins  to  relate  his  travels  in  Sy- 
ria and  Cilicia,  but  does  not  specify  the  period  of  time  he  remained  in  those  regions; 
therefore  no  chronological  connexion  can  have  been  intended  by  him.  The  apostle 
still  following  up  his  design,  says  e-rrctra  and  naXiv,  but  neither  does  svetra  refer  to  his 
stay  in  Syria  and  Cilicia, — nor  n-dXii/  to  his  second  coming  to  Jerusalem  :  for  he  had 
been  with  a  second  collection  to  Jerusalem,  then  suffering  from  famine,  accompanied 
by  Barnabas,  but  not  by  Titus ;  and  because  he  then  saw  none  of  the  apostles,  he 
omitted  mentioning  that  journey,  considering  it  quite  foreign  to  his  present  purpose." 
(Pearson.  Ann.  49.) 

Paul's  auARREL  with  peter. 

The  whole  company  of  envoys,  both  Barnabas  and  Paul,  the 
original  messengers  of  the  Syrian  church,  and  Jude  and  Silas,  the 
deputies  of  the  apostolic  college,  presented  the  complete  results  of 
the  Jerusalem  consultation  before  a  full  meeting-  of  the  whole  con- 
gregation  of  believers  at  Antioch,  and  read  the  epistle  of  the  council 
to  them.  The  sage  and  happy  exhortations  which  it  contained 
were  not  only  respectfully,  but  joyfully  received  ;  Hhd  in  addition 
to  the  comfort  of  these,  the  first  written  words  of  Christian  inspi- 
ration, the  two  envoys,  Jude  and  Silas,  also  discoursed  to  the 
church,  commenting  at  more  length  on  the  apostolic  message  of 
which  they  were  the  bearers,  and  confirmed  their  hearers  in  the 


PAUL.  529 

fifX&i.  After  remaining  there  for  some  time,  Jude  bade  them  fare- 
well, and  returned  to  his  apostolic  associates  •  but  Silas  was  so 
much  pleased  with  the  opportunities  thus  afforded  him  of  doing 
good  among  the  Gentiles,  of  whom  he  himself  also  was  one,  as  his 
name  shows, — that  he  stayed  in  Antioch  after  the  departure  of 
Jude,  and  labored  along  with  Paul  and  Barnabas,  teaching  and 
preaching  the  word  of  the  Lord,  with  many  others  also.  This  is 
commonly  understood  to  be  the  time  of  Paul's  dissension  with  Pe- 
ter, as  mentioned  in  the  epistle  to  the  Galatians.  The  circum- 
stances of  this  disagreeable  occurrence  have  already  been  narrated 
and  commented  on,  in  the  Life  of  Peter, — nor  need  any  thing  ad- 
ditional be  presented  here  in  relation  to  Paul,  except  the  observa- 
tion, that  his  dispute  with  the  chief  apostle,  and  the  harsh  censure 
of  his  conduct,  are  very  much  in  accordance  with  the  impressions 
of  his  character,  given  in  other  passages  of  his  life.  He  was  evi- 
dently a  man  of  violent  and  hasty  feelings  ;  and  is  frequently  repre- 
sented, by  his  historian  and  by  himself,  as  quite  harsh  in  his  denun- 
ciations of  those  who  differed  from  him,  both  before  and  after  his 
calling  to  the  apostleship ;  and  this  trait  is  manifested  on  such  a 
variety  of  occasions,  as  to  be  very  justly  considered  an  inseparable 
peculiarity  of  his  natural  disposition  and  temperament.  Doubt- 
less there  are  many  to  whom  it  seems  strange,  that  the  Apostle 
Paul  should  ever  be  spoken  of  as  having  been  actually  and  truly 
angry,  or  ever  having  made  an  error  in  his  conduct  after  his  con- 
version ;  but  there  are  instances  enough  to  show  that  it  was  not  a 
mere  modest  injustice  to  himself  for  him  to  tell  the  Lystran  idolaters 
that  he  was  a  man  of  like  passions  with  them, — but  a  plain  matter 
of  fact,  made  evident  not  only  by  his  own  noble  and  frank  confession, 
but  by  many  instances  throughout  his  recorded  life.  Yet  there  are 
Protestants,  who  are  in  the  habit  of  making  so  much  of  an  idol  or 
demi-god  of  Paul,  that  they  are  as  little  prepared  as  the  Lystrans 
to  appreciate  the  human  imperfections  of  his  character ;  and  if  Paul 
himself  could  at  this  moment  be  made  fully  sensible  of  the  undue 
reverence  with  which  many  of  his  modern  enlightened  adorers 
regard  him,  he  would  be  very  apt  to  burst  out  in  the  same  earnest 
and  grieved  tone,  in  which  he  checked  the  similar  folly  of  the 
Lystrans, — "  Sirs  !  why  do  ye  these  things  ?  I  also  am  a  man  of 
like  passions  with  yourselves." — "  The  spirit  of  divine  truth  which 
actuated  me,  and  guided  me  in  the  way  of  light,  by  which  I  led 
others  to  life  eternal,  still  did  not  make  me  any  thing  more  than  a 
man, — a  man  in  moral  as  in  bodily  weakness,  nor  exempt  from 


630  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

liabilities  to  the  accidents  of  passion,  any  more  than  to  the  pains 
of  mortal  disease.  The  spirit  that  guided  my  pen  in  the  record 
of  eternal  tru,th,  and  my  tongue  in  the  preaching  of  the  word  of 
salvation,  did  not  exalt  me  above  the  errors,  the  failings,  and 
distresses  of  mortality ;  and  I  was  still  all  my  lifetime  subject  to 
the  bondage  of  sin,  groaning  under  that  body  of  death,  and  long- 
ing for  the  day  when  I  should  pass  away  from  the  frailties  and 
distresses  of  earth,  to  that  state  of  being  which  alone  is  wholly 
sinless  and  pure." 

"  From  the  opposition  to  St.  Peter,  which  they  suppose  to  be  before  the  Council  at 
Jerusalem,  some  would  have  it,  that  this  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  was  written  before 
that  Council ;  as  if  what  was  done  before  the  Council  could  not  be  mentioned  in  a 
letter  written  after  the  Council.  They  also  contend,  that  this  journey,  mentioned 
here  by  St.  Paul,  was  not  that  wherein  he  and  Barnabas  went  up  to  that  Council  to 
Jerusalem,  but  that  mentioned  Acts  xi.  30 ;  but  this  with  as  little  ground  as  the  former. 
The  strongest  reason  they  bring  is,  that  if  this  journey  had  been  to  the  Council,  and 
this  letter  after  that  Council,  St.  Paul  would  not  certainly  have  omitted  to  have  men- 
tioned to  the  Galatians  that  decree.  To  which  it  is  answered,  1.  The  mention  of  it 
was  superfluous ;  for  they  had  it  already ;  see  Acts  xvi.  4.  2.  The  mention  of  it  was 
impertinent  to  the  design  of  St.  Paul's  narrative  here.  For  it  is  plain,  that  his  aim, 
in  what  he  relates  here  of  hfmself,  and  his  past  actions,  is  to  show,  that  having  receiv- 
ed the  gospel  from  Christ  by  immediate  revelation,  he  had  all  along  preached  that, 
and  nothing  but  that,  everywhere ;  so  that  he  could  not  be  supposed  to  have  preached 
circumcision,  or  by  his  carriage  to  have  shown  any  subjection  to  the  law ;  all  the 
whole  narrative  following  being  to  make  good  what  he  says,  chap.  i.  11,  '  that  the 

fospel  which  he  preached  was  not  accommodated  to  the  humoring  of  men ;  nor  did 
e  seek  to  please  the  Jews  (who  were  the  men  here  meant)  in  what  he  taught.'  Ta- 
king this  to  be  his  aim,  we  shall  find  the  whole  account  he  gives  of  himself,  from  that 
verse  11  of  chap,  i.,  to  the  end  of  the  second  chapter,  to  be  very  clear  and  easy,  and 
very  proper  to  invalidate  the  report  of  his  preaching  circumcision."  (Locke's  Paraph. 
— quoted  by  Williams.) 

"  I  conceive  that  this  happened  at  the  time  here  stated,  because  Paul  intimates  in 
Gal.  ii.  11,  that  he  was  in  Antioch  when  Peter  came  there;  and  Peter  had  never 
been  to  Antioch  before  Paul  was  in  that  city  after  the  Council  of  Jerusalem;  and 
besides,  the  dissension  between  Paul  and  Barnabas,  who  was  the  intimate  friend  of 
Peter,  appears  to  have  originated  here."    Pearson's  Annales  Paulin.    (A.  D.  50.) 

A  fine  exhibition  of  a  quibbling,  wire-drawn  argument,  may  be  found  in  Baronius, 
(Ann.  51,)  who  is  here  put  to  his  wits'  end  to  reconcile  the  blunt,  "  round,  unvarnished 
tale,"  in  Paul's  own  account,  (in  Galat.  ii.  11 — 14,)  with  the  papistical  absurdity  of 
the  moral  infallibility  of  the  apostles.  He  lays  out  an  argument  of  five  heavy  folio 
pages  to  prove  that,  though  Paul  quarreled  thus  with  Peter,  yet  neither  of  them  was 
in  the  slightest  degree  to  blame,  &c.  But  the  folly  of  explaining  away  the  Scriptures 
in  this  manner,  is  not  confined  wholly  to  the  bigoted,  hireling  historian  of  papal 
Rome ;  some  of  the  boldest  cf  protestants  have,  in  the  same  manner,  attempted  to  re- 
concile the  statement  of  Paul  with  the  notion  of  apostolic  infallibility  in  action. 
Wiisius  (Vit.  Pauli.  iv.  12)  expends  a  paragraph  to  show  that  neither  of  them  was  to 
blame ;  but  following  the  usual  course  of  anti-papist  writers,  he  represents  the  great 
protestant  idol,  Paul,  in  altogether  the  most  advantageous  light,  according  to  the  pro- 
verbial peculiarity  of  the  opponents  of  the  church  of  Rome,  who,  in  their  apostolic 
distinctions,  uniformly  "  rob  Peter  to  pay  Paul." 

Paul's  quarrel  with  earnabas. 

The  church  of  Antioch  having  thus  made  great  advances  under 

these  very  abundant  and  extraordinary  instructions,  the  apostles 

began  to  turn  their  eyes  again  to  a  foreign  field,  and  longed  for  a 

renewal  of  those  adventurous  labors  from  which  they  had  now  had 


PAUL.  631 

so  long  a  repose.  Paul  therefore  proposed  to  Barnabas  that  they 
should  go  over  their  old  ground  again  : — "  Let  us  go  again  and 
visit  our  brethren  in  every  city,  where  we  have  preached  the  word 
of  the  Lord,  and  see  how  they  do."  To  this  reasonable  proposi- 
tion Barnabas  readily  agreed,  and  as  it  was  desirable  that  they 
should  have  an  assistant  with  them  on  this  journey,  he  proposed 
that  his  nephew  Mark  should  accompany  them  in  this  capacity,  as 
he  had  done  on  their  former  voyage.  But  Paul,  remembering  the 
manner  in  which  he  had  forsaken  them  just  as  they  were  entering 
upon  the  arduous  missionary  fields  of  Asia  Minor,  refused  to  try 
again  one  who  had  once  failed  to  do  them  the  desired  service,  at 
a  time  when  he  was  most  needed.  Yet  Barnabas,  being  led,  no 
doubt  by  his  near  relationship  to  the  delinquent  evangelist,  to 
overlook  this  single  deficiency,  and,  perhaps,  having  good  reason 
to  think  that  he  had  now  made  up  his  mind  to  stick  to  them 
through  good  and  bad  fortune,  was  disposed  to  give  him  another 
trial  in  the  apostolic  service,  and  therefore  strongly  urged  Paul  to 
accept  of  him  as  their  common  assistant  in  this  new  tour,  for  which 
he  was  well  fitted  by  his  knowledge  of  the  routes.  Paul,  however, 
no  doubt  irritated  against  Mark,  for  the  wavering  spirit  already 
manifested  by  him  at  Perga,  utterly  refused  to  have  any  thing  to 
do  with  him  after  such  a  display  of  character,  and  wished  to  take 
some  other  person  who  had  been  tried  in  the  good  work  with  more 
satisfactory  results  as  to  his  resolution  and  ability.  Barnabas,  of 
course,  was  not  at  all  pleased  to  have  his  sister's  son  treated  so 
slightingly,  and  refused  to  have  any  substitute  whatever,  insisting 
that  Mark  should  go,  while  Paul  was  equally  resolved  that  he 
should  not.  The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  was,  that  these 
two  great  apostles,  the  authorized  messengers  of  God  to  the  Gen- 
tiles, quarreled;  and  after  much  furious  contention,  they  parted 
entirely  from  one  another ;  and  are  not  known  to  have  ever  after 
been  associated  in  apostolic  labors,  although  they  had  been  the 
most  intimate  friends  and  fellow-travelers  for  many  years,  standing 
by  one  another  through  evil  and  good  report,  through  trials,  perils, 
distresses,  and  almost  to  death.  A  most  lamentable  exhibition  of 
human  weakness  marring  the  harmonious  progress  of  the  great 
scheme  of  evangelization !  Yet  it  must  be  esteemed  one  of  the 
most  valuable  facts  relating  to  the  apostles  that  are  recorded  in  the 
honest,  simple,  clear,  and  truly  impartial  narrative  of  Luke ;  be- 
cause it  reminds  the  Christian  reader  of  a  circumstance,  that  he 
might  otherwise  forget,  in  an  undue  reverence  for  the  character  of 


532  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  apostles, — and  that  is  the  circumstance  that  these  consecrated 
ministers  of  tUe  word  of  truth  were,  really  and  practically,  not- 
withstanding their  holiness,  "  men  of  like  passions  with  ourselves," 
and  even  in  the  arrangement  of  their  apostolic  duties,  were  liable 
to  be  governed  by  the  impulses  of  human  passion,  which,  on  a 
few  occasions  like  this,  acting  in  opposite  directions  in  different 
persons  at  the  same  time,  brought  them  into  open  collisions  and 
disputes, — which,  if  men  of  their  pure  martyr-spirit,  mostly,  too, 
under  the  guidance  of  a  divine  influence,  could  not  avoid,  noi 
could  satisfactorily  settle^  neither  may  the  unconsecrated  historian 
of  a  later  age  presume  to  decide.  Who  was  right  and  who  was 
wrong  in  this  difficulty,  it  is  impossible  to  say ;  and  each  reader 
may  judge  for  himself  It  may  be  remarked,  however,  that  Paul 
was  no  more  likely  to  be  right  than  Barnabas  •  he  was  a  younger 
man,  as  it  would  appear  from  the  circumstance  that  he  is  named 
after  him  in  the  apostolic  epistle  ; — he  was  no  more  an  apostle  than 
Barnabas  was ;  for  both  are  thus  named  by  Luke  in  his  account  of 
their  first  journey,  and  both  were  expressly  called  by  a  distinct  re- 
velation from  the  Holy  Spirit  to  undertake  the  apostleship  of  the 
Gentiles  together.  Paul  also  is  known  to  have  had  contention 
with  other  persons,  and  especially  with  Peter  himself,  and  that,  too, 
without  very  just  cause ;  and  although  Barnabas  may  have  been 
influenced  to  partiality  by  his  relationship  to  Mark,  yet  much  also 
may  be  justly  chargeable  to  Paul's  natural  violence  of  temper, 
which  often  led  him  into  hasty  acts,  of  which  he  afterwards  re- 
pented, as  he  certainly  did  in  this  very  case,  after  some  time ;  for 
he  repeatedly  mentions  Mark  in  bis  epistles  in  terms  of  regard, 
and  what  is  most  in  point,  declares  him  to  be  "  profitable  to  him 
in  the  ministry." 

"Witsius  remarks,  (Vit.  Paul.  iv.  16,)  that  the  ancient  Christian  writers  ascribe  th« 
greatest  part  of  the  blame  of  this  quarrel  to  Barnabas,  whom  they  consider  as  having 
been  unduly  influenced  by  natural  affection  for  his  kindred  according  to  the  flesh. 
"  But,"  as  Witsius  thinks,  "  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  Paul's  natural  violence 
of  temper  did  not  carry  him  somewhat  beyond  the  bounds  of  right.  The  Greeks 
have  not  unwisely  remarked — 'O  HaUXog  e^nrct  to  iiKaiov,'o  Bapvu/Ju?  to  (i't\avOpo)vov, 
'Paul  demanded  what  was  just — Barnabas  what  was  charitable.'  It  might  have  been 
well  enough  if  Barnabas  had  yielded  to  the  zeal  of  Paul ;  but  it  wouM  not  have  been 
bad  if  Paul  had  persuaded  himself  to  allow  something  to  the  feelings  of  that  most 
mild  and  amiable  man.  Meanwhile,  it  deserves  notice,  that  Grod  so  ordered  this,  thaC 
it  turned  out  as  much  for  the  individual  benefit  of  Mark,  as  for  the  general  benefit  of 
the  church.  For  the  kind  partiality  of  Barnabas  was  of  advantage  to  Mark,  in  pre- 
venting him  from  being  utterly  cast  off  from  apostolic  companionship,  and  forsaken 
as  unworthy,  while  to  the  churchy  this  separation  was  useful,  since  it  was  the  means 
of  confirming  the  faith  of  more  of  the  churches  in  the  same  time." 

"  From  hence  we  may  learn,  not  only  that  these  great  lights  in  the  Christian  church. 
were  men  of  the  like  passions  with  us,  but  that  God,  upon  this  occasion,  did  most 
eminently  illu-strate  the  wisdom  of  his  providence,  by  rendering  the  frailties  of  two 


PAUL.  533 

such  eminent  servants  instrumental  to  the  benefit  of  his  church,  since  both  of  them 
thenceforward  employed  their  extraordinary  industry  and  zeal  singly  and  apart, 
which  till  then  had  been  united,  and  confined  to  the  same  place."  (Stanhope  on  the 
Epistles  and  Gospels,  vol.  4, — quoted  by  Williams.) 

HIS  SECOND  APOSTOLIC  MISSION. 

After  this  unhappy  dispute,  the  two  great  apostles  of  the  Gen- 
tiles separated ;  and  while  Barnabas,  accompanied  by  his  favorite 
nephew,  pursued  the  former  route  to  Cyprus,  his  native  island, 
Paul  took  a  different  direction,  by  land,  north  and  west.  In  se- 
lecting a  companion  for  a  journey  which  he  had  considered  as  ur- 
gently requiring  such  blameless  rectitude  and  firmness  of  resolu- 
tion, he  had  set  his  heart  upon  Silas,  the  efficient  Hellenist  deputy 
from  Jerusalem,  whose  character  had  been  fully  tested  and  devel- 
oped during  his  stay  in  Antioch,  where  he  had  been  so  active  in 
the  exercise  of  those  talents  as  a  preacher,  which  had  gained  for 
him  the  title  of  "prophet"  before  his  departure  from  Jerusalem. 
Paul,  during  his  apostolic  association  with  him,  had  laid  the  foun- 
dation of  a  very  intimate  friendship ;  and  being  thus  attached  to 
him  by  motives  of  affection  and  respect,  he  now  selected  him  as 
the  companion  of  his  missionary  toils.  Bidding  the  church  of 
Antioch  farewell,  and  being  commended  by  them  to  the  favor  of 
God,  he  departed, — not  by  water,  but  through  the  cities  of  Syria, 
by  land, — whence,  turning  westward,  he  passed  through  the  Syrian 
gates  into  Cilicia;  in  all  these  places  strengthening  the  churches 
already  planted^  by  making  large  additions  to  them  from  the  Gentiles 
around  them.  Journeying  northwest  from  Cilicia,  he  came  by  the 
Cilician  gates  of  Taurus,  to  his  old  scenes  of  labor  and  suffering, 
in  Lycaonia,  at  Derbe  and  Lystra,  where  he  proceeded  in  the  task 
of  renewing  and  completing  the  good  work  which  he  had  himself 
begun  on  his  former  tour  with  Barnabas  ;  with  whom  he  might 
now  doubtless  have  effected  vastly  more  good,  and  whose  absence 
must  have  been  deeply  regretted  by  those  who  owed  their  hopes 
of  salvation  to  the  united  prayers  and  labors  of  him  and  Paul. 
Among  those  who  had  been  converted  here  by  the  apostles  on  their 
first  mission,  was  a  half-breed  Jew,  by  name  Timotheus,  his  father 
having  been  a  Greek,  who  married  Eunice,  a  Jewess,  and  had 
maintained  a  high  character  among  his  countrymen  in  that  region, 
both  in  Lystra  and  Iconium.  Under  the  early  and  careful  in- 
structions of  his  pious  mother,  who  had  herself  received  a  superior 
religious  education  under  her  own  mother,  Lois,  Timothy  had  ac- 
quired a  most  uncommon  famiharity  with  the  Scriptures,  which 


m 


534  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

were  able  to  make  him  wise  unto  salvation ;  and  that  he  had 
learned  them  and  appreciated  their  meaning  in  a  much  more  spi- 
ritual and  exalted  sense  than  most  Jews,  appears  from  the  fact,  that 
notwithstanding  his  early  regard  for  the  law  as  well  as  the  pro- 
phets, he  had  never  complied  with  the  Mosaic  rite  of  circumcision, 
— perhaps  because  his  father  may  have  been  prejudiced  against  the 
infliction  of  such  a  sign  upon  his  child.  Paul  becoming  acquainted 
with  Timothy,  and  seeing  in  the  young  man  the  germ  of  those 
talents  which  were  afterwards  so  eminent  in  the  gospel  cause,  de- 
termined to  train  him  to  be  an  assistent  and  associate  with  him  in 
the  apostolic  ministry, — and  in  order  to  make  him  so  far  conform 
to  all  the  rites  of  the  ancient  covenant,  as  would  fit  him  for  an 
acceptable  ministry  among  the  Jews  as  well  as  the  Gentiles,  he 
had  him  circumcised ;  and  he  was  induced  still  farther  to  this  step 
of  conformity,  by  the  consideration  of  the  effect  it  would  have  on 
the  Jews  in  that  immediate  neighborhood,  who  were  already  very 
suspicious  that  Paul  was  in  reality  aiming  at  the  utter  overthrow 
and  extinction  of  all  the  Mosaic  usages,  and  was  secretly  doing 
all  that  he  could  to  bring  them  into  contempt  and  disuse.  Having 
made  this  sacrifice  to  the  prejudices  of  his  countrymen,  he  now 
considered  Timothy  as  completely  fitted  for  usefulness  in  the  apos- 
tolic ministry,  and  henceforth  made  him  his  constant  companion 
for  years. 

HIS  WESTWARD  JOURNEY. 

With  this  accession  to  his  company,  Paul  proceeded  through 
the  cities  of  that  region  which  he  had  before  visited,  and  commu- 
nicated to  them  the  decrees  passed  by  the  apostles  and  elders  at 
Jerusalem,  for  the  regulation  of  the  deportment  of  professing  Chris- 
tians, in  regard  to  the  observance  of  Mosaic  usages.  They  all, 
moreover,  labored  for  the  extension  of  the  churches  already  found- 
ed, and  thus  caused  them  to  be  built  up,  so  that  they  received  fresh 
additions  daily.  Nor  did  Paul  limit  his  apostolic  labors  to  the 
mere  confirmation  of  the  work  begun  on  his  tour  with  Barnabas ; 
but  after  traversing  all  his  old  fields  of  exertion,  he  extended  his 
journey  far  north  of  his  former  route,  through  all  Phrygia,  and 
Galatia,  a  province  which  had  never  before  been  blessed  with  the 
presence  of  a  Christian  missionary, — and  after  laboring  in  his  high 
vocation  there,  he  was  disposed  to  move  west,  to  the  Ionian  or  true 
Asian  shore  of  the  Aegean,  but  was  checked  by  a  direction  which 
he  could  not  resist :  and  passing  northward  of  the  true  Asian  cities, 


PAUL.  535 

he  came  out  of  Phrygia  into  Mysia,  the  province  that  occupies  the 
northwestern  corner  of  all  Asia  Minor,  bounded  north  by  the  Pro- 
pontis  and  Hellespont,  and  west  by  the  northern  part  of  the  Aegean, 
— the  true  Asia  lying  south  of  it,  within  the  geographical  division 
commonly  named  Lydia,  Having  entered  Mysia,  they  were  ex- 
pecting to  turn  northeast  into  Bithynia,  when  again  their  own 
preferences  and  counsels  were  overruled  by  the  same  mysterious 
impulse  as  before,  and  they  therefore  continued  their  westward 
journey  to  the  shore  of  the  Hellespont  and  Aegean,  arriving  within 
the  classic  region  of  the  Troad,  at  the  modern  city  of  Alexandria 
Troas,  some  miles  south  of  that  most  glorious  of  all  the  scenes  of 
Grecian  poetical  antiquity,  where,  thirteen  hundred  years  before, 
"  Troy  was."  Here  they  rested  for  a  brief  space,  and  while  they 
were  undecided  as  to  the  course  which  they  ought  next  to  pursue, 
Paul  had  a  remarkable  vision,  which  gave  a  summons  too  distinct 
to  be  mistaken  or  doubted,  to  a  field  in  which  the  most  noble  tri- 
umphs of  the  cross  were  destined  to  be  won  under  his  own  per- 
sonal ministration,  and  where  through  thousands  of  years  the 
name  of  Christ  was  to  consecrate  and  re-exalt  the  land,  over  all 
whose  hills,  mountains,  streams,  valleys,  and  seas,  then  as  now,  clus- 
tered the  rich  associations  of  a  most  splendid  antiquity — associated 
in  the  records  and  monuments  of  history,  with  the  beautiful  and 
the  excellent  in  poetry,  art,  taste,  literature,  philosophy,  and  moral 
exaltation.  In  the  night,  as  Paul  was  slumbering  at  his  stopping- 
place,  in  the  Troad,  there  appeared  to  him  a  vision  of  a  Macedo- 
nian, who  seemed  to  cry  out  beseechingly  to  him — "  Come  over 
into  Macedonia,  and  help  us !"  This  voice  of  earnest  prayer  for 
the  help  of  Christ,  rolling  over  the  wide  Aegean,  was  enough  to 
move  the  ardent  spirit  of  Paul,  and  on  waking  he  therefore  sum- 
moned his  companions  to  attend  him  in  his  voyage  to  this  new 
field.  He  had  been  joined  here  by  a  new  companion,  as  appears 
from  the  fact  that  the  historian  of  the  Acts  of  the  apostles  now 
begins  to  speak  in  the  first  person,  of  the  apostolic  company ;  and 
it  thence  appears  that  besides  Silas  and  Timotheus,  Paul  was 
now  attended  by  Luke.  Setting  sail  from  Troas,  as  soon  as  they 
could  get  ready  for  this  unexpected  extension  of  their  travels,  the 
whole  four  were  wafted  by  a  fresh  southeastern  breeze  from  the 
Asian  shore,  first  to  the  large  island  of  Samothrace  ;  and  on  the 
second  day,  they  came  to  Neapolis,  a  town  on  the  coast  of  Mace- 
donia, which  is  the  seaport  of  the  great  city  of  Philippi. 


536  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

HIS  MISSION  IN  MACEDONIA. 

They  without  delay  proceeded  to  Philippi,  the  chief  city  of  that 
part  of  Macedonia,  taking  its  name  from  that  sage  monarch  who 
laid  the  foundation  of  the  Macedonian  dominion  over  the  Grecian 
world,  and  gave  this  city  its  importance  and  splendor,  rebuilding 
it,  and  granting  it  the  honors  of  his  peculiar  favor.  Under  the 
Roman  conquest  it  had  lost  no  part  of  its  ancient  importance,  but 
had  been  endowed  by  Julius  Caesar,  in  a  special  decree,  with  the 
high  privileges  of  a  Roman  colony,  and  was  in  the  apostolic  age 
one  of  the  greatest  cities  in  that  part  of  Europe.  Here  Paul  and 
his  companions  staid  for  several  days ;  and  seeking  on  the  sabbath 
for  some  place  where  they  could,  in  that  heathen  land,  observe  the 
worship,  and  celebrate  the  praises  of  the  God  of  their  fathers,  they 
wandered  forth  from  the  great  pagan  city,  and  sat  down,  away 
from  the  unholy  din  of  mirth  and  business,  in  a  retired  place  on 
the  banks  of  the  little  stream  which  ran  by  the  town,  being  made 
up  of  numerous  springs  that  rise  at  the  foot  of  the  hills  north  of  it, 
— which  gave  it  the  name  of  Crenides,  or  "  the  city  of  springs  f^ 
— the  common  name  of  the  town  before  its  conquest  by  Philip. 
In  such  places,  by  the  side  of  streams  and  other  waters,  the  Jews 
were  always  accustomed  to  construct  their  places  for  social  wor- 
ship ;  and  here,  in  this  quiet  place,  a  few  Jewish  residents  of  the 
city  resorted  for  prayer,  remembering  the  God  of  their  fathers, 
though  so  far  from  his  sanctuary.  Those  who  thus  kept  up 
the  worship  of  God  in  this  place,  are  mentioned  as  being  women 
only ;  for  it  may  always  be  observed  that  it  is  among  the  softer 
sex  that  religion  takes  deepest  root,  and  among  them  a  regard 
to  its  observances  is  always  found,  long  after  the  indifference  gene- 
rated by  a  change  of  circumstances,  or  by  the  engrossing  cares  of 
business,  has  turned  away  the  devotions  of  men.  So  was  it  in 
Philippi ;  while  the  sons  of  Judah  had  grown  indifferent  to  those 
observances  of  their  religion  which  were  inconvenient,  by  inter- 
fering with  the  daily  arrangements  of  business  intercourse  with 
their  heathen  fellow-citizens,  the  daughters  of  Zion  came  still  re- 
gularly together,  to  the  place  where  prayer  was  wont  to  be  made. 
Here  the  apostolic  company  met  them,  and  preached  to  them  the 
new  word  of  grace,  now  revealed  for  all  the  scattered  race  of  Israel, 
far  and  near, — and  not  for  them  only,  but  also  for  the  Gentiles. 
Among  these  gentle  auditors  of  the  word  of  grace,  now  first  pro- 
claimed in  Greece,  was  a  Jewess,  named  Lydia,  who  had  emigrated 


PAUL.  537 

from  Thyatira,  in  Lydian  Asia,  and  now  carried  on  in  Philippi  a 
trade  in  the  purple  dye,  for  which  the  region  from  which  she  came 
was  so  famous,  even  from  the  time  of  Homer.  While  listening  to 
the  words  of  Paul,  her  heart  was  opened  to  the  comprehension  of 
the  truth  of  the  gospel,  and  she  professed  her  faith  in  Jesus. 
Having  been  baptized  with  all  her  household,  she  was  so  moved 
with  regard  for  those  who  had  thus  taught  her  the  way  of  salva- 
tion, that  she  earnestly  invited  them  to  make  her  house  their  home. 
Complying  with  her  benevolent  and  hospitable  invitation,  Paul, 
Silas,  Timothy,  and  Luke,  took  up  their  abode  in  her  house,  and 
remained  there  throughout  their  whole  stay  in  Philippi. 

"  Philippi  was  a  city  of  Macedonia,  of  moderate  extent,  and  not  far  from  the  bor- 
ders of  Thrace.  It  was  formerly  called  Crenides,  from  its  numerous  springs,  from 
which  arises  a  small  stream,  mentioned  Acts  xvi.  13,  though  it  is  commonly  omitted 
in  the  maps.  The  name  of  Philippi  it  received  from  Philip,  father  of  Alexander, 
who  enlarged  it,  and  fortified  it  as  a  barrier  town  against  the  Thracians.  Julius 
Caesar  sent  hither  a  Roman  colony,  as  appears  from  the  following  inscription  on  a 
medal  of  this  city,  COL.  lUL.  AUG.  PHIL,  quoted  in  Vaillant  Num.  a;n.  imp.  T. 
I.  p.  160,  and  from  Spon  Misc.  p.  173.  See  also  Pliny,  L.  IV.  c.  ii.  and  the  authors 
in  Wolfii  Curae,  -irp^Tr]  ri)?  ^cpi&os  rijs  Ma/c£(Joi'(as  Trii  rroXig,  '  the  first  city  of  that  district  of 
Macedonia:'  but  in  what  sense  the  word  Trpcom,  or  '  first,'  is  here  to  be  taken,  admits 
of  some  doubt.  Paulus  ^milius  had  divided  Macedonia  into  four  districts,  and  that 
in  which  Philippi  was  situated,  was  called  TTpcSrr],  or  the  first  district.  But  of  this 
district,  Philippi  does  not  appear  to  be  entitled,  in  any  sense,  to  the  name  of  npcirri 
jrdXif.  For  if  Trpdrri  be  taken  in  the  sense  of  '  first  in  respect  to  place,'  this  title  be- 
longed rather  to  Neapolis,  which  was  the  frontier  town  of  Macedonia,  towards 
Thrace,  as  appears  from  Acts  xvii.  1.  And  if  taken  in  the  sense  of  '  first  in  respect 
to  rank,'  it  belonged  rather  to  Amphipolis,  which  was  the  capital  of  this  district  ol 
Macedonia,  as  appears  from  the  following  passage,  Livii  Hist.  Lib.  XLV.  29.  Capita 
regionum,  ubi  concilia  fierent,  primae  regionis  Amphipolin,  secundae  Thessaloni- 
cen,  &c.  But  the  difficulty  is  not  so  great  as  it  appears  to  be.  For,  though  Amphi- 
polis was  made  the  capital  of  the  first  district  of  Macedonia  in  the  time  of  Paulus 
iEmilius,  and  therefore  entitled  to  the  name  of  Trpwr^;,  it  is  not  impossible  that  in  a 
subsequent  age,  the  preference  was  given  to  Philippi.  Or  even  if  Amphipolis  still 
continued  to  be  the  capital  of  the  district,  or  the  seat  of  the  Roman  provincial  go- 
vernment, yet  the  title  Trpairri  may  have  been  claimed  by  the  city  of  Philippi,  though 
it  were  not  the  very  first  in  point  of  rank.  We  meet  with  many  instances  of  this 
kind,  on  the  medals  of  the  Greek  cities,  on  which  we  find  that  more  than  one  city  of 
the  same  province  assumed  the  title  of  irpwrri.  St.  Luke,  therefore,  who  spent  a  long 
time  at  Philippi,  and  was  well  acquainted  with  the  customs  of  the  place,  gave  this 
city  the  liile  which  it  claimed,  and  which,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  Greek 
cities,  was  inscribed  probably  on  its  coins.  Hence  it  appears  that  the  proposal  made 
by  Pierce  to  alter  voo'iTn  Tri?  utoHoi  to  Trpoir;;?  /irptJos,  is  unnecessary."  (Michaelis's  Int. 
Vol.  IV.  pp.  152-154.    Marsh's  trans.) 

"  '  Where  prayer  vms  v;nnt  to  be  made.''  xvi.  13.  This  proseuchae  signifies  an  ora- 
ory,  a  place  appointed  for  prayer;  in  heathen  countries,  they  were  erected  in  seques- 
ered  retreats,  commonly  on  the  banks  of  rivers  (as  here)  or  on  the  sea  shore.  Jose- 
phus  has  preserved  the  decree  of  the  city  of  Halicarnassus,  permitting  the  Jews  to 
erect  oratories,  part  of  which  is  in  the  following  terms: — '  We  ordain  that  the  Jews, 
who  are  willing,  both  men  and  women,  do  observe  the  Sabbaths  and  perform  sacred 
rites  according  to  the  Jewish  law,  and  build proseuckae  by  the  sea-side,  according  to  the 
custom  of  their  country ;  and  if  any  man,  whether  magistrate  or  private  person,  give 
Ihem  any  hindrance  or  disturbance,  he  shall  pay  a  line  to  the  city.'  (Jos.  Ant.  lib. 
xiv.  cap.  10.  Al.  24, — quoted  by  Williams.) 

"  Many  commentators.  viz.,'Grotiiis,  Drs.  Whitby,  Doddridge,  and  Lardner,  agree 
■with  Josephus,  Philo,  and  Juvenal,  that  these  places  of  worship  were  synonymous 
witii  .synagogues.    But  Calmet,  Prideaux,  and  Hammond,  contend  that  they  were 


538  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

Tiearly  the  same,  yet  there  was  a  real  difference  between  them;  the  synagogues  were 
within  the  cities,  while  the  proseuchae  were  without,  in  retired  spots,  particularly 
in  heathen  countries,  by  the  river-side,  with  galleries  or  the  shades  of  trees  for  their 
only  shelter.  Prideaux  considers  them  to  be  of  greater  antiquity  than  the  synagogues, 
and  that  they  were  formed  by  the  Jews  in  open  courts,  that  those  who  lived  at  a  dis- 
tance from  Jerusalem  might  offer  their  private  worship  as  in  the  open  courts  of  the 
Temple  or  Tabernacle.  In  the  synagogues,  Prideaux  observes,  public  worship 
was  performed,  and  in  the  proseuchae  private  prayer  was  used  to  be  made.  It  is 
highly  probable  that  these  proseuchae  were  the  same  which  are  called  in  the  Old 
Testament  '  high  places.' "  (Hammond  on  Luke  vi.  12,  and  Acts  xvi.  13 — 16. 
Calmet's  Diet,  voce  proseucha.  Prideaux's  Connec.  part  i.  book  iv.  sub  anno  444, 
vol.  I.  pp.  387 — 390,  edit.  1720.     Home's  Introd.— quoted  by  Williams.) 

"  '  And  a  certain  woman  named  Lydia,  a  seller  of  purple,  of  the  city  of  Thyatira. 
v.  14.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that  among  the  ruins  of  Thyatira,  there  is  an  in.scrip- 
tion  extant  with  the  words  Ol  BA'I'Eli;,  the  dyers.  Wheler's  Journey  into  Greece, 
vol.  iii.  p.  233.  Spon.  Miscellanea  Eruditae  Antiquitates,  p.  113;  from  whence  we 
learn  that  the  art  and  trade  of  dyeing  purple  was  carried  on  in  that  city."  (Home's 
Introd. — Williams.) 

Such  was  the  beginning  of  the  propagation  of  the  gospel  in 
Greece, — such  was  the  foundation  of  the  first  cliurch  ever  planted 
east  of  the  Hellespont ;  and  thus  did  Europe  first  receive  the  doc- 
trines of  that  faith,  which  now  holds  in  all  that  mighty  division  of 
the  world,  a  triumphant  seat,  and  constitutes  the  universal  religion 
of  the  nations  that  hold  within  themselves  the  sources  of  art, 
learning, — all  the  refinements  of  civilization, — and  of  the  dominion 
of  half  the  globe.  (  Four  pilgrims  entered  the  city  of  Philippi, 
unknown,  friendless,  and  scorned  for  their  foreign,  half-barbarian 
aspect.  Strolling  about  from  day  to  day,  to  find  the  means  of 
executing  their  strange  errand,  they  at  last  found  a  few  Jewish 
women,  sitting  in  a  little  retired  place,  on  the  banks  of  a  nameless 
stream.  To  them  they  made  known  the  message  of  salvation ; — 
one  of  the  women  with  her  household  believed  the  gospel,  and 
professed  the  faith  of  Jesus ; — and  from  this  beginning  did  those 
glorious  results  advance,  which  in  their  progress  have  changed  the 
face  of  Europe,  revolutionized  the  course  of  empires,  and  modified 
the  destiny  of  the  world !  ) 

An  incident  soon  occurred,  however,  which  brought  them  into 
more  public  notice,  though  not  in  a  very  desirable  manner.  As 
they  went  out  to  the  usual  place  of  prayer,  on  the  bank  of  the 
stream,  they  at  last  were  noticed  by  a  poor  crazy  girl,  who,  being 
deprived  of  reason,  had  been  made  a  source  of  profit  to  a  set  of 
mercenary  villains,  who,  taking  advantage  of  the  common  super- 
stition of  their  countrymen  about  the  supernatural  endowments  of 
such  unfortunate  persons,  pretended  that  she  was  a  Pythoness,  in- 
dued by  the  Pythian  Apollo  with  the  spirit  of  prophecy ;  for  not 
only  at  Delphi,  on  his  famous  tripod,  but  also  throughout  Greece, 
he  was  believed  to  inspire  certain  females  to  utter  his  oracles,  con- 


PAUL.  539 

cerning  future  events.  The  owners  and  managers  of  this  poor 
girl  therefore  made  a  trade  of  her  supposed  soothsaying  faculty, 
and  found  it  a  very  profitable  business,  through  the  folly  of  the 
wise  Greeks  of  Philippi.  This  poor  girl  had  her  crazy  fancy  struck 
by  the  appearance  of  the  apostolic  company,  as  they  passed  along 
the  streets  to  their  place  of  prayer,  and  following  them,  perceived, 
under  the  impulse  of  the  strange  influence  that  possessed  her,  the 
real  character  of  Paul  and  his  companions ;  and  cried  out  after 
them — "  These  men  are  the  servants  of  the  most  high  God,  who 
show  us  the  way  of  salvation."  This  she  did  daily  for  a  long 
time,  till  at  last,  Paul,  annoyed  by  this  kind  of  proclamation  thus 
made  at  his  heels,  turned  about,  and,  by  a  single  command,  sub- 
dued the  demoniac  influence  that  possessed  her,  and  restored  her 
to  the  freedom  of  sense  and  thought.  Of  course  she  was  now  no 
longer  the  submissive  instrument  of  the  will  of  her  mercenary 
managers,  and  it  was  with  no  small  vexation  that  they  found  all 
chEince  of  these  easy  gains  was  for  ever  gone.  In  their  rage 
against  the  authors  of  what  they  deemed  their  calamity,  they 
caught  Paul  and  Silas,  as  the  foremost  of  the  apostolic  company, 
aod  dragging  them  into  the  forum,  or  court-house,  where  the  ma- 
gistrates were  in  session,  they  presented  their  prisoners  as  a  down- 
right nuisance :  "  These  men,  who  are  Jews,  do  exceedingly  trou- 
ble our  city ;  and  teach  customs  which  are  not  lawful  for  us  to 
adopt  nor  observe,  if  we  are  to  maintain  the  privileges  of  Roman 
citizens."  What  the  latter  part  of  the  accusation  referred  to,  in 
particular,  was,  it  is  not  easy  to  say,  and  probably  there  was  no  very 
definite  specification  made  by  the  accusers ;  for  the  general  preju- 
dice against  the  Jews  was  such,  that  the  mob  raised  a  clamor 
against  them  at  once  ;  and  the  magistrates  seeing  in  the  apostles 
only  some  nameless  foreign  vagabonds,  who  having  come  into  the 
city  without  any  reasonable  object  in  view,  were  disturbing  the 
peace  of  the  inhabitants, — had  no  hesitation  whatever  in  ordering 
them  to  be  punished  in  the  most  ignominious  manner,  and  with- 
out any  question  or  defense,  conforming  to  the  dictation  of  that 
universally  divine  and  immaculate  source  of  justice, — the  voice  of 
the  people, — instantly  had  them  stripped  and  flogged  at  the  discre- 
tion of  their  persecutors.  After  having  thus  shamefully  abused 
them,  they  did  not  dismiss  them,  but  cast  them  into  prison,  and  set 
their  feet  in  the  stocks. 

Here  was   fine  business   for  the   apostle  and  his  companion ! 
"  Come  over  into  Macedonia  and  help  us .'"     Such  were  the 


540  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

words  of  deep,  agonizing  entreaty,  in  which  the  beseeching  Mace- 
donian had,  in  the  night-vision,  summoned  the  great  apostle  of  the 
Gentiles  to  this  new  field  of  evangelizing  labor.  Taking  that 
summons  for  a  divine  command,  he  had  obeyed  it — had  crossed 
the  wide  Aegean,  and  sought  in  this  great  city  of  Macedonia,  the 
occasions  and  the  means  of  "  helping"  the  idolatrous  citizens  to  a 
knowledge  of  the  truth  as  it  was  in  Jesus.  Week  after  week  they 
had  been  inofiensively  toiling  in  the  faithful  effort  to  answer  this 
Macedonian  cry  for  help ;  and  what  was  the  result  and  the  reward 
of  all  these  exertions  ?  For  no  crime  whatever,  and  for  no  reason 
except  that  they  had  rescued  a  gentle  and  unfortunate  spirit  from 
a  most  degrading  thraldom  to  demoniac  agencies,  and  to  men  more 
vile  and  wicked  than  demons, — they  had  been  mobbed, — condemned 
on  the  principle  that  "  the  act  of  the  many  is  above  law," — stripped 
in  the  forum,  and  whipped  there  like  thieves, — and  at  last  thrown 
into  the  common  jail  among  felons,  with  every  additional  injury 
that  could  be  inflicted  by  their  persecutors,  being  fettered  so  that 
they  could  not  repose  their  sore  and  exhausted  bodies.  Weis  not 
here  enough  to  try  the  patience  of  even  an  apostle  ?  What  man 
would  not  have  burst  out  in  furious  vexation  against  the  beguiling 
vision  which  had  led  them  away  into  a  foreign  land,  among  those 
who  were  disposed  to  repay  their  assiduous  "  help"  by  such  treat- 
ment ?  Thus  might  Paul  and  Silas  have  expressed  their  vexation, 
if  they  had  indeed  been  misled  by  a  mere  human  enthusiasm ;  but 
they  knew  Him  in  whom  they  had  trusted,  and  were  well  assured 
that  He  would  not  deceive  them.  So  far  from  giving  way  to  des- 
pondency and  silence,  they  uplifted  their  voices  in  praise  !  Yes, 
praise  to  the  God  and  Father  of  Jesus  Christ,  that  he  had  ac- 
counted them  worthy  to  suffer  thus  for  the  glory  of  his  name. 
"  At  midnight,  Paul  and  Silas  prayed  and  sang  praises  to  God,  and 
the  prisoners  heard  them."  In  the  dreary  darkness, — inclosed  be- 
tween massive  walls,  and  bound  in  weighty  fetters,  their  spirits 
rose  in  prayer, — doubtless  for  those  persecutors  whom  they  came 
over  to  "  help,"  and  not  for  themselves, — since  their  souls  were 
already  so  surely  stayed  on  God.  To  him  they  raised  their  voices 
in  praise,  for  their  own  peace  and  joy  in  believing.  Far  from 
sinking  like  those  inspired  by  the  mere  impulses  of  human  ambi- 
tion or  wild  enthusiasm, — they  passed  the  dreary  night,  not 

Jlr'  "  In  silence  or  in  fear, — 

They  shook  the  depths  of  the  prison  gloom, 
With  their  hymns  of  lofty  cheer. — 
Amid  the  storm  they  sang ;" 


PAUL.  641 

for  He  whom  they  thus  invoked  did  not  leave  them  in  their  heroic 
endurance,  without  a  most  convincing  testimony  that  their  prayers 
and  their  songs  had  come  up  in  remembrance  before  him.  In  the 
midst  of  their  joyous  celebration  of  this  persecution,  while  their 
wondering  fellow-prisoners,  waked  from  their  slumbers  by  this 
unparalleled  noise,  were  listening  i.i  amazement  to  this  manifesta- 
tion of  the  manner  of  spirit  with  which  their  new  companions 
were  disposed  to  meet  their  distresses, — a  mighty  earthquake  shook 
the  city,  and  heaved  the  whole  prison-walls  on  their  foundations, 
so  that  all  the  firmly  barred  doors  were  burst  open,  and,  what  was 
more  remarkable,  all  the  chains  fell  from  the  prisoners.  The  jailer 
waking  up  amidst  this  horrible  crash,  and  seeing  all  the  prison-doors 
open,  supposed  that  the  prisoners  had  all  escaped  ;  and  knowing 
how  utterly  certain  would  be  his  ruin  if  his  charge  should  thus  be 
lost, — in  a  fit  of  vexation  and  despair,  he  drew  his  sword,  and 
would  have  instantly  killed  himself,  had  not  Paul,  seeing  through 
the  darkness  the  frensied  actions  of  the  wretched  man,  called  out 
to  him  in  a  loud  voice,  clear  and  distinct  amid  the  dreadful  din, 
"  Do  thyself  no  harm,  for  we  are  all  here." 

Hearing  these  consolatory  words,  the  jailer  called  for  a  light, 
and  sprang  in,  and  came  trembling,  and  fell  down  before  Paul  and 
Silas,  saying — "  Sirs  !  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?"  They  re- 
plied— "  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  shalt  be  saved, 
with  all  thy  house."  The  jailer,  of  course,  spoke  of  being  saved 
merely  from  present  danger, — and  appalled  by  the  shock  of  the 
earthquake,  concluded  at  once  that  it  had  some  connexion  with 
the  prayers  and  songs  of  the  two  Jewish  prisoners,  whom  he  knew 
to  have  been  unjustly  punished  and  imprisoned.  He  supposed, 
therefore,  that  from  those  who  were  the  occasion  of  the  awful  oc- 
currence, he  might  best  learn  the  means  of  escaping  its  destructive 
consequences.  But  his  alarmed  inquiries  were  made  instrumental 
in  teaching  him  the  way  of  escape  from  a  peril  of  far  greater  mag- 
nitude, threatening  his  spirit  with  the  awful  ruin  that  would  fall 
at  last  on  all  the  sinful  opposers  of  the  truth.  The  two  impri- 
soned preachers  then  proclaimed  to  him  the  word  of  the  Lord,  and 
not  only  to  him,  but  to  all  that  were  in  his  house.  No  sooner  had 
the  jailer  thus  learned,  by  their  eloquent  words,  the  real  character 
and  objects  of  his  prisoners,  than  he  immediately  determined  to 
make  them  all  the  atonement  in  his  power,  for  the  shameful  treat- 
ment which  they  had  received  from  his  fellow-citizens.  He  tooK 
them  that  same  hour  of  the  night,  and  washed  their  stripes,  and 


542  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

was  baptized  with  all  his  house.  Of  course  he  could  no  longer 
suffer  those  who  were  the  authors  of  his  hopes  of  salvation  to  lie 
any  longer  among  felons ;  and  he  immediately  brought  them  out 
of  the  jail  into  his  own  house,  and  gave  them  food,  making  it  a 
sort  of  festal  occasion  for  himself  and  his  whole  family,  who  were 
all  rejoicing  with  him  in  the  knowledge  of  the  gospel.  When  it 
was  day,  the  magistrates  sent  the  officers  of  justice  with  a  verbal 
order  for  the  release  of  the  two  prisoners,  of  whose  abominable 
usage  they  were  now  quite  ashamed,  after  a  night's  reflexion,  with- 
out the  clamors  of  a  mob  to  incite  them ;  and  perhaps  also  their 
repentance  may  have  been  promoted  by  the  great  earthquake  during 
the  night,  for  which  the  Greeks  and  Romans  would,  as  usual,  seek 
some  moral  occasion,  looking  on  it,  of  course,  as  a  prodigy,  ex- 
pressive of  the  anger  of  the  gods,  who  might  be  supposed,  perhaps, 
to  be  indignant  at  the  flagrant  injustice  committed  against  these 
two  friendless  strangers.  But  however  satisfactory  this  atonement 
might  seem  to  the  magistrates,  Paul  was  by  no  means  disposed  to 
let  them  ofi"  so  quietly,  after  using  him  and  Silas  in  this  outrageous 
manner,  in  absolute  defiance  of  all  forms  of  law  and  justice.  To 
this  permission  thus  given  him  to  sneak  off  quietly,  he  therefore 
returned  the  indignant  answer — "  They  have  openly  beaten  us  un- 
condemned,  though  we  are  Roman  citizens,  and  they  have  cast  us 
into  prison  ;  and  now  do  they  thrust  us  out  so  slily  ?  No,  indeed ; 
but  let  them  come  themselves  and  fetch  us  out."  This  was  alarm- 
ing news,  indeed,  to  the  magistrates.  Here  they  were  found  guilty 
of  having  violated  "  the  sacred  privilege  of  Roman  citizenship  !" 
— a  privilege  which  always  shielded  its  possessor  from  irregular 
tyranny,  and  required,  throughout  the  Roman  world,  that  he 
should  never  be  subjected  to  punishment  without  the  most  open 
and  formal  investigation  of  the  charge  ; — a  privilege,  too,  whose 
violation  Avould  bring  down  on  them  the  most  remorseless  ven- 
geance of  the  imperial  fountain  of  Roman  power.  So  nothing 
would  do,  but  they  must  submit  to  the  uncomfortable  necessity  oi 
bringing  down  their  magisterial  dignity  to  the  low  business  of  vi- 
siting their  poor,  abused  prisoners  in  the  jail,  and  humbly  apolo- 
gizing for  their  own  cruelty.  They  therefore  came  to  the  prison, 
and  brought  out  their  abused  victims,  respectfully  requesting  them 
to  depart  out  of  the  city.  The  two  prisoners  accordingly  con- 
sented to  retire  quietly,  without  making  any  more  trouble  for  their 
persecutors.  Going  first  to  the  house  of  their  kind  hostess,  Lydia, 
they  saw  the  brethren  who  had  believed  the  gospel  there,  during  their 


PAUL.  643 

apostolic  ministrations,  and  having  exhorted  them,  bade  them  fare- 
well, and  in  company  with  their  two  companions,  Timothy  and 
Luke,  left  the  city. 

Turning  south  westward  towards  Greece  proper,  and  keeping 
near  the  coast,  they  came  next  to  Amphipolis,  a  Macedonian  city 
on  the  river  Strymon,  near  where  it  flows  into  the  Strymonic  gulf; 
but  making  no  stay  that  is  mentioned,  they  continued  their  jour- 
ney in  the  same  direction,  to  Apollonia,  an  inland  town  on  the 
river  Chabrius,  in  the  peninsula  of  Chalcidice ;  whence  turning 
northwest  they  came  next  to  Thessalonica,  a  large  city  at  the  head 
of  the  great  Thermaic  gulf  In  this  place  was  a  synagogue  of 
the  Jews, — the  first  that  they  had  found  in  their  European  travels  ; 
for  in  this  thriving  commercial  place  the  Jews  were,  and  always 
have  been,  in  such  large  numbers,  that  they  were  abundantly  able 
to  keep  their  own  house  of  worship  and  religious  instruction,  and 
had  independence  enough,  as  well  as  regard  for  the  institutions 
of  their  fathers,  to  attend  in  large  numbers  weekly  at  this  sanc- 
tuary. So  zealous  and  successful  indeed  had  they  been  in  their 
devotion  to  their  religion,  that  they  had  drawn  into  a  profession  of 
the  faith  of  the  God  of  Israel,  a  vast  number  of  Greeks  who  at- 
tended worship  with  them ;  for  such  was  the  superior  purity  of 
the  religion  of  the  Jews,  which  regarded  the  one  only  living  God, 
who  was  to  be  worshiped,  not  in  the  debasing  forms  of  statues,  but 
in  spirit  and  truth,  that  almost  every  place  throughout  the  regions 
of  Grecian  civilization,  in  which  the  Jews  had  planted  their  little 
commercial  settlements,  and  reared  the  houses  of  religious  instruc- 
tion, showed  abundance  of  such  instances  as  this,  in  which  the 
bright  intellectual  spirit  of  the  Greek  readily  appreciated  the  ex- 
alted character  and  the  holy  truth  of  the  faith  owned  by  the  sons 
of  Israel,  and  felt  at  once  how  far  more  suited  to  the  conceptions 
of  Hellenic  genius  was  such  a  religion,  than  the  degrading  poly- 
theism, which  the  philosophy  and  poetry  of  a  thousand  years  had 
striven  in  vain  to  redeem  from  its  inherent  absurdities.  Among 
these  intelligent  but  mixed  congregations,  Paul  and  his  companions 
entered,  and  taking  advantage  of  the  freedom  of  religious  dis- 
course allowed  to  all  by  the  order  of  a  Jewish  synagogue,  they  on 
three  successive  sabbaths  reasoned  with  them  out  of  the  scrip- 
tures, on  that  great  and  all-absorbing  point  in  the  original  apostolic 
theology,— that  the  Christ,  the  Messiah,  so  generally  understood  to 
be  distinctly  foretold  in  the  Hebrew  scriptures,  was  always  de- 
scribed as  destined  to  undergo  great  suflerings  during  his  earthly 


544  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

career,  and  after  a  death  of  shame,  was  to  rise  from  the  grave ; — 
and  at  last  concluded  with  the  crowning  doctrine — "  This  Jesus, 
whom  I  preach  to  you,  is  this  Christ." 

This  glorious  annunciation  of  a  new  and  spiritual  dispensation, 
w£is  at  once  well  received  by  a  vast  majority  of  the  hearers, — but 
more  especially  by  the  Greeks,  whose  conceptions  of  the  religion 
which  they  had  espoused,  were  far  more  rational  and  exalted  than 
even  the  notions  of  the  original  Israelites,  whose  common  ideas  of 
a  Redeemer  being  connected  and  mixed  up,  as  their  whole  faith 
was,  so  much  with  what  was  merely  national  and  patriotic  in  their 
feelings,  had  led  them  to  disregard  the  necessarily  spiritual  nature 
of  the  new  revelation  expected,  and  had  caused  them  almost  uni- 
versally to  image  the  Messiah  as  a  mere  Jewish  conqueror,  who 
was  to  aim  mainly  at  the  restoration  of  the  ancient  dominion  of 
long-humbled  Judah.  Therefore,  while  the  Greeks  readily  and 
joyfully  accepted  this  glorious  completion  of  the  faith  whose  be- 
ginnings they  had  learned  under  the  old  covenant, — the  Jews  for 
the  most  part  scornfully  rejected  the  revelation  which  presented  to 
them  their  Messiah  as  "  a  man  of  sorrows," — a  Galilean, — a  Naza- 
rene, — one  without  pomp  or  power ;  the  grand  achievment  of  whose 
earthly  career  was  that  most  ignominious  death  on  the  cross.  No  : 
this  was  not  the  Messiah  for  whom  they  looked  and  longed,  as  the 
glorious  restorer  of  Israel,  and  the  bloody  conqueror  of  the  Gen- 
tiles ;  and  it  was  therefore  with  the  greatest  indignation  that  they 
saw  the  great  majority  of  those  converts  from  heathenism,  whom 
they  had  made  with  so  much  pains,  now  wholly  carried  away  with 
the  humbling  doctrines  of  these  new  teachers.  Thus  "  moved 
with  e/ivy,"  the  unbeheving  Jews  resorted  to  their  usual  expedient 
of  stirring  up  a  mob ;  and,  accordingly,  certain  low  fellows  of  the 
baser  sort  among  them,  gathered  a  gang,  and  set  the  whole  city  in 
an  uproar, — an  effect  which  might  seem  surprising,  from  a  cause 
apparently  so  trifling  and  inadequate,  did  not  every  month's  obser- 
vation on  similar  occurrences,  among  people  that  call  themselves 
the  most  enlightened  and  free  on  the  globe,  suffice  to  show  every 
reader,  that  to  "  set  the  whole  city  in  an  uproar,"  is  the  easiest 
thing  in  the  world,  and  one  more  often  done  by  "  certain  lewd 
fellows  of  the  baser  sort,"  about  the  merest  trifle,  than  in  any  other 
way.  And  here  then  again,  is  another  of  those  fac-simile  exhibi- 
tions of  true  human  nature,  with  which  the  honest  and  self-evi- 
dent story  of  Luke  abounds ;  and  in  this  particular  instance  what 
makes  him  so  beautifully  graphical  and  natural  in  his  description 


PAUL.  545 

of  this  manifestation  of  public  opinion,  is  the  fact  that  he  himself 
was  a  spectator  of  the  whole  pix)ceedings  at  Thessalonica, — and 
therefore  gives  an  eyewitness  story.  The  mob  being  thus  gather- 
ed, immediately  made  a  desperate  assault  on  the  house  of  Jason, 
where  Paul  and  Silas  were  known  to  lodge,  and  sought  to  drag 
them  out  to  the  people.  (One  would  think  that  this  was  a  mere 
prophetic  account  of  perfectly  similar  occurrences,  that  pass  every 
month  under  the  noses  of  modern  Christians.)  Paul  and  Silas, 
however,  had  been  wise  enough  to  make  off  at  the  first  alarm,  and 
had  found  some  place  of  concealment,  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
mob.  Provoked  at  not  obtaining  the  prime  object  of  the  attack, 
the  rascals  then  seized  Jason  and  other  Christians  whom  they 
found  there,  and  dragged  them  before  the  magistrates,  crying — 
"  These  that  have  turned  the  world  upside  down,  have  come  hither 
also, — whom  Jason  has  entertained  j  and  they  all  do  contrary  to 
the  statutes  of  Caesar,  saying  that  there  is  another  king, — one 
Jesus,"  This  communication  of  the  mode  in  which  the  great 
mundane  inversion  had  been  effected  by  these  four  travelers  and 
their  new  converts,  excited  no  small  commotion  among  all  the  in- 
habitants ;  for  it  amounted  to  a  distinct  charge  of  a  treasonable 
conspiracy  against  the  Roman  government,  and  could  not  fail  to 
bring  down  the  most  disagreeable  consequences  on  the  city,  if  it 
was  made  known,  even  though  it  should  amount  to  nothing.  How- 
ever, the  whole  proceedings  against  Jason  and  his  friends  were 
conducted  with  a  moderation  truly  commendable,  and  far  above 
any  mob-action  in  these  enlightened  times ;  for  without  any  per- 
sonal injury,  they  simply  satisfied  themselves  with  taking  security 
of  Jason  and  his  companions,  that  they  should  keep  the  peace,  and 
attempt  nothing  treasonable,  and  then  quietly  let  them  go.  Who 
would  expect  any  modern  American  mob  to  release  their  victims 
in  this  moderate  and  reasonable  way  ? 

"  AmpMpoUs  is  a  city  of  Macedonia,  on  the  confioes  of  Thrace,  called  so,  as  Thu- 
cydides  inforias  us,  (lib.  iv.  p.  321,)  because  the  rivers  encompassed  it.  Suidas  and 
others  place  it  in  Thracia,  giving  it  the  name  of  the  Nine  Ways.  It  had  the  name 
likewise  of  Chrysopolis.    (Wells,  Whiiby,  Williams.) 

"  ApoUonia,  a  city  of  Macedonia,  lying  between  Amphipolis  and  Thes<alonica. 
Geographers  affirm  that  there  were  fourteen  cities  and  two  islands  of  that  name. 
Stephanus  reckons  twenty-five.    (Whiiby,  Williams.) 

"  Tkessalonica,  a  large  and  populous  city  and  sea-port  of  Macedonia,  the  capital  of 
the  four  districts  into  which  the  Romans  divided  that  country,  after  its  conquest  by 
Paulus  -^milius.  It  was  situated  on  the  Thermaic  gulf,  and  was  anciently  called 
Thermae;  but,  being  rebuilt  by  Philip,  the  father  of  Alexander,  after  his  victory 
over  the  Thessalians,  it  then  received  the  name  of  Thessalonica. 

"At  the  time  of  writing  the  Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians,  Thessalonica  was  the 
residence  of  the  Proconsul,  who  governed  the  proviace  of  Macedonia,  and  of  the 


546  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

Cluaestor,  who  had  the  charge  of  the  imperial  revenues.  Besides  being  the  seat  of  go- 
vernment, this  port  carried  on  an  extensive  commerce,  which  caused  a  great  influx 
of  strangers  from  ail  quarters;  so  that  Thessalonica  was  remarkable  for  the  number, 
wealth,  and  learning  of  its  inhabitants.  The  Jews  were  extremely  numerous  here. 
The  modern  name  of  this  place  is  Saionichi :  it  is  the  chief  port  of  modem  Greece, 
and  has  a  population  of  sixty  thousand  persons,  twelve  thousand  of  whom  are  Jews. 
According  to  Dr.  Clarke,  this  place  is  the  same  now  as  it  was  then ;  a  set  of  turbu- 
lent Jews  constituted  a  very  considerable  part  of  its  population ;  even  as  when  Paul 
came  here  from  Philippi  to  preach  the  gospel  to  the  Thessalonians,  the  Jews  were 
numerous  enough  to  '  set  all  Ine  city  in  an  uproar.'  "    (Williams.) 

After  this  specimen  of  popular  excitement,  it  was  too  manifest 
that  nothing  could  be  done  just  then  at  Thessalonica  by  the  apos- 
tolic ministers  of  Christ,  and  that  very  night  therefore  the  brethren 
sent  off  Paul  and  Silas  in  the  darkness,  to  Beroea,  a  city  also  in 
Macedonia,  about  fifty  miles  from  Thessalonica,  exactly  west,  being 
on  the  same  parallel  of  latitude,  standing  on  the  south  bank  of  the 
river  Astroeus.  Arriving  there,  they  went  into  the  synagogue  of 
the  Jews,  who  were  here  for  the  most  part  of  a  much  better  char- 
acter than  the  mean  Jews  of  the  great  trading  city  of  Thessalonica ; 
and  being  more  independent  and  spiritual  in  their  religious  no- 
tions, were  also  much  better  prepared  to  appreciate  the  spiritual 
doctrines  preached  by  Paul  and  Silas.  They  listened  respectfully 
to  the  new  preachers,  and  when  the  usual  references  were  made 
to  the  standard  passages  in  the  Old  Testament,  universally  sup- 
posed to  describe  the  Messiah,  they  diligently  examined  the  pas- 
sages for  themselves,  and  studied  out  their  correspondence  with 
the  events  in  the  life  of  Jesus,  which  were  mentioned  by  his 
preachers  as  perfectly  parallel  with  these  remarkable  prophecies. 
The  natural  result  of  this  nobly  candid  and  rational  examination  of 
this  great  question  was,  that  many  of  these  fair-minded  and  con- 
siderate Jews  of  Beroea  professed  their  perfect  conviction  that 
Jesus  was  the  Christ,  and  had  by  the  actions  of  his  life  fully  an- 
swered and  completed  the  prophetic  types  of  the  Messiah.  Here, 
too,  as  in  Thessalonica,  the  Greek  proselytes  to  Judaism  readily 
and  heartily  accepted  the  doctrines  of  Jesus.  But  the  gospel  mes- 
sengers were  not  long  allowed  the  enjoyment  of  this  fine  field  of 
apostolic  enterprise  ;  for  their  spiteful  foes  in  Thessalonica,  hearing 
how  things  were  going  on  in  Boroea,  took  the  pains  and  trouble  to 
journey  all  the  way  to  that  place,  for  the  express  purpose  of  hunt- 
ing out  the  preachers  of  Jesus  by  a  new  mob :  and  in  this  they 
were  so  successful,  that  the  brethren,  according  to  the  established 
rules  of  Christian  expediency,  immediately  sent  away  Paul  to  the 
south,  because  he  seemed  to  be  the  grand  object  of  the  persecu- 


PAUL.  547 

tion ;  but  Silas  and  Timothy  being  less  obnoxious,  still  remained 

in  Beroea. 

"  Beroea  was  a  city  of  Macedonia;  a  great  and  populous  city.  Lucian  de  Asino, 
p.  639.  D."  (Whitby,  Williams.)  It  was  situatea  to  the  west  of  Thessalonica,  and 
not  "  saulk  "  as  Wells  absurdly  says,  "  almost  directly  on  the  way  to  Athens." 

HIS  VISIT  TO  ATHENS. 

Paul,  thus  obeying  the  command  given  by  Jesus  in  his  first 
charge  to  the  original  twelve,  went  on  under  the  guidance  of  his 
Beroean  brethren,  according  to  his  own  request,  by  sea,  to  Athens, 
where  he  parted  from  them,  giving  them  charge  to  tell  Silas  and 
Timothy  to  come  on  after  him,  as  soon  as  their  commission  in 
Macedonia  would  allow.  He  then  went  about  Athens,  occupying 
the  interval  while  he  waited  for  them,  in  observations  upon  that 
most  glorious  of  all  earthly  seats  of  art  and  taste.  As  he  wandered 
on,  an  unheeded  stranger  among  the  still  splendid  and  beautiful 
though  then  half-decaying  works,  which  the  combined  devotion, 
pride,  and  patriotism,  of  the  ancient  Athenians  had  raised  to  their 
gods,  to  their  country  and  its  heroes, — in  the  beautifully  pictu- 
resque yet  simple  expression  of  the  apostolic  historian — "  Paul  saw 
the  city  wholly  given  to  idolatry."  How  many  splendid  associa- 
tions does  it  call  up  before  the  mental  eye  of  the  classical  scholar 
who  reads  it !  As  the  apostle  wandered  along  among  these  thou- 
sand works  of  art,  still  so  hallowed  in  the  fond  regard  of  the 
scholar,  the  antiquarian,  the  man  of  taste,  the  poet,  and  the  patriot, 
his  spirit  was  moved  within  him,  when  he  everywhere  saw  how 
the  whole  city  was  given  to  idolatry.  Not  a  spot  but  had  its  altar  : 
every  grove  was  consecrated  to  its  peculiar  nymphs  or  genii, — to 
its  Dryads  and  its  Fauns ;  every  stream  and  fountain  had  the  com- 
memorative marble  for  its  own  bright  Naiad ; — the  very  winds  had 
their  immortal  "tower,"  with  its  still  vivid  tablets,  personifying 
and  enlivening  the  mysterious  powers  of  the  air ; — along  the  plain 
shone  the  splendid  colonnades  of  the  yet  mighty  temples  of  Jupi- 
ter and  the  Olympian  gods ; — here  and  there,  on  the  lower  hills, 
stood  the  stately  ranges  that  inclosed  the  shrines  of  Erectheus  and 
Theseus,  the  deified  kings  of  old,  and  of  the  later  foreign  Caesars  ; 
and  above  all,  on  the  high  Acropolis,  the  noble  Parthenon  rose 
over  the  glorious  city,  proclaiming  to  the  eye  of  the  distant  tra- 
veler the  honors  of  the  virgin  goddess  of  wisdom,  of  taste,  and 
philosophic  virtue,  whose  name  crowned  the  city,  of  which  she 
was,  throughout  all  the  reign  of  Polytheism,  the  guardian  deity. 

These  splendid  but  mournful  testimonies  of  the  misplaced  en- 


648  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

ergies  of  that  inborn  spirit  of  devotion,  which,  all  over  the  world, 
in  all  times,  moves  the  heart  of  man  to  the  worship  of  that  Eternal 
power  of  whose  existence  he  is  ever  conscious,  touched  the  spirit 
of  Paul  with  other  emotions  than  those  of  deliffht  and  admiration. 
The  eye  of  the  citizen  of  classical  and  splendid  Tarsus  was  not 
indeed  blind  to  the  beauties  of  these  works  of  art,  whose  fame  was 
spread  throughout  the  civilized  world,  and  with  whose  historic 
and  poetic  glories  his  eye  and  ear  had  long  been  made  familiar ; 
but  over  them  all  was  cast  a  moral  and  spiritual  gloom  which 
darkened  all  these  high  and  rich  remembrances,  otherwise  so 
purely  bright.  Under  the  impulse  of  such  feelings,  he  immedi- 
ately sought  occasion  to  make  an  attack  on  this  dominant  spirit  of 
idolatry.  He  accordingly,  in  his  usual  theatre  of  exertion, — the 
Jewish  synagogue, — freely  made  known  the  new  revelation  of  the 
truth  in  Jesus,  both  to  the  Jews,  and  to  those  Gentiles  who  reve- 
renced the  God  of  Israel,  and  listened  to  religious  instruction  in 
the  Jewish  house  of  worship.  With  such  effect  did  he  proclaim 
the  truth,  and  with  such  fervid,  striking  oratory,  that  the  Atheni- 
ans, always  admirers  and  cultivators  of  eloquence,  soon  had  their 
attention  very  generally  drawn  to  the  foreign  teacher,  who  was 
publishing  these  very  extraordinary  doctrines,  in  a  style  of  elo- 
quence so  peculiar  and  irregular,  and  attractive  to  them  by  novelty, 
though  marked  by  numerous  Oriental  barbarisms.  The  conse- 
quence was,  that  his  audiences  were  soon  extended  beyond  the 
regular  attendents  on  the  Jewish  synagogue  worship,  and  many  of 
the  philosophic  sages  of  the  Athenian  schools  sat  listening  to  the 
apostle  of  Jesus.  They  soon  undertook  to  encounter  him  in  ar- 
gument ;  and  Paul  now  resorting  to  that  most  classic  ground,  the 
Athenian  forum,  or  Agora,  was  not  slow  to  meet  them.  On  the 
spot  where  Socrates  once  led  the  minds  of  his  admiring  hearers  to 
the  noble  conceptions  of  moral  truth,  Paul  now  stood  uttering  to 
unaccustomed  ears,  the  far  more  noble  conceptions  of  a  divine  truth, 
that  as  far  outwent  the  moral  philosophy  of  "  Athenia's  wisest  son," 
as  did  the  life,  and  death,  and  triumphs  of  the  crucified  Son  of 
Man,  the  course  and  fate  of  the  hemlock-drinker.  Greatly  sur- 
prised were  his  philosophical  hearers,  at  these  veiy  remarkable 
doctrines,  before  unheard  of  in  Greece,  and  various  were  the  opin- 
ions and  comments  of  the  puzzled  sages.  Some  of  those  of  the 
Epicurean  and  Stoic  schools,  more  particularly,  had  their  pride  and 
scorn  quite  moved  at  the  seeming  presumption  of  this  fluent 
speaker,  (who  without  diffidence  or  doubt  uttered  his  strange  doc- 


PAUL.  549 

trines,  though  characterized  by  a  style  full  of  irregularities,  and  a 
dialect  remarkably  distinguished  by  barbarous  provincialisms,)  and 
scornfully  asked — "  What  does  this  vagabond  mean?"  Others,  ob- 
serving that  he  claimed  such  divine  honors  for  Jesus,  the  founder 
of  his  faith,  remarked,  that  "  he  seemed  to  be  a  preacher  of  foreign 
deities."  At  last,  determined  to  have  their  difficulties  resolved  by 
the  very  highest  authority,  they  took  him  before  the  very  ancient 
and  venerable  court  of  the  Areopagus,  which  was  the  supreme 
council  in  all  matters  that  concerned  religion.  Here  they  invited 
him  to  make  a  full  communication  of  the  distinctive  articles  of  his 
new  faith,  because  they  felt  an  honest  desire  to  have  the  particu- 
lars of  a  subject  never  before  introduced  to  their  notice  ;  and  a  vast 
concourse  stood  by  to  hear  that  grand  object  of  life  to  the  news- 
hunting  Athenians, — "  a  new  thing." 

"  With  regard  to  the  application  of  babbler,  Eustathius  gives  two  senses  of  the 
word  aT!tpno\6yoi.  1.  The  Attics  called  those  (mtpjio'Xoyot  who  conversed  in  the  market, 
and  places  of  merchandise.  (In  Odys.  B.  ad  finem.)  And  Paul  was  disputing  with 
those  he  met  in  the  market-place.  2.  It  is  used  of  those  who,  from  some  false  opinions, 
boasted  unreasonably  of  their  learning.  (Idem.)  GEcumenius  says,  a  little  bird  that 
gathered  up  the  seeds  scattered  in  the  market-place,  was  called  cTTep^o\6yos ;  in  this 
etymology,  Suidas,  Phavorinus,  the  scholiast  upon  Aristophanes  de  Avibus,  p.  569, 
arid  almost  all  grammarians  agree.  (Cave's  Lives  of  the  Apostles.  Whitby's  An- 
not.    Williams  on  Pearson.) 

"  £7r£pfio>(Syof.  This  word  is  properly  used  of  those  little  insignificant  birds  which 
support  a  precarious  existence  by  picking  up  seeds  scattered  by  the  sower,  or  left 
above  ground  after  the  soil  has  been  harrowed.  See  Max.  Tyr.  Diss.  13,  p.  133, 
Harpocr.,  Aristoph.  Av.  232,  and  the  Scholiast,  and  Plutarch,  T.  5,  50,  edit.  Reisk. 
It  was  metaphorically  applied  also  to  paupers  who  prowled  about  the  market-place, 
and  lived  by  picking  up  any  thing  which  might  be  dropped  by  buyers  and  sellers; 
and  likewise  to  persons  who  gleaned  in  the  corn  fields.  See  Eusiath.  on  Hom.  Od. 
e.  241.  Hence  it  was  at  length  applied  to  all  persons  of  mean  condition,  who,  as  we 
say,  '  live  on  their  wits.'  Thus  it  is  explained  by  Harpocrates,  evrs'Mii,  mean  and  coti- 
templiblc.    And  so  Philo  1021  c."     (Bloomfield's  Annot.  Acts  xvii.  18.) 

"  The  Areopagus  was  a  place  in  Athens,  where  the  senate  usually  assembled,  and 
took  its  name  (as  some  think)  from  "Apn?,  which  is  the  same  as  Mars,  the  god  of  war, 
who  was  the  first  person  tried  here  for  having  killed  Apollo's  son.  Others  think  that, 
because  aors  sometimes  ^igm^es  fighting,  murder,  or  violence  of  any  kind,  and  that 
Trayoi  is  properly  a  rock,  or  rising  hill,  it'iherefore  seems  to  denote  a  court  situated 
upon  an  eminence,  (as  the  Areopagus  was,)  where  causes  of  murder,  &c.,  were  tried. 
This  court  at  present  is  out  of  the  city,  but  in  former  times  it  stood  almost  in  the 
middle  of  it.  Its  foundations,  which  are  still  standing,  are  built  with  square  stones 
of  prodigious  size,  in  the  form  of  a  semicircle,  and  support  a  terrace  or  platform,  of 
about  a  hundred  and  forty  paces,  which  was  the  court  where  this  senate  was  held. 
In  the  midst  of  it,  there  was  a  tribunal  cut  in  a  rock,  and  all  about  were  seats,  also  of 
fetone,  where  the  senate  heard  causes  in  the  open  air,  without  any  covering,  and  (as 
some  say)  in  the  night  time,  that  they  might  not  be  moved  to  compassion  at  the  sight 
of  any  criminal  that  was  brought  before  them.  This  judicature  was  held  in  such 
high  esteem  for  its  uprightness,  that  when  the  Roman  proconsuls  ruled  there,  it  was 
a  very  common  thing  for  them  to  refer  difficult  causes  to  the  judgment  of  the  Areo- 
pagiles.  After  the  loss  of  their  liberty,  however,  the  authority  of  the  senate  declined, 
so  that  in  the  apostles'  times,  the  Areopagus  was  not  so  much  a  court  of  judicature 
as  a  common  rendezvous,  where  all  curious  and  inquisitive  persons,  who  spent  their 
time  in  nothing  else,  but  either  in  hearing  or  telling  some  new  thing,  were  accus- 
tomed to  meet.  Acts  xvii.  21.  Notwithstanding,  they  appeared  stilJ  to  have  retained 
the  privilege  of  canonizing  all  gods  that  were  allowed  public  worship ;  and  there- 


550  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

fore  St.  Paul  was  brought  before  them  as  an  assertor  and  preacher  of  a  Deity,  whom 
they  had  not  yet  admitted  among  them.  It  does  not  appear  that  he  was  brought  be- 
fore them  as  a  criminal,  but  merely  as  a  man  who  had  a  new  worship  to  propose  to  a 
Eeople  religious  above  all  others,  but  who  took  care  that  no  strange  worship  should 
e  received  on  a  footing  of  a  tolerated  religion,  till  it  had  the  approbation  of  a  court 
appointed  to  judge  such  matters.  The  address  of  the  court  to  St.  Paul — '  May  we 
know  what  this  doctrine  is,  whereof  thou  speakest"?'  implies  rather  a  request  to  a 
teacher,  than  an  interrogatory  to  a  criminal;  and  accordingly  his  reply  has  not  the 
least  air  of  an  apology  suiting  a  person  accused,  but  is  one  continued  information  of 
important  truths,  such  as  it  became  a  teacher  or  benefactor,  rather  than  a  person  ar- 
raigned for  crime  to  give.  He  was  therefore  neither  acquitted  nor  condemned,  and 
dismissed  as  a  man  coram  non  judice.  We  are  indeed  told,  that  when  they  heard  of 
'the  resurrection  of  the  dead,'  some  mocked,  and  others  said — 'We  will  hear  thee 
again  of  this  matter,'  putting  off  the  audience  to  an  indefinite  time;  so  that  nothing 
was  left  him  but  to  depart."  (Calmei's  Commentary.  Beausobre's  and  Hammond's 
Annot.,  and  Warburton's  Div.  Leg.  Williams.) 
"  That  Athens  was  wholly  enslaved  to  idolatry,  has  been  abundantly  proved  by  our 

fhilological  illustrators,  especially  the  indefatigable  Wetstein,  from  Pausan.  Attic. 
.  24;  Strabo  10,  p.  472,  c;  Lucian,  t.  1.  Promeih.  p.  180;  Liv.  4.5,  27.  So  also  Pau- 
san. in  Attic,  c.  18,  24,  (cited  by  Pearce  and  Doddridge,)  who  tells  us,  that  Athens 
had  more  images  than  all  the  rest  of  Greece;  and  Petron.  Satir.  c.  17,  who  humor- 
ously says — '  It  was  easier  to  find  a  god  than  a  man  there.'  "    (Bloomf  Annot.) 

"  Kat  ill  Trj  dyop'i.  Agora.  Of  the  markel-places  at  Athens,  of  which  there  were 
many,  the  most  celebrated  were  the  Old  and  the  New  Forum.  The  former  was  in  the 
Ceramicus,  a  very  ample  space,  part  within  and  part  without  the  city.  See  Meurs. 
Dissert,  de  Ceramico  Gemino,  §  46,  and  Potter's  Archaeolog.  1,  8,  p.  30.  The  latter 
was  outside  of  the  Ceramicus,  in  a  place  called  Eretria.  See  Meur.  Ath.  Attic.  1.  1. 
c.  6.  And  this  seems  to  be  the  one  here  meant.  For  no  forum,  except  the  Cerami- 
cus and  the  Eretriacum,  was  called,  absolutely,  ayopn,  but  had  a  name  to  denote  which 
was  meant,  as  Areopagiticum,  Hippodamium,  Piraeum,  &c.  In  process  of  time,  and 
at  the  period  when  Paul  was  at  Athens,  the  forum  was  transferred  from  the  Cerami- 
cus into  the  Eretria;  a  change  which,  indeed,  had  been  introduced  in  the  time  of 
Augastus;  and  that  this  was  the  most  freqjenled  part  of  the  city,  we  learn  from 
Strabo  10,  p.  447.  Besides,  the  Eretriac  forum  was  situated  before  the  anm,  or  por- 
tico, in  which  the  Stoics,  of  whom  mention  is  just  after  made,  used  to  hold  their 
public  discourses.     It  was  moreover  called  ifixAof,  from  its  round  form." 

""Apjioi/  Trdyoi/,  Ma.rs'  Hill.  Tliyoi  signifies  properly  a  high  situation.  This  was  a 
hill  opposite  to  that  of  the  citadel  on  the  west ;  as  we  learn  from  Herod.  8,  52.  [See 
the  passages  produced  supra,  to  which  I  add  Liv.  26,  44.  Tumulum  quern  Mercurii 
vocant.  Bloomfield.]  It  was  so  called,  either  because  it  had  been  consecrated  to 
Mars,  (as  the  Campius  Marti  us  at  Rome,)  or  because  (as  Pausanius  relates,  Att.  C. 
28)  Mars,  when  he  had  slain  Halyrrothius,  son  of  Neptune,  was  the  first  who  there 
pleaded  a  capital  cause,  which  took  place  before  the  twelve  gods.  The  judges  used 
to  sit  by  night,  and  sub  dio ;  and  whatever  was  done  was  kept  very  secret,  [whence 
the  proverb  'ApzoTTuyirov  aiomriXnTcnos,  to  which  may  be  compared  ours,  '  as  grave  as  a 
Judge.'  Bloomf]  They  gave  their  judgment,  not  i-iva  voce,  but  in  writing.  Nor 
were  any  admitted  into  the  number  of  Areopagists  but  persons  of  noble  birth,  of  uH' 
spotted  morality,  and  eminent  for  justice  and  equity.  See  more  in  Meurs.  de  Areo 
pago."    (Knin.   Bloomf  Annot.) 

"  A  new  thijig."  A  remarkable  coincidence  is  observable  between  Luke's  inci- 
dental remark,  (Acts  xvii.  21,)  and  Demosthenes's  characteristic  hit  at  the  Athenians 
(i.  Philippic.)  for  their  devotion  to  news-hunting.    See  Kuinoel  for  other  references. 

Paul  takinor  his  stand  there,  in  that  splendid  scene,  uttered  in  a 
bold  tone,  and  in  his  noblest  style,  the  great  truths  which  he  was 
divinely  consecrated  to  reveal.  Never  yet  had  Athens,  in  her 
most  glorious  state,  heard  a  discourse  which,  for  solemn  beauty 
and  lofty  eloquence,  could  equal  this  brief  declaration  of  the  pro- 
vidence of  G«d  in  the  religion  of  his  creatures.  Never  did  the 
world  see  an  orator  in  a  sublimer  scene,  or  in  one  that  could 


PAUL.  561 

awaken  higher  emotions  in  those  who  heard,  or  him  who  spoke. 
He  stood  on  the  hill  of  Mars,  with  Athens  beneath  and  around 
him,  and  the  mio;hty  Acropolis  rising  with  its  "  tiara  of  proud 
towers,"  walls,  and  temples,  on  the  west, — bounding  and  crowning 
the  view  in  that  direction  : — to  the  northeast  lay  the  forum,  the 
late  scene  of  his  discussions,  and  beyond  lay  the  philosophic 
Academia,  around  and  through  which  rolled  the  flowery  Cephisus. 
Before  him  sat  the  most  august  and  ancient  court  in  the  Grecian 
world,  waiting  for  the  revelation  of  his  solemn  commission  respect- 
ing the  new  deities  which  he  was  expected  to  propose  as  an  addi- 
tion to  their  polytheistic  list : — around  him  were  the  sages  of  the 
Athenian  schools,  listening  in  grave  but  curious  attention  for  the 
new  things  which  the  eastern  stranger  had  brought  to  their 
ears.  The  apostle  raised  his  eyes  to  all  the  monuments  of  Athe- 
nian devotion  which  met  the  view  on  every  side.  Before  him,  on 
the  high  Acropolis,  was  the  mighty  temple  of  the  Athenian  Mi- 
nerva ;  on  the  plain  beyond,  was  the  splendid  shrine  of  the  Olym- 
pian Jove ;  on  his  right  was  the  temple  of  Theseus,  the  deified 
ancient  king  of  Attica,  who  laid  the  first  foundation  of  her  glories  ; 
and  near  were  the  new  piles  which  the  later  Grecian  adulation  had 
consecrated  to  the  worship  of  her  foreign  conquerors^to  the  dei- 
fied Caesars.  Beginning  in  that  tone  of  dignified  politeness,  which 
always  characterized  his  address  towards  the  great  ones  of  earth, 
he  won  their  hearts  and  their  attention  by  a  courteously  compli- 
men^ry  allusion  to  the  devout  though  misguided  zeal,  whose  solid 
tokens  everywhere  surrounded  him.  "  Ye  men  of  Athens !  I  see 
in  all  places  that  you  are  very  religious.  For  passing  along  and 
gazing  at  the  shrines  of  your  devotion,  I  found  an  altar  on  which 
was  written, — '  To  the  unknown  God  :' — Him,  therefore,  whom, 
not  knowing,  you  worship,  I  preach  to  you."  Adopting  this  inci- 
dental observation  as  the  basis  of  his  more  general  remarks,  the 
apostle  went  on  to  enlarge  their  view  of  the  characteV  of  the  Deity, 
whom,  though  in  this  instance  professing  their  ignorance  of  him, 
they  had,  in  such  numerous  tokens  of  blind  infatuation,  degraded 
by  dividing  his  noble  attributes  among  idols,  created  by  their  own 
fanciful  inventions,  and  imaged  in  all  the  fascinating  charms  in 
which  genius,  taste,  and  art,  could  embody  them.  That  God, 
whom  he  preached  to  them,  the  Maker  of  the  world  and  all  things 
in  it,  the  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  dwelt  not  in  shrines  made 
with  hands,  nor  is  served  by  men's  hands  needing  and  thing,  him- 
self giving  to  all  life  and  breath  everywhere.     The  Creator  of  all 


552  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

nations,  he  had  ordained  the  periods  of  their  power  and  existence, 
and  the  hmits  of  their  dominion.  He  had  inspired  them  all  with 
a  disposition  to  seek  him,  if  indeed  they  could  by  groping  find 
him,  although  not  far  from  every  one  of  his  creatures,  to  whom 
he  was  the  source  of  hfe  and  motion, — the  father  and  the  spirit 
of  all  being:.  How  base  then  for  his  children  to  degrade  his  vast 
and  incomprehensible  glories  by  assimilating  them  to  material  ob- 
jects, or  representing  them  in  the  forms  of  human  invention ! 
These  errors  into  which  the  nations  of  the  world  had  fallen,  in 
groping  through  the  darkness  after  the  universally  acknowledged 
deity,  God,  mercifully  overlooking,  now  everywhere  enjoined  on 
all  men  a  change  and  a  regeneration  of  religious  sentiment.  There- 
fore had  he  appointed  a  day  in  which  he  would  judge  the  world 
in  justice,  by  the  man  whom  he  had  appointed,  having  given  as- 
surance thereof  to  all  men  in  raising  him  from  the  dead.  In  this 
splendid  though  brief  discourse,  it  deserves  notice  how  readily  and 
completely,  on  all  occasions,  Paul  accommodated  himself  to  the 
circumstances  of  his  hearers.  His  style  on  this  occasion,  notwith- 
standing its  characteristic  Hebrew  barbarisms,  is  remarkably  pro- 
tracted and  rounded  in  its  periods,  highly  cumulative  in  structure, 
and  harmonious  in  its  almost  rhythmical  flow ; — the  whole  bearing 
the  character  which  was  best  suited  to  the  fancy  and  fashion  of  the 
Athenians, — though  still  very  decidedly  marked  by  peculiarities  of 
his  eastern  origin.  Here,  too,  he  gave  them  a  favorable  impres- 
sion of  his  knowledge  of  the  Grecian  classics,  by  his  apt  and 
happy  quotation  from  Aratus,  the  philosophical  poet  of  his  native 
province,  Cilicia.      "  For  we  also  are  his  offspring." 

Very  religious. — This  is  unquestionably  the  just  meaning^  of  xvii.  22.  See  Beza, 
Piscator,  Grotius,  Hammond,  Kuinoel,  Bloomfield,  and  all  the  standard  commenta- 
tors. "  Too  superstitious"  is  a  form  of  expression  so  insulting,  as  to  be  at  once  un- 
worthy of  the  courteous  apostle  and  his  philosophic  hearers. 

"  T/ie  objects  of  your  devotion."  The  word  as/Jiiu/zura  (sebasmata)  is,  in  the  common 
version,  very  incorrectly  translated  "  devotions."  It  refers,  in  fact,  not  to  the  act  of 
devotion,  but  the  object  of  devotion.  See  any  of  the  Lexicons.  The  connexion  here 
also  is  enough  to  show  that  the  apostle  meant  the  gods  of  Athens  and  their  altars. 

"  '  To  THE  Unknown  God.'  (xvii.  23.) — It  is  very  evident  from  the  testimony  of 
Laertius,  that  the  Athenians  had  altars  in  their  public  places,  inscribed  to  unknown 
gods  or  demons.  He  informs  us,  that  when  Athens  was  visited  with  a  great  plague, 
the  inhabitants  invited  Epimenides,  the  philosopher,  to  lustrate  their  city.  The  me- 
thod adopted  by  him  was  to  carry  several  sheep  to  the  Areopagus  ;  whence  they  were 
left  to  wander  as  they  pleased,  under  the  observation  of  persons  sent  to  attend  them. 
As  each  sheep  lay  down,  it  was  sacrificed  on  the  spot  to  the  propitious  god;  (in  Vita 
Epimen.  lib.  xi. ;)  and  as  the  Athenians  were  ignorant  of  what  god  was  propitious, 
they  erected  an  altar  with  this  inscription,  GEOK  ALIAE,  KAl  EYPQnHE,  KAI 
AIBHYE,  eE12  AFNOETSi  KAI  2ENS2 :—  To  the  gods  of  Asia.,  Europe,  and  Africa, 
to  the  strange  and  unhioion  god. 

"  On  the  architrave  of  a  Doric  portico  at  Athens,  which  was  standing  when  that 
city  was  visited,  about  sixty  years  since,  by  Dr.  Chandler  and  Mr.  Stuart,  is  a  Greek 


PAUL.  553 

inscription  to  the  following  purport: — 'The  people' [of  Athens  hare  erected  this 
fabric]  '  with  the  donations  to  Minerva  Archegetia,'  [or  the  conductress,]  '  by  the  god 
Caius  Julius  Caesar  and  his  son,  the  god  Augustus,  when  Nicias  was  Archon.' 
Over  the  middle  of  the  pediment  was  a  statue  of  Lucius  Caesar,  with  this  inscrip- 
tion : — '  The  people'  [honor]  '  Lucius  Caesar,  the  son  of  the  Emperor  Augustus 
Caesar,  the  son  of  the  god.'  There  was  also  a  statue  to  Julia,  the  daughter  to  Au- 
gustus, and  the  mother  of  Lucius,  thus  inscribed  : — '  The  Senate  of  the  Areopagus, 
and  the  Senate  of  the  Six  Hundred,'  [dedicate  this  statue  to]  '  the  goddess  Julia, 
Augusta,  Provident.'  These  public  memorials  supply  an  additional  proof  of  the 
correctness  of  Paul's  observations  on  the  Athenians,  that  they  were  too  much  ad- 
dicted to  the  adoption  of  objects  for  worship  and  devotion."  (Hammond's  Annota- 
tions, Cave's  Lives  of  the  Apostles,  Home's  Introduction,  Williams  on  Pearson.) 

"  Served  with  me/i's  hands."  The  Greek  word  dtpaTrcicTai  {therapeuelai)  has  a  sense 
which  cannot  be  fully  expressed  in  English  by  any  one  word.  The  common  Eng- 
lish version  translates  it  "worshiped,"  and  this  is  undoubtedly  just  to  a  part  of  its 
force.  But  the  primary  meaning  of  the  Greek  word  is  "  to  serve,"  or  "  wait  upon," 
as  a  servant  attends  his  master,  or  as  a  friend  assists  another  in  need,  or  as  an  infe- 
rior being  worships  a  superior.  The  expression — "  as  though  he  needed  any  thing" 
— contains  a  reference  to  the  included  sense  of  "  assisting  one  in  need  of  attend- 
ance." 

As  he  concluded,  however,  with  the  solemn  declaration  of  the 
great  foundation-truth  of  Christianity, — that  God  had  raised  Jesus 
from  the  dead, — there  was  a  very  general  burst  of  contempt  from 
the  more  scornful  portion  of  his  audience,  at  the  idea  of  any  thing 
so  utterly  against  all  human  probability.  Of  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  the  divinest  of  their  own  philosophers  had  reasoned, — • 
and  it  was  by  most  of  the  Athenian  sects  considered,  on  the  whole, 
tolerably  well  established ;  but  the  notion  of  the  actual  revivifica- 
tion of  the  perished  body, — the  recall  of  the  scattered  dust  and 
ashes,  to  the  same  breathing,  moving,  acting,  thinking  form,  which 
for  ages  had  ceased  to  be, — all  amounted  to  a  degree  of  improba- 
ble absurdity, — that  not  the  wildest  Grecian  speculator  had  ever 
dreamed  of  So  the  proud  Epicureans  and  Stoics  turned  sneer- 
ingly  away  from  the  barbarian  stranger  who  had  come  so  far  to 
try  their  credulity  with  such  a  tale ;  and  thus  they  for  ever  lost 
the  opportunity  to  learn  from  this  new-opened  fountain  of  truth,  a 
wisdom  that  the  long-  researches  of  all  the  Athenian  schools  had 
never  reached  and  could  never  reach,  without  the  light  of  this 
truly  divine  eastern  source,  which  they  now  so  thoughtlessly 
scorned.  But  there  were  some  more  considerate  among  the  hear- 
ers of  the  apostle,  who  had  learned  that  it  is  the  most  decided 
characteristic  of  a  true  philosopher,  to  reject  nothing  at  first  sight 
or  hearing,  though  it  may  happen  to  be  contrary  to  his  own  per- 
sonal experience  and  learning ;  and  these,  weighing  the  matter 
with  respectful  doubt,  told  Paul — "  We  will  hear  thee  again  about 
this."  Without  any  further  attempt  to  unfold  the  truth  at  that 
time,  Paul  departed  from  the  Areopagus,  and  no  more  uplifted  his 
voice  on  the  high  places  of  Athens,  in  testimony  of  that  solemn 


554  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

revelation  of  the  Son  of  Man  from  the  dead, — the  conviction  of 
whose  truth,  in  spite  of  all  philosophic  sneers,  was  destined  to 
oversweep  the  whole  of  that  world  which  they  knew,  and  a  new 
one  beyond  it,  and  to  exalt  the  name  of  that  despised  wanderer  to 
a  fame  compared  with  which  that  of  Socrates  should  be  small. 
Paul  was,  however,  afterwards  visited  by  several  of  those  who 
heard  him  before  the  Areopagus ;  who,  after  a  free,  conversational 
discussion  of  the  whole  subject,  and  a  more  familiar  exhibition  of 
the  evidences  of  his  remarkable  assertions,  professed  their  satisfac- 
tion with  the  arguments,  and  believed.  Among  these,  even  one 
of  the  judges  of  the  august  Areopagus,  by  name  Dionysius,  owned 
himself  a  disciple  of  Jesus.  Besides  him  is  mentioned  a  woman 
named  Damaris ;  and  others  not  specified,  are  said  to  have  be- 
lieved. 

" '  Dionysius  the  Areopagite.'  Acts  xvii.  34. — Dionysius  is  said  to  have  been  bred 
at  Athens  in  all  the  arts  and  sciences  :  at  the  a^^e  of  twenty-five  he  went  into  E,2;ypt  to 
learn  astronomy.  At  the  time  of  our  Savior's  death  he  was  at  Heliopolis,  where, 
observing  the  darkness  that  attended  the  passion,  he  cried  out  thus: — '  That  certain- 
ly, at  that  time,  either  God  himself  suffered,  or  was  much  concerned  for  somebody 
that  did.'  Returning  to  Athens,  he  became  one  of  the  senators  of  the  Areopagus; 
he  was  converted  by  St.  Paul,  and  by  him  appointed  bishop  of  Athens.  Having  la- 
bored and  suffered  much  for  the  holy  cause,  he  became  a  martyr  to  the  faith,  being 
burnt  to  death  at  Athens,  in  the  93d  year  of  Christ."  (Cave's  Lives  of  the  Apostles. 
Stanhope  on  Epis.  and  Gos.  Calmet's  Dictionary, — quoted  by  Williamson  Pearson.) 

From  the  grave  manner  in  which  this  story  is  told,  the  reader  would  naturally  sup- 
pose that  these  great  writers  had  some  authority  for  these  incidents  ;  but  in  reality, 
every  thing  that  concerns  Dionysius  the  Areopagite,  is  utterly  unknown  ;  and  not  one 
of  these  impudent  inventions  can  be  traced  back  further  than  the  sixth  century. 

After  this  tolerably  hopeful  beginning  of  the  gospel  in  Athens, 
Paul  left  that  city,  and  went  southwestward  to  Corinth,  then  the 
most  splendid  and  flourishing  city  of  all  Greece,  and  the  capital 
of  the  Roman  province  of  Achaia.  It  was  famous,  beyond  all  the 
cities  of  the  world,  for  its  luxury  and  refinement, — and  the  name 
of  "  Corinthian"  had,  long  before  the  time  of  Paul,  gone  forth  as 
a  proverbial  expression  for  what  was  splendid  in  art,  brilliant  in 
invention,  and  elegant  in  vice. 

Here  first  arose  that  sumptuous  order  of  architecture  that  still 
perpetuates  the  proverbial  elegance  of  the  splendid  city  of  its  birth  ; 
and  the  gorgeously  beautiful  style  of  the  rich  Corinthian  column, 
"  waving  its  wanton  wreath," — may  be  taken  as  an  aptly  expres- 
sive emblem  of  the  general  moral  and  internal,  as  well  as  external 
characteristics  of  this  last  home  of  true  Grecian  art.  Here  long- 
est tarried  the  taste,  art,  and  refinement,  which  so  eminently 
marked  the  first  glories  of  Greece,  and  when  the  triumphs  of  that 
ancient  excellence  were  beginning  to  grow  dim  in  its  brighter 


PAUL.  655 

early  seats  in  Attica  and  in  Ionian  Asia,  they  flashed  out  with  a 
most  dazzHng  beauty  in  the  splendid  city  of  Isthmus, — but  alas  ! 
— in  a  splendor  that  was  indeed  only  a  passing  flash, — a  last  bril- 
liant gleam  from  this  glorious  spot,  before  the  lamp  of  Hellenic 
glory  in  art,  went  out  for  ever.  In  the  day  of  the  apostle's  visit, 
however,  it  was  in  its  most  "  high  and  palmy  state," — the  queen 
of  the  Grecian  world.  It  was  glorious,  too,  in  the  dearest  recol- 
lections of  the  patriotic  history  of  Greece ;  for  here  was  the  centre 
of  that  last  brilliant  Achaian  confederacy,  Avhich  was  cherished  by 
the  noble  spirits  of  Aratus  and  Philopoemen ;  and  here,  too,  was 
made  the  last  stand  against  the  all-crushing  advance  of  the  legions 
of  Rome ;  and  when  it  fell  at  last  before  that  resistless  conquering 
movement, — "  great  was  the  fall  of  it."  The  burning  of  Corinth 
by  Mummius,  (B.  C.  144,  the  year  of  the  fall  of  Carthage,)  is  in- 
famous above  all  the  most  barbarous  acts  of  Roman  conquest,  for 
its  melancholy  destruction  of  the  works  of  ancient  art,  with  which 
it  then  abounded.  But  from  the  ashes  of  this  mournful  ruin,  it 
rose  soon  after,  under  the  splendid  patronage  of  Roman  dominion, 
to  a  new  splendor,  that  equaled,  or  perhaps  outwent  the  glories  of 
its  former  perfection,  which  had  been  ripening  from  the  day  when, 
as  recorded  by  old  Homer,  in  the  freshness  of  its  early  power,  it 
sent  forth  its  noble  armaments  to  the  siege  of  Troy,  or  set  afloat 
the  earliest  warlike  navy  in  the  world,  or  was  made,  through  a 
long  course  of  centuries,  the  centre  of  the  most  brilliant  of  Gre- 
cian festivals,  in  the  celebration  of  the  Isthmian  games  before  its 
walls.  The  Roman  conquerors,  as  if  anxious  to  make  to  this  an- 
cient seat  of  Grecian  splendor,  a  full  atonement  for  the  barbarous 
ruin  with  which  they  had  overwhelmed  it,  now  showered  on  it  all 
the  honors  and  favors  in  their  power.  It  was  rebuilt  as  a  Roman 
colony, — endowed  by  the  munificence  of  senates,  consuls,  empe- 
rors, and  made  the  capital  of  the  Roman  province  of  Achaia,  until 
the  dismemberment  of  the  empire.  Shining  in  its  gaudy  fetters, 
it  became  what  it  has  been  described  to  be  in  the  apostolic  age, 
and  was  then,  beyond  all  doubt,  the  greatest  Grecian  city  in  Eu- 
rope, if  not  in  the  world.  Athens  was  then  mouldering  in  more 
than  incipient  decay — "the  ghost  of  its  former  self;"  for  even  Ci- 
cero, long  before  this,  describes  it  as  presenting  everywhere  specta- 
cles of  the  most  lamentable  ruin  and  decline ;  but  Corinth  was  in 
the  highth  of  its  glory, — its  luxury, — its  vice, — its  heathen  wick- 
edness,— and  may  therefore  be  justly  esteemed  the  most  important 
scene  of  labor  into  which  apostolic  enterprise  had  ever  yet  made 


556  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

its  way,  and  to  have  been  well  worthy  of  the  attention  which  it 
ever  after  received  from  Paul,  to  the  very  last  of  his  life,  being 
made  the  occasion  and  object  of  a  larger  and  a  more  splendid  por- 
tion of  his  epistolary  labors,  than  all  with  which  he  ever  favored 
any  other  place  in  the  world. 

"  Corinth. — There  is  scarcely  any  one  of  the  seats  of  ancient  magnificence  and 
luxury,  that  calls  up  more  vivid  and  powerful  associations,  than  are  awakened  by 
the  name  of  this  once  opulent  and  powerful  city.  Corinth,  '  the  prow  and  siern  of 
Greece,'  the  emporium  of  iis  commerce,  the  key  and  bulwark  of  the  Peloponnesus, 
was  proverbial  for  its  wealth  as  early  as  the  lime  of  Homer.  Its  situation  was  so 
advantageous  for  the  inexperienced  navigation  of  early  times,  that  it  became  of  ne- 
cessity the  centre  of  trade.  The  first  naval  batile  on  record  was  fought  between 
Corinth  and  its  colony  Corcyra,  about  657  B.  C.  '  Syracuse,  the  ornament  of  Sicily, 
Corcyra,  sometime  sovran  of  the  seas,  Ambracia  in  Epirus,  and  several  other  cities 
more  or  less  flourishing,  owe  their  origin  to  Corinth.'  (Trav.  of  Anacharsis,  vol.  III. 
c.  37.)  Thucydides  states,  that  the  Corinthian  ship-builders  first  produced  galleys 
with  three  benches  of  oars.  The  circumnavigation  of  the  peninsula  was  tedious 
and  uncertain  to  a  proverb;  while  at  the  Isthmus,  not  only  their  cargoes,  but,  if  re- 
quisite, the  smaller  vessels,  might  be  transported  from  sea  to  sea.  By  its  port  of  Cen- 
chreae,  it  received  the  rich  merchandise  of  Asia,  and  by  that  of  Lechaeum,  it  main- 
tained intercourse  with  Italy  and  Sicily.  The  Isthmian  Games,  by  the  concourse  of 
people  which  they  attracted  at  their  celebration,  contributed  not  a  little  to  its  immense 
opulence  ;  and  the  prodigality  of  its  merchants  rendered  the  place  so  expensive,  that 
it  became  a  saying,  '  It  is  not  for  every  one  to  go  to  Corinth.'  Even  after  its  barba- 
rous destruction  by  the  Romans,  it  must  have  been  an  extremely  magnificent  city. 
Pausanias  mentions  in  and  near  the  city,  a  theatre,  an  odeum,  a  stadium,  and  sixteen 
temples.  That  of  Venus  possessed  above  a  thousand  female  slaves.  '  The  women 
of  Corinth  are  distinguished  by  their  beauty;  the  men  by  their  love  of  gain  and 
pleasure.    They  ruin  their  health  by  convivial  debauches,  and  love  with  them  is  only 

licentious  passion.    Venus  is  their  principal  deity The  Corinthians,  who 

performed  such  illustrious  acts  of  valor  in  the  Persian  war,  becoming  enervated  by 
pleasure,  sunk  under  the  yoke  of  the  Argives ;  were  obliged  alternately  to  solicit  the 
protection  of  the  Lacedaemonians,  the  Athenians,  and  the  Thebans;  and  are  at  length 
reduced  to  be  only  the  wealthiest,  the  most  efieminate,  and  the  weakest  state  in  Greece.' " 
Anacharsis.    (Mod.  Trav.  pp.  160,  161.) 

The  Hebrew  stranger,  entering  without  despondency  this  new 
scene  of  labor,  passed  on  unnoticed,  and  looking  about  for  those 
with  whom  he  might  be  bold  to  communicate,  on  the  score  of  na- 
tional and  religious  sympathies,  he  found  among  those  who  like 
himself  were  strangers,  a  Jew,  by  name  Aquilas,  who  with  his 
wife  Priscilla  had  lately  arrived  from  Italy,  whence  they  had  just 
been  driven  by  a  vexatious  decree  of  Claudius  Caesar,  which,  on 
some  groundless  accusation,  ordered  all  the  Jews  to  depart  from 
Rome.  Aquilas,  though  lately  a  resident  in  Italy,  was  originally 
from  Pontus  in  the  northern  part  of  Asia  Minor,  not  very  far  from 
Paul's  native  province ;  and  this  proximity  of  origin,  joined  to  an- 
other circumstance  arising  out  of  it,  drew  the  strangers  together, 
in  this  foreign  city.  In  Pontus,  even  at  this  day,  is  carried  on  that 
same  famous  manufacture  of  camlet  articles  for  which  Cilicia  was 
also  distinguished  and  proverbial,  and  it  is  therefore  perfectly  rea- 
sonable to  suppose  that  in  that  age  also,  this  business  was  common 


PAUL.  667 

in  the  same  region,  because  the  variety  of  goat  which  produces 
the  material,  has  always  been  confined  within  those  limits.  Being 
of  the  same  trade,  then,  and  both  of  them  friendless  strangers, 
seeking  employment  and  support,  Paul  and  Aquilas  fell  into  one 
another's  company  and  acquaintance,  and  getting  work  at  the  same 
time,  they  seem  to  have  set  up  a  kind  of  partnership  in  their  trade, 
living  together,  and  working  in  the  same  way,  from  day  to  day. 
This,  of  course,  gave  constant  opportunity  for  the  freest  commu- 
nication on  all  subjects  of  conversation  ;  and  Aquilas  would  not 
be  long  in  finding  out  the  great  object,  which  had  led  Paul  away 
from  his  country  and  friends,  to  a  place  where  his  necessities  drove 
him  to  the  laborious  exercise  of  an  occupation,  which  a  person  of 
his  rank  and  character  could  not  originally  have  acquired  with 
any  intention  of  gaining  his  livelihood  thereby.  That  this  was 
the  sole  motive  of  his  present  application  to  his  tedious  business, 
is  abundantly  testified  in  the  epistles  which  he  afterwards  wrote 
to  this  same  place  ;  for  he  expressly  says,  that  he  "  was  chargeable 
to  no  man,"  but  "  labored  with  his  own  hands."  Yet  the  diligent 
pursuit  of  this  laborious  avocation  did  not  prevent  him  from  ap- 
pearing on  the  sabbath,  in  the  synagogue,  as  a  teacher  of  divine 
things ;  nor  would  the  noble  principles  of  Jewish  education  per- 
mit any  man  to  despise  the  stranger  on  account  of  his  necessitous 
and  apparently  humble  circumstances.  His  weekly  ministry  was 
therefore  pursued  without  hindrance,  and  with  success ;  for  "  he  ^ 
persuaded  the  Jews  and  the  Greeks."  Among  those  who  received 
the  most  eminent  advantage  from  his  apostolic  labors,  was  his 
fellow-workman  Aquilas,  who  with  his  wife  Priscilla  here  imbibed 
such  a  portion  of  Christian  knowledge,  as  ever  after  made  both 
him  and  her  highly  useful  as  teachers  of  the  new  faith,  to  which 
they  were  at  this  time  converted.  It  would  seem,  however,  that 
Paul  did  not,  during  the  first  part  of  his  ministrations,  very  openly 
and  energetically  proclaim  the  grand  doctrine  of  the  faith ;  for  it 
was  not  till  after  the  arrival  of  Silas  and  Timothy  from  Macedonia, 
that  he  "  pressed  on  in  the  word,  and  testified  to  the  Jews  that 
Jesus  was  the  Messiah."  As  had  usually  been  the  case,  whenever 
he  had  proclaimed  this  solemn  truth  to  his  own  countrymen,  he 
was  met  by  the  Corinthian  Jews,  for  the  most  part,  with  a  most 
determined  and  scornful  opposition  ;  so  that  renouncing  their  fel- 
lowship in  the  expressive  gesture  of  an  Oriental, — shaking  his 
raiment, — he  declared — "  Your  blood  be  on  your  own  heads : — I 
am  clean.     Henceforth,  I  will  go  to  the  Gentiles."     Leaving  their 


558  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

company,  he  then  went  into  the  house  of  a  rehgious  friend,  close 
to  the  synagogue,  and  there  took  up  his  abode.  But  not  all  the 
Jews  were  involved  in  the  condemnation  of  this  rejection.  On  the 
contrary,  one  of  the  most  eminent  men  among  them,  Crispus,  either 
then  or  formerly  the  ruling  elder  of  the  synagogue,  professed  the 
faith  of  Jesus,  notwithstanding  its  unpopularity.  Along  with  him 
his  whole  family  were  baptized,  and  many  other  Corinthians  re- 
ceived the  word  in  the  same  manner.  In  addition  to  these  nobly 
encouraofino:  results  of  his  devoted  labors,  his  ardor  in  the  cause 
of  Jesus  received  a  new  impulse  from  a  remarkable  dream,  in 
which  the  Lord  appeared  to  him,  uttering  these  words  of  high 
consolation, — "  Fear  not,  but  speak,  and  hold  not  thy  peace ;  for 
I  am  with  thee,  and  no  one  shall  hurt  thee.  I  have  many  people 
in  this  city."  Under  the  combined  influence  of  both  natural  and 
supernatural  encouragements,  he  therefore  remained  zealously  la- 
boring in  Corinth,  and  made  that  city  his  residence,  as  Luke  very 
particularly  records,  for  a  year  and  six  months. 

"xviii.  5.  avveixero  toj  XoytD,  &c.  The  common  reading  is  Trvtifian.  Now  since 
(Tui/£;^£o-eui,  among  other  significations,  denotes  ara^t,  maerore  corripi,  (see  Luke  xii.  50, 
and  the  note  on  Matt.  iv.  24,)  many  commentators,  as  Hammond,  Mill,  and  Wolf, 
explain,  '  angebatur  Paulus  animo,  dum  docebat  Judaeos,  Jesum  esse  Messiam  ;'  viz. 
'  since  he  could  produce  no  effect  among  them.'  And  they  compare  ver  6.  But  this 
interpretation  is  at  variance  with  the  context. 

"  Now  ihis  verb  also  signifies  to  incite,  urge,  as  in  2  Cor.  v.  14.  Hence  Beza,  Pri- 
caeus,  and  others,  explain  :  '  intus  ed  apud  se  aestuebat  prae  zeli  ardore;'  which  in- 
terpretation I  should  admit,  if  there  were  not  reason  to  suppose,  from  the  authority  of 
MSS.  and  Versions,  that  the  true  reading,  (though  the  more  difficult  one,)  is  Adyw,  of 
which  the  best  interpretation,  and  that  most  suitable  to  the  context,  is  the  one  found  in 
the  Vulg. '  instabat  verbo.'  For'nii/£'-)(;£(r9ai  denotes  also  to  be  held,  occupied  by  any  thing ; 
as  in  Sap.  17,  20.  Herodot.  1, 17,  22.  Aeiian,  V.  H.  14,  22.  This  signification  of  the 
word  being  admitted,  the  sense  will  be:  '  When  they  had  approached  whom  Paul 
(who  knew  that  combined  strength  is  most  efficacious)  had  expected  as  his  assistants 
in  promulgating  the  Christian  doctrine,  and  of  whom,  in  so  large  and  populous  a  city 
there  was  need,  then  he  applied  kimxelf  closely  to  the  work  of  teaching.'  Kuin.  (Bloom- 
field's  Annot.  p.  593.) 

HIS  EPISTLES  WRITTEN  FROM  CORINTH. 

The  period  of  his  residence  in  this  city  is  made  highly  interesting 
and  important  in  the  history  of  the  sacred  canon,  by  the  circum- 
stance that  here  he  wrote  some  of  the  first  of  those  epistles  to  his  va- 
rious missionary  charges,  which  constitute  the  most  controverted 
and  the  most  doctrinal  portion  of  tlie  New  Testament.  In  treating 
of  these  writings,  in  the  course  of  the  narrative  of  his  life,  the  very 
contracted  limits  now  left  to  his  biographer,  will  make  it  necessary 
to  be  much  more  brief  in  his  literary  history,  than  in  that  of  those 
other  apostles,  whose  writings  have  claimed  and  received  so  full  a 
statement,  under  their  respective  lives.  Nor  is  there  so  much  occa- 
sion for  the  labors  of  the  apostolic  historian  on  this  part  of  the  his- 


9. 
PAUL.  6S9 

toiy  of  the  apostolic  works,  as  on  those  already  so  fully  treated  ;  for 
while  the  history  of  the  writings  of  Peter,  John,  Matthew,  James, 
and  Jude,  has  so  seldom  been  presented  to  the  eyes  of  common 
readers,  tlie  writings  of  Paul,  which  have  always  been  the  great 
storehouse  of  Protestant  dogmatism,  have  been  discussed  and  am- 
plified in  their  history,  scope,  character,  and  style,  more  fully  than 
all  the  rest  of  the  Bible,  for  common  readers  ;  but  in  the  great  ma- 
jority of  instances,  proving  such  a  comment  on  the  sadly  prophetical 
words  of  Peter  on  these  very  writings,  that  the  apostolic  historian 
may  well  and  wisely  dread  to  immerse  himself  in  such  a  sea  of  dif- 
ficulties as  presents  itself  to  view  ;  and  he  therefore  cautiously  avoids 
any  intermeddling  with  discussions  which  will  possibly  involve  him 
in  the  condemnation  pronounced  by  the  great  apostolic  chief,  on  those 
"  unlearned  and  unstable,"  who,  even  in  his  time,  had  begun  to 
"  wrest  to  their  own  destruction,  the  things  hard  to  be  understood  in 
the  epistles  of  his  beloved  brother  Paul ;"  a  sentence  which  seems  to 
have  been  wholly  overlooked  by  the  great  herd  of  dogmatizing  com- 
mentators, who,  very  often,  without  either  the  "learning"  or  the 
"stability,"  which  Peter  thought  requisite  for  the  safe  interpretation 
of  the  Pauline  epistles,  have  rushed  on  to  the  task  of  vulgarizing 
these  noble  and  honest  writings,  to  suit  the  base  purposes  of  some 
popular  system  of  mystical  words  and  complex  doctrines.  If,  then, 
the  "'  unlearned  and  unstable"  have  been  thus  distinctly  warned  by 
the  highest  apostolic  authority,  against  meddling  with  these  obscure 
and  peculiar  writings ;  and  since  the  whole  history  of  dogmatic  the- 
ology is  so  fiiU  of  melancholy  comments  on  the  undesignedly  pro- 
phetical force  of  Peter's  denunciation, — it  is  no  more  than  prudent 
to  decline  the  slightest  interference  with  a  subject,  which  has  been 
on  such  authority  declared  to  require  the  possession  of  so  high  a  de- 
gree of  learning  and  stability,  for  its  safe  and  just  treatment.  The 
few  things  which  may  be  safely  stated,  will  merely  concern  the 
place,  time,  and  immediate  occasion  of  the  writing  of  each  of  these 
epistles. 

In  the  first  place,  as  to  the  order  in  which  these  works  of  Paul 
are  arrano^ed  in  the  common  New  Testament  canon,  it  should  be  ob- 
served that  it  has  reference  neither  to  date,  subject,  nor  any  thing 
whatever,  in  their  character  or  object,  except  the  very  arbitrary 
circumstance  of  the  rank  and  importance  of  the  places  and  persons 
that  were  the  original  objects  of  their  composition.  The  epistle  to 
the  Romans  is  always  placed  first,  because  the  imperial  city  to  which 
it  was  directed  was  beyond  all  question  the  greatest  in  the  world. 
The  epistles  to  the  Corinthians  are  next,  because  that  city  was  the 
nearest  in  rank  and  importance  to  Rome,  of  all  those  which  were  the 
objects  of  Paul's  epistolary  attentions.  The  epistle  to  the  Galatians 
is  next,  because  it  was  directed  to  a  great  province,  inferior  indeed 
in  importance  to  the  two  great  cities  before  mentioned,  but  vastly 
above  any  of  the  other  places  to  which  Paul  wrote.     The  epistle  to 


560  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  Ephesians  comes  next,  because  Ephesus  ranked  far  above  any  of 
the  cities  which  follow.  Philippi  was  supposed,  by  those  who  ar- 
ranged the  canon,  greater  than  Colosse  and  Thessalonica,  because  it 
was  thought  to  have  been  a  capital  city.  Thus  all  those  epistles 
which  are  addressed  to  whole  churches,  are  placed  first ;  and  those 
which  are  addressed  to  individuals,  in  the  same  manner,  form  a  class 
by  themselves ;  that  to  Timothy  being  placed  first  of  these,  because 
he  was  the  most  eminent  of  all  the  apostle's  assistants, — Titus  being 
inferior  to  him  in  dignity,  and  Philemon,  a  person  of  no  account  at 
all,  except  from  the  bare  circumstance,  that  he  was  accidentally  the 
subject  of  Paul's  notice.  The  epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  last  of  all, 
because  it  is  altogether  peculiar  in  its  character,  addressed  neither  to 
churches,  nor  to  an  individual,  but  to  a  whole  nation,  being  published 
and  circulated  for  their  general  benefit.  The  circumstance,  also, 
that  it  was  long  denied  a  place  in  the  canon,  and  considered  as  a 
spurious  writing,  improperly  attributed  to  Paul,  probably  caused  it 
to  be  put  last  of  all  his  writings,  when,  in  the  course  of  time,  it  was 
at  length  allowed  a  place  in  the  canon. 

This  is  the  view  which  Michaelis  gives  of  the  arrangement  of  the  Pauline  epistles, 
rintrod.  IV.  1.) 

FIRST  EPISTLE  TO  THE    THESSALONIANS. 

That  epistle  which  the  great  majority  of  all  modern  critics  consider 
2is  the  earliest  of  all  those  writings  of  Paul  that  are  now  preserved, 
is  the  first  to  the  Thessalonians.  It  is  directed  to  them  from  Paul, 
Silvanus,  (or  Silas,)  and  Timothy,  which  shows  that  it  was  written 
after  Paul  had  been  joined  by  these  two  brethren,  which  was  not 
until  some  time  after  his  arrival  in  Corinth.  It  appears  by  the  se- 
cond and  third  chapters,  that  the  apostle,  having  been  liindered  by 
some  evil  agency  of  the  wicked,  from  visiting  Thessalonica,  as  he 
had  earnestly  desired  to  do,  had  been  obliged  to  content  himself  with 
sending  Timothy  to  the  brethren  there,  to  comfort  them  in  their 
faith,  and  to  inquire  whether  they  yet  stood  fast  in  their  first  honor- 
able profession ;  for  he  declares  himself  to  have  been  anxious  to 
know  whether  by  some  means  the  tempter  might  not  have  tempted 
them,  and  his  labor  have  thus  been  in  vain.  But  he  now  informs 
them  how  he  has  lately  been  greatly  comforted  by  the  good  news 
brought  from  them  by  Timothy,  who  had  assured  the  apostle  of 
their  faith  and  love,  and  that  they  had  great  remembrance  of  him 
always,  desiring  much  to  see  him,  as  he  them.  Maldng  known  to 
them  the  great  joy  which  these  tidings  had  caused  in  him,  he  now 
affectionately  re-assures  them  of  his  high  and  constant  regard  for 
them,  and  of  his  continued  remembrance  of  them  in  his  prayers. 
He  then  proceeds  briefly  to  exhort  them  to  a  perseverance  in  the 
Christian  course,  in  which  they  had  made  so  fair  an  outset,  urging 
upon  them  more  especially,  those  virtues  which  were  peculiarly  rare 
among  those  with  whom  they  were  daily  brought  in  contact, — purity 


PAUL.  561 

of  life,  rigid  honesty  in  business  transactions,  a  charitable  regard  for 
the  feelings  of  others,  a  quiet,  peaceable,  inoffensive  deportment,  and 
other  minuter  counsels,  according  to  the  peculiar  circumstances  of 
different  persons  among  them.  The  greater  portion  of  this  brief 
letter,  indeed,  is  taken  up  with  these  plain,  prcictical  matters,  with  no 
reference  to  any  deep  doctrinal  subjects,  the  whole  being  thus  evi- 
dently well  suited  to  the  condition  of  believers  v/ho  had  just  begun 
the  Christian  course,  and  had  been  in  no  way  prepared  to  appreciate 
any  learned  discussion  of  those  obscure  points  which  in  later  periods 
were  the  subject  of  so  much  controversy  among  some  of  Paul's  con- 
verts. Their  dangers  hitherto  had  also  been  mainly  in  the  moral 
rather  than  in  the  doctrinal  way,  and  the  only  error  of  mere  belief, 
to  which  he  makes  reference,  is  one  which  has  always  been  the  oc- 
casion of  a  great  deal  of  harmless  folly  among  the  ignorant  and  the 
weak-minded  in  the  Christian  churches,  from  the  apostolic  age  to 
this  day.  The  evil,  however,  was  considered  by  the  apostle  of  so 
much  importance,  that  he  thought  it  worth  while  to  briefly  expose 
its  folly  to  the  Thessalonians,  and  he  accordingly  discourses  to  them 
of  the  day  of  judgment,  assuring  them  that  those  who  might  happen 
to  be  alive  at  the  moment  of  Christ's  coming,  would  derive  no  pecu- 
liar advantage  from  that  circumstance,  because  those  who  had  died 
in  Christ  should  rise  first,  and  the  survivors  be  then  caught  up  to 
meet  the  Lord  in  the  air.  But  as  for  "  the  times  and  the  seasons," 
— those  endless  themes  for  the  discursive  nonsense  of  the  visionary, 
even  to  the  present  day  and  hour, — he  assures  them  that  there  was 
no  need  at  all  that  he  should  write  to  them,  because  they  already 
well  knew  that  the  day  of  the  Lord  should  come  as  a  thief  in  the 
night,  according  to  the  words  of  Jesus  himself  The  only  practical 
benefit  which  they  could  expect  to  derive,  then,  from  this  part  of  their 
faith,  was  the  conviction  of  the  necessity  of  constantly  bearing  in 
mind  the  shortness  and  uncertainty  of  their  earthly  stay,  and  the 
importance  of  watchfulness  and  sobriety.  After  several  sententious 
moral  exhortations,  he  concludes  with  aflectionate  salutations,  and 
with  an  earnest,  solemn  charge,  that  the  letter  should  be  read  to  all 
the  brethren  of  the  church. 

It  will  be  observed,  that  at  the  conclusion  of  the  epistle  is  a  statement  that  it  was 
written  from  Athens, — an  assertion  perfectly  absurd,  and  rendered  evidently  so  by 
the  statements  contained  in  the  epistle  itself,  as  above  shown.  All  the  similar  state- 
ments appended  to  his  other  epistles  are  equally  unauthorized,  and  most  of  them 
equally  false; — being  written  by  some  exceedingly  foolish  copyists,  who  were  too 
stupid  to  understand  the  words  which  they  transcribed.  Yet  these  idle  falsehoods  are 
gravely  given  in  all  copies  of  the  English  translation,  and  are  thus  continually  sent 
abroad  to  mislead  common  readers,  many  cf  whom,  seeing  them  thus  attached  to  the 
apostolic  writings,  suppose  them  to  be  also  of  inspired  authority,  and  are  deaeived 
accordingly.  And  they  probably  will  continue  to  be  thus  copied,  in  spite  of 'their 
palpable  and  mischievous  falsehood,  until  such  a  revolution  in  the  moral  sense  of 
common  people  takes  place,  that  they  shall  esteem  a  new  negative  truth  more  v^alua- 
ble  and  interesting,  than  an  old,  groundless  blunder. 

This  view  of  the  design  of  the  epistle  is  not  adopted  from  any  commentator  ia  . 
particular,  but  is  taken  from  the  manifest  and  undisputed  bearing  of  the  whole 
writing.    There  is  hardly  a  passage  in  the  epistle  that  has  ever  been  made  a  subject 


562  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

of  controversy.  It  is  simple,  brief,  entirely  local  in  its  bearings  and  application,  and 
not  at  all  obscured  by  references  to  doctrinal  systems,  which  abound  in  the  later 
writings  of  Paul.  In  short,  it  is  just  such  an  epistle  as  would  be  expected  from  the 
apostle,  before  the  multiplication  of  doctrinal  difficulties  in  the  churches  made  it  ne- 
cessary to  load  his  correspondence  with  counter-statements  and  arguments. 

ACCUSATION  BEFORE  THE  PROCONSUL. 

For  some  time  after  the  writing  of  the  first  epistle  to  the  Thes- 
salonians,  with  these  triumphs  and  other  encouragements,  Paul 
and  his  faithful  helpers  appear  to  have  gone  on  steadily  in  their 
apostolic  labors,  with  no  special  obstacle  or  difficulty,  that  is  com- 
memorated in  the  sacred  record.  But  at  last  their  old  difficulties 
began  to  manifest  themselves  in  the  gradually  awakened  enmity  of 
the  Jews,  who,  though  at  his  first  distinct  public  ministrations  they 
had  expressed  a  decided  and  scornful  opposition  to  the  doctrine  of 
a  crucified  Savior,  yet  suffered  the  new  teachers  to  go  on,  without 
opposing  them  any  farther  than  by  scornful  verbal  hostility,  blas- 
phemy, and  abuse.  But  when  they  saw  the  despised  heresy 
making  such  rapid  advances,  notwithstanding  the  contempt  with 
which  it  was  visited,  they  immediately  determined  to  let  it  no 
longer  take  advantage  of  their  inefficiency  in  resisting  its  progress. 
Of  course,  deprived  themselves  of  all  political  power,  they  had 
not  the  means  of  meeting  the  evil  by  physical  violence,  and  they 
well  knew  that  any  attempt  on  their  part  to  raise  an  illegal  com- 
motion against  the  strangers,  would  only  bring  down  on  the  ex- 
citers of  the  disturbance,  the  whole  vengeance  of  their  Roman 
rulers,  who  were  unsparing  in  their  vengeance  on  those  that  un- 
dertook to  defy  the  forms  of  their  laws,  for  the  sake  of  persecution, 
or  any  private  ends ;  and  least  of  all  would  a  class  of  people  so 
peculiar  and  so  disliked  as  the  Jews,  be  allowed  to  take  any  such 
treasonable  steps  without  insuring  them  a  most  dreadful  punish- 
ment. These  circumstances  therefore  compelled  them  to  proceed, 
as  usual,  under  the  forms  of  law ;  and  their  first  step  against  Paul, 
therefore,  was  to  apprehend  him,  and  take  him,  as  a  violator  of 
religious  order,  before  the  highest  Roman  tribunal, — that  of  the 
proconsul. 

The  proconsul  of  Achaia,  holding  his  supreme  seat  of  justice 
in  Corinth,  the  capital  of  that  Roman  province,  was  Lucius  Ju- 
nius Gallio,  a  man  well  known  to  the  readers  of  one  of  the  clas- 
sic Latin  writers  of  that  age,  (Seneca,)  as  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able exemplifications  of  those  noble  virtues  which  were  the  great 
^•theme  of  this  philosopher's  pen.  Out  of  many  beautiful  illustra- 
'  tions  which  may  be  drawn  from  Roman  and  Jewish  writers,  to 


PAUL.  563 

explain  and  amplify  the  honest  and  faithful  apostolic  history  of 
Luke,  there  is  none  more  striking  and  gratifying  than  the  aid  here 
drawn  from  this  fine  philosophical  classic,  on  the  character  of  the 
noble  proconsul,  who  by  his  upright,  wise,  and  clement  decision, 
against  the  mean  persecutors  of  Paul, — and  by  his  indignant  re- 
fusal to  pervert  and  degrade  his  vice-regal  power  to  the  base  ends 
of  private  abuse,  has  acquired  the  grateful  regard  and  admiring 
respect  of  all  Christian  readers  of  apostolic  history.  The  name 
of  Lucius  Junius  Gallic,  by  which  he  is  known  to  Roman  writers 
as  well  as  in  apostolic  history,  was  not  his  original  family  designa- 
tion, and  therefore  gives  the  reader  no  idea  of  his  interesting  rela- 
tionship to  one  of  the  finest  moralists  of  the  whole  period  of  the 
Roman  empire.  His  original  family  name  was  Marcus  Annaeus 
Novatus  Seneca, — which  appellation  he  exchanged  for  his  later 
one,  on  being  adopted  by  Lucius  Junius  Gallic,  a  noble  Roman, 
who  being  destitute  of  children,  adopted,  according  to  a  very  com- 
mon custom  of  the  imperial  city,  one  of  a  family  that  had  already 
given  promise  of  a  fine  reward  to  those  who  should  take  its  off- 
spring as  theirs.  The  famous  philosopher  before  mentioned, — 
Lucius  Annaeus  Seneca, — was  his  own  brother ;  both  of  them 
being  the  sons  of  Marcus  Annaeus  Seneca,  a  distinguished  orator 
and  rhetorician  of  the  Augustan  age.  A  strong  and  truly  frater- 
nal affection  always  continued  to  hold  the  two  brothers  together, 
even  after  they  had  been  separated  in  name  by  the  adoption  of  the 
older  into  the  family  of  Gallio  ;  and  the  philosopher  often  com- 
memorates his  noble  brother  in  terms  of  high  respect ;  and  dedi- 
cated to  him  one  of  the  tnost  perfect  of  those  moral  treatises  which 
have  immortalized  the  name  of  Seneca. 

The  philosopher  Seneca,  after  having  been  for  many  years  ba- 
nished from  Rome  by  Claudius,  was  at  length  recalled  by  that  em- 
peror in  the  ninth  year  of  his  reign,  corresponding  to  A.  D.  49. 
He  was  immediately  made  a  senator,  and  was  still  further  honored 
by  being  intrusted  with  the  education  of  Domitius,  the  son  of 
Agrippina,  afterwards  adopted  by  Claudius  as  heir  to  the  throne, 
to  which  he  succeeded  on  the  emperor's  death,  under  the  name  of 
Nero,  by  which  he  has  now  become  so  infamous  wherever  the 
Roman  name  is  known.  Being  thus  elevated  to  authority  and 
great  influence  with  the  emperor,  Seneca  made  use  of  his  power 
to  procure  for  his  brother  Gallio  such  official  honors  as  his  talents 
and  character  justly  claimed.  In  the  eleventh  year  of  Claudius 
he  was  made  consul,  as  is  recorded  in  the  Fasti  Consulares ;  and 


664  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

was  soon  after  sent  into  Greece,  as  proconsul  of  Achaia.  Arriving 
at  Corinth  in  the  year  53,  he  was  immediately  addressed  by  the 
Jewish  citizens  of  that  place  in  behalf  of  their  plot  against  Paul ; 
for  they  naturally  supposed  that  this  would  be  the  best  time  for 
the  attempt-  to  bend  the  new  governor  to  their  purposes,  when  he 
was  just  commencing  his  administration,  and  would  be  anxious  to 
please  the  subjects  of  his  power  by  his  opening  acts.  But  Gallio 
had  no  disposition  to  acquire  popularity  with  any  class  of  citizens 
by  any  such  abuse  of  power,  and  by  his  conduct  on  this  occasion 
very  fairly  justifies  the  high  character  given  him  by  his  brother 
Seneca.  When  the  Jews  came  dragging  Paul  before  the  procon- 
sular tribunal,  with  the  accusation — "  This  fellow  persuades  men 
to  worship  God  in  a  manner  contrary  to  the  ritual," — before  Paul 
could  open  his  mouth  in  reply,  Gallio  carelessly  answered — "  If  it 
were  a  matter  of  crime  or  misdemeanor,  ye  Jews !  it  would  be 
reasonable  that  I  should  bear  with  you  ;  but  if  it  be  a  question  of 
words  and  names,  and  of  your  ritual,  look  ye  to  it ;  for  I  do  not 
wish  to  be  a  judge  of  those  things."  With  this  contemptuous  re- 
ply, he  cleared  the  court  of  them.  The  Jews  thus  found  their 
scheme  of  abusing  Paul  under  the  sanction  of  the  Roman  tribunal, 
perfectly  frustrated ;  nor  was  their  calamity  confined  to  this  disap- 
pointment ;  for  all  the  Greeks  who  were  present  at  the  trial, — in- 
dignant at  the  scandalous  character  of  the  proceeding, — took  Sos- 
thenes,  the  ruling  elder  of  the  synagogue,  who  had  probably  been 
most  active  in  the  persecution  of  Paul,  as  he  was  the  regular  legal 
chief  of  the  Jews,  and  gave  him  a  beating  in  the  court,  before  he 
could  obey  the  orders  of  the  proconsul,  and  move  off  from  the 
tribunal.  Gallio  was  so  far  from  being  displeased  at  this  very  ir- 
regular and  improper  outbreak  of  public  feeling,  that  he  took  no 
notice  of  the  action  whatever,  though  it  seems  like  a  violation  of 
the  dignity  of  his  tribunal ;  and  it  may  therefore  be  reasonably 
concluded  that  he  was  very  much  provoked  against  the  Jews,  and 
was  disposed  to  sympathize  with  Paul ;  otherwise  he  would  have 
been  apt  to  have  punished  the  outrage  of  the  Greeks  upon  Sos- 
thenes. 

"  The  name  of  this  proconsul  was  Marcus  Annaeus  Novatus,  but  bein^  adopted  by 
Lucius  Junius  Gallio,  he  took  the  name  of  his  adopted  father ;  he  was  brother  to  the 
famous  Seneca,  tutor  to  Nero.  That  philosopher  dedicated  to  Gallio  his  book,  '  De 
Vita  Beata.'  The  Roman  historians  concur  in  giving  him  the  character  of  a  sweet 
disposition,  an  enemy  to  all  vice,  and  particularly  a  hater  of  flattery.  He  was  twice 
made  proconsul  of  Achaia,  first  by  Claudius,  and  afterwards  by  Nero.  As  he  was 
the  sharer  of  his  brother's  prosperity,  so  he  was  of  his  misfortunes,  when  he  fell  under 
Nero's  displeasure,  and  was  at  length  put  to  death  by  the  tyrant,  as  well  as  his  brother  " 
(Calmet's  Comment.    Poole's  Annot.    Williams  on  Pearson.) 


PAUL.  565 

"  In  Acts  xviii.  12—16,  we  find  Paul  is  brought  before  Gallio  by  the  Jews,  but  this 

?roconsul  refused  to  judge  any  such  matters,  as  not  coming  within  his  jurisdiction. 
:'he  character  for  justice,  impartiality,  prudence,  and  mildness  of  disposition,  which 
this  passage  gives  to  Gallio,  is  confirmed  by  Seneca,  his  brother,  in  these  words : — 
Solebam  tibi  dicere,  Gallionem  fratrem  meura  (quern  nemo  non  parum  amat,  etiam 
qui  amare  plus  non  potest)  alia  vitia  non  nosse,  hoc  etiam,  (i.  e.  adulationem,)  odisse. 
Nemo  enim  mortalium  uni  lam  dulcis  est,  quam  hie  omnibus.  Hoc  quoque  loco 
blanditiis  tuis  restitit,  ut  exclamares  invenisse  te  inexpugnabilem  virum  adversus  in 
sidias,  quas  nemo  non  in  sinum  recipit.  (L.  Ann.  Seneca,  Natural.  Q.uaest.  lib.  iv. 
in  praef.  op.  torn.  iv.  p.  2G7,  edit.  Bipont.)  In  our  translation  Gallio  is  styled  the 
deputy,  but  the  real  Greek  word  is  Ai-yuTrarfuojTo?,  proconsul.  The  accuracy  of  Luke 
in  this  instance  is  very  remarkable.  In  the  partition  of  the  provinces  of  the  Roman 
empire,  Macedonia  and  Achaia  were  assigned  to  the  people  and  Senate  of  Rome. 
In  the  reign  of  Tiberius  they  were,  at  their  own  request,  made  over  to  the  emperor. 
In  the  reign  of  Claudius,  (A.  U.  C.  797,  A.  D.  44.)  they  were  again  restored  to  the 
Senate,  after  which  time  proconsuls  were  sent  into  this  country.  Nero  afterwards 
made  the  Achaians  a  free  people.  The  Senate  therefore  lest  this  province  again. 
However,  that  they  might  not  be  sufferers,  the  emperor  gave  them  the  island  of  Sar- 
dinia, in  the  room  of  it.  Vespasian  made  Achaia  a  province  again.  There  is  like- 
wise a  peculiar  propriety  in  the  name  of  the  province  of  which  Gallio  was  proconsul. 
The  country  subject  to  him  was  all  Greece ;  but  the  proper  name  of  the  province 
among  the  Romans  was  Achaia,  as  appears  from  various  passages  of  the  Roman  his- 
torians, and  especially  from  the  te.«:timony  of  Pausanias."  (Pausanias  Descript.  lib. 
vii.  p.  563.     Lardner's  Works,  4to.  vol.  I.  p.  19.     Williams.) 

"  The  words  Ta\yiMvoi  Je  dvOvTrarcvovroi  ought  to  be  rendered,  with  Heumann, 
Walch,  Antiqq.  Corinth,  p.  35,  and  Reichard,  (as  indeed  is  required  by  the  context,) 
'  when  Gallio  had  been  made  proconsul,'  or  '  on  Gallio's  entering  on  the  proconsul- 
ship.'  (Kuin.)  In  the  same  sense  it  was  also  taken  by  Beza  and  Piscator  ;  and  this 
appears  to  be  the  true  one.  The  Jews,  it  seems,  waited  lor  the  arrival  of  a  new  pro- 
consul to  make  their  request,  as  thinking  that  they  should  then  be  less  likely  to  meet 
with  a  refusal."    (Bloomfield's  Annot.  vol.  IV.  p.  600.) 

"  '  Then  all  the  Greeks  took  Sosthenes,  the  chief  ruler  of  the  sjjnagogue,^  v.  17.  In  the 
8th  verse  we  read  that  Crispus  was  the  chief  ruler  of  the  synagogue  in  Corinth.  And 
from  this  we  may  suppose  that  there  were  more  than  one  synagogue  in  that  city,  or 
that  there  migh.t  be  more  than  one  ruler  in  the  same  synagogue ;  or  that  Crispus, 
after  his  conversion  to  Christianity,  might  have  been  succeeded  by  Sosthenes ;  but 
then  we  are  at  a  loss  to  know  who  the  people  are  that  thus  beat  and  misused  him  ; 
the  Greek  printed  copies  tell  us  that  they  were  the  Gentiles;  and  those  that  read  the 
text  imagine,  that  when  they  perceived  the  neglect  and  disregard  wherewith  the  pro- 
consul received  the  Jews,  they,  to  insult  them  more,  fell  upon  the  ruler  of  their  syna- 
gogue, whether  out  of  haired  to  them,  or  friendship  to  St.  Paul,  it  makes  no  matter. 
But  others  think,  that  Sosthenes,  however  head  of  the  synagogue,  was  nevertheless 
the  friend  of  St.  Paul,  and  that  the  other  Jews,  seeing  themselves  slighted  by  Gallio, 
might  vent  their  malice  upon  him ;  for  they  suppose  that  this  was  the  same  Sosthenes, 
whose  name  St.  Paul,  in  the  beginning  of  his  first  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  written 
about  three  years  after  this  lime,  joins  with  his  own.  This  opinion,  however,  was 
not  universally  received,  since,  in  the  time  of  Eusebius,  it  was  thought  the  Sosthenes 
mentioned  in  the  epistle  was  one  of  ihe  seventy  disciples,  and,  consequently,  could  not 
be  the  chief  of  the  synagogue  at  Corinth,  twenty  years  after  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ." 
(Beausobre's  Annot.     Calmet's  Comment,  and  Diet.     Williams.) 

"  xviii.  17.  £r7iX.i/3o>£i/o(  6i  Travra  o[  "EAArjwf.  There  is  here  some  variation  of  read- 
ing, and  no  little  question  raised  as  to  the  true  one;  which  consequently  leaves  the 
interpretation  unsettled.  Two  ancient  MSS.  and  versions  omit »[  'EWnvci,  {the  Greeks,) 
and  others  read  o!  'InviaU,,  {the  Jews.)  As  to  the  latter  reading,  it  cannot  be  tolerated; 
for  why  should  the  Jews  have  beaten  him  1  Neither  is  it  likely  that  they  would  have 
taken  such  a  liberty  before  so  solemn  a  tribunal.  The  words  oi  'ED^nvts  are  thought 
by  many  critics,  as  Grotius,  Mill,  Pierce,  Bengel,  and  Kuinoel,  to  be  derived  from 
the  margin,  like  the  last.  Now  those  were  Gentiles  (say  they)  who  beat  Sosthenes ; 
and  hence  some  one  wrote  oi  "EXXr/^ts.  As  to  the  reason  for  the  beating,  it  was  to 
make  the  Jews  go  away  the  faster ;  and  to  this  they  were  actuated  partly  by  their 
hatred  towards  the  Jews,  and  partly  by  a  desire  to  please  the  procurator.  But  this 
appears  to  be  pressing  too  much  on  the  word  dirfiXaacv,  which  has  by  no  means  any 
such  meaning.  Besides,  it  is  strange  that  the  word  'ExXijvts  should  have  crept  into 
nearly  all  the  MSS. ;  even  into  so  many  early  ones.    And,  supposing  'E\Mm  to  be 


566  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

removed,  what  sense  is  to  be  given  to  iravTCi  1  None  (I  think)  satisfactory,  or  a?reea« 
able  lo  the  ityle  of  the  New  Testament.  It  must  therefore  be  retained ;  and  then 
the  sense  of  Trai/rcj  will  be  as  follows  :  '  all  the  Greeks,  both  Gentiles  and  Christians:' 
which  is  so  evident,  that  I  am  surprised  the  commentators  should  not  have  seen  it. 
Some  explain  it  of  the  Gentiles,  and  others  of  the  Gentile  Christians.  Both  indeed 
had  reason  to  take  umbrage  at  the  intolerance  and  bitter  animosity  of  the  Jews.  It 
is  not  likely  that  any  shuuld  have  joined  in  the  beating  merely  to  please  the  procon- 
sul, who  was  not  a  man  to  be  gratified  by  such  a  procedure.  So  that  the  gnomes 
brought  forward  by  Grotius  on  the  base  assentatio  of  courtiers,  are  not  here  ap- 
plicable. 

"  By  cTVTTTov  is  merely  to  be  understood  beating,  or  t/iumping  him  with  their  fists,  as 
he  passed  along.  Any  thing  more  than  that,  we  cannot  suppose  they  would  have  ven- 
tured upon,  or  the  proconsul  have  tolerated. 

"By  rui'irwr,  {thcsc  thiiigs,)  ver.  17,  we  may,  I  think,  understand  both  the  accusation 
brought  forward,  and  the  cuffs  which  followed;  to  neither  of  which  the  proconsul 
paid  much  attention;  and  this  from  disgust  at  the  liiigious  conduct  of  the  Jews;  as 
also  from  the  custom,  mentioned  by  Pricaeus,  of  the  Roman  governors,  to  pass  by 
any  conduct  which  did  not  directly  tend  lo  degrade  the  dignity  of  the  Roman  name, 
or  weaken  its  influence,  in  order  that  the  yoke  might  be  as  easy  as  possible  to  the  pro- 
vincials."   (Bloomiield's  Annot.  vol.  IV.  pp.  603 — 605.) 

SECOND  EPISTLE  TO  THE  THESSALONIANS. 

His  character  having  been  thus  vindicated,  and  his  safety  thus  as- 
sured him  by  the  supreme  civil  authority,  Paul  resided  for  a  long 
time  in  Corinth,  steadily  pursuing  his  apostolic  work,  without  any 
direct  hindrance  or  molestation  from  the  Jews.  There  is  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  he  confined  all  his  labor  entirely  to  the  city ;  on  the 
contrary,  it  is  quite  certain,  that  the  numerous  smaller  gospel  fields 
throughout  the  adjacent  country,  must  have  attracted  his  attention, 
and  it  appears,  from  the  commencement  of  his  second  epistle  to  the 
Corinthians,  that  many  throughout  all  Achaia  had  received  the  gos- 
pel, and  had  been  numbered  among  the  saints.  Corinth,  however, 
remained  the  great  centre  of  his  operations  in  Greece,  and  from  this 
place  he  soon  after  directed  another  epistle  to  one  of  his  apostolic 
charges  in  Macedonia, — the  church  of  Thessalonica.  Since  his 
former  epistle  had  been  received  by  them,  there  had  arisen  a  new 
occasion  for  his  anxious  attention  to  their  spiritual  condition,  and  in 
his  second  letter  he  alludes  distinctly  to  the  fact  that  there  had  been 
misrepresentations  of  his  opinion,  and  seems  to  imply  that  a  letter 
had  been  forged  in  his  name,  and  presented  to  them,  as  containing  a 
new  and  more  complete  account  of  the  exact  time  of  the  expected 
coming  of  Christ,  to  which  he  had  only  vagiiely  alluded  in  the  first. 
In  the  second  chapter  of  his  second  epistle,  he  renews  his  warning 
against  these  delusions  about  the  coming  of  Christ,  alluding  to  the 
fact,  that  they  had  been  deceived  and  disturbed  by  mis-statements  on 
this  subject,  and  had  been  led  into  error,  both  by  those  who  pretended 
to  be  inspired,  and  by  those  who  attempted  to  show  by  prediction, 
that  the  coming  of  Christ  was  at  hand,  and  also  by  the  forged  epis- 
tle pretending  to  contain  Paul's  own  more  decisive  opinions  on  the 
subject.  He  exhorts  them  to  "  let  no  man  deceive  them  by  any  of 
these  means."  He  warns  them,  moreover,  against  any  that  exalt 
themselves  against  the  doctrines  which  he  had  taught  them,  and  de 


PAUL.  567 

nounces  all  false  and  presumptuous  teachers  in  very  strons^  lano'uage. 
After  various  warnings  against  these  and  all  disorderly  persons 
among  them,  he  refers  to  his  own  behavior  while  with  them,  us  an 
example  for  them  to  follow,  and  reminds  them  how  blamelessly  and 
honestly  he  behaved  himself  He  did  not  presume  on  his  apostolic 
office,  to  be  an  idler,  or  to  eat  any  man's  bread  for  naught,  but  stead- 
ily worked  with  his  own  hands,  lest  he  should  be  chargeable  to  any 
one  of  them;  and  this  he  did,  not  because  his  apostolic  office  did  not 
empower  him  to  live  without  manual  labor,  and  to  depend  on  those 
to  whom  he  preached  for  his  means  of  subsistence,  but  because  he 
wished  to  make  himself,  and  his  fellow-laborers,  Silas  and  Timothy, 
examples  for  their  behavior  after  he  was  gone.  Yet  it  seemed  that, 
notwithstanding  the  pains  he  had  taken  to  inculcate  an  honest  and 
industrious  course,  several  persons  among  them  had  assumed  the 
office  of  teaching  and  reproving,  and  had  considered  thenjselves 
thereby  excused  from  doing  any  thing  for  their  own  support.  In  the 
conclusion,  he  refers  them  distinctly  to  his  own  signature  and  saluta- 
tion, which  authenticate  every  epistle  which  he  writes,  and  without 
which,  no  letter  was  to  be  esteemed  genuine.  This  he  specilies,  no 
doubt,  for  the  sake  of  putting  them  on  their  guard  against  the  repe- 
tition of  any  such  deception  as  had  been  lately  practised  on  them  in 
his  name. 

HIS  VOYAGE  BACK  TO  THE  EAST. 

Soon  after  Paul  had  written  his  second  epistle  to  the  Thessa- 
lonians,  he  left  Corinth,  in  the  spring  of  A.  D.  56,  as  it  is  com- 
monly calculated,  and  after  bidding  the  brethren  farewell,  journeyed 
back  to  Asia,  from  whose  shores  he  had  now  been  absent  not  less 
than  three  years.  On  his  return  journey,  he  was  accompanied  by 
his  two  acquaintances  and  fellow-laborers,  Aquilas  and  Priscilla, 
who  were  now  his  most  intimate  friends,  and  lienceforth  were 
always  esteemed  among  the  important  aids  of  the  apostolic  enter- 
prise. Journeying  eastward  across  the  isthmus,  they  came  to 
Cenchreae,  the  eastern  port  of  Corinth,  and  at  the  head  of  the 
great  Seronic  gulf,  about  seven  miles  from  the  city  itself  At  this 
place  Paul  discharged  himself  of  the  obligation  of  a  vow  which  he 
had  made  some  time  before,  in  conformity  with  a  common  .Jewish 
custom  of  thus  giving  force  to  their  own  sense  of  gratitude  for 
the  accomplishment  of  any  desired  object.  He  had  vowed  to  let 
his  hair  grow  until  some  unknown  end  was  attained,  and  now, 
having  seen  the  prayers  which  sanctioned  that  vow  granted,  he 
cut  off  his  hair  in  token  of  the  joyful  completion  of  the  enterprise 
on  which  he  had  thus  solemnly  and  formally  invoked  the  blessing 
of  heaven.     The  actual  purpose  of  this  vow  is  not  recorded, — but 


568  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

when  the  occasion  on  which  he  thus  exonerated  himself  is  con- 
sidered, it  seems  most  reasonable  to  suppose  that  now,  embarking 
from  the  shores  of  Europe,  after  he  had  there  passed  so  many 
years  of  very  peculiar  labor  and  trials,  he  was  thus  celebrating 
the  prosperous  and  happy  achievment  of  his  first  great  western 
mission,  and  that  this  vow  had  been  made  for  his  safe  return, 
when  he  first  sailed  from  the  eastern  coast  of  the  Aegean,  at  Alex- 
andria Troas. 

FIRST  RESIDENCE  IN  EPHESUS. 

He  sailed  from  Cenchreae  to  Ephesus,  a  great  city  of  Ionic 
Asia,  which  had  never  been  the  scene  of  his  apostolic  labors, 
though  he  had  traversed  much  of  the  country  around  it ;  for  it 
will  be  remembered,  that  on  his  last  journey  through  Asia  Minor, 
when  he  had  passed  over  Galatia  and  Phrygia,  he  was  about  to 
enter  Asia  Proper,  but  was  hindered  by  a  special  impulse  of  the 
Spirit,  which  sent  him  in  a  diiFerent  direction.  But  having  thus 
achieved  his  great  western  enterprise,  there  was  now  no  longer 
any  more  important  commission  to  prevent  him  from  gratifying 
his  eyes  with  a  sight  of  this  very  interesting  region,  and  making 
here  an  experimental  effort  to  diffuse  the  knowledge  of  the  gospel 
through  the  numerous,  wealthy,  refined,  and  populous  cities  of 
this,  the  most  flourishing  and  civilized  country  in  the  world.  He 
did  not  intend,  however,  to  make  any  thing  more  than  a  mere  call 
at  Ephesus ;  for  the  great  object  of  his  voyage  from  Europe  was 
to  return  to  Jerusalem  and  Syria,  and  give  to  his  brethren  a  full 
statement  of  all  the  interesting  particulars  of  his  long  and  remark- 
able mission  in  Macedonia  and  Greece.  But  he  took  occasion  to 
vary  this  eastern  route,  so  as  to  effect  as  much  good  as  possible  by 
the  way ;  and  therefore  embarked  first  for  Ephesus,  where  he 
landed  with  Aquilas  and  Priscilla,  whom  he  left  there,  while  he 
continued  on  his  journey,  southeastward.  He  stopped  with  them, 
however,  a  few  days,  with  a  view  to  open  this  new  field  of  labor 
with  them;  and  going  into  the  synagogue,  discoursed  with  the 
Jews.  He  was  so  well  received  by  his  hearers,  that  he  was  ear- 
nestly besought  to  prolong  his  stay  among  them ;  but  he  excused 
himself  for  his  refusal  of  their  kind  invitation,  by  stating  the  great 
object  which  he  had  in  view  in  leaving  Europe  at  that  particular 
time : — "  I  must  by  all  means  keep  this  coming  feast  at  Jerusalem; 
but  I  will  return  to  you, — God  willing." 


PAUL.  569 

VISIT  TO  JERUSALEM  AND  SYRIA. 

Bidding  the  Ephesians  farewell,  he  sailed  away  from  Ephesus 
to  Caesarea,  on  the  coast  of  Palestine,  where  he  landed.  Thence 
he  went  up  to  Jerusalem,  to  salute  the  church.  In  this  part  of  the 
history  of  Paul,  Luke  seems  to  be  exceedingly  brief;  perhaps  be- 
cause he  was  not  then  with  him,  and  had  never  received  from  him 
any  account  of  this  journey.  There  is  therefore  no  way  of  ascer- 
taining what  was  the  particular  motive  or  design  of  this  visit.  It 
would  appear,  however,  from  the  very  hurried  manner  in  which 
the  visit  was  noticed,  that  it  was  exceedingly  brief,  and  his  depart- 
ure thence  may,  as  Calvin  conjectures,  have  been  hastened  by  the 
circumstance,  that  possibly  the  business  on  which  he  went  thither 
did  not  succeed  according  to  his  wishes.  At  any  rate,  there  seems 
to  have  been  something  very  mysterious  about  the  whole  matter, 
else  there  would  not  have  been  this  very  studied  concealment  of 
the  motives  and  details  of  a  journey  which  he  announced  to  the 
brethren  of  the  church  at  Ephesus  as  absolutely  necessary  for 
him  to  perform.  This  also  may  have  been  concealed  for  the  same 
reason  which  has  been  conjectured  to  have  caused  the  visit  to 
be  so  short,  as  would  seem  from  the  manner  in  which  it  is  noticed. 
From  Jerusalem  he  went  down  to  Antioch,  by  what  route  is  not 
specified, — but  probably  by  way  of  Caesarea  and  the  sea. 

"  xviii.  22.  Caesarea.  A  town  on  the  sea-coast.  [See  the  note  on  p.  192.]  'AvaPas, 
'and  having  gone  up.'  Whither  1  Some  commentators,  as  Camerar.,  De  Dieu, 
"Wolf,  Calov.,  Heumann,  Doddridge,  Thaleman,  Beck,  and  Kuinoel,  refer  it  to  Caesa- 
rea. But  this  requires  the  confirmation  of  examples.  And  vre  must  take  for  granted 
that  the  city  was  built  high  above  the  port,  (which  is  not  likel}',)  or  that  the  church 
■was  so  situated;  which  would  be  extremely  frigid.  Neither  is  it  certain  that  there 
was  a  church.  Besides,  how  can  the  expression  KaraiUinu  be  proper,  as  used  of  tra- 
veling from  a  sea-port  town,  like  Caesarea,  to  Antioch  1  I  therefore  prefer  the  mode 
of  interpretation  adopted  by  some  ancient  and  many  modern  commentators,  as  Beza, 
Grotius,  Mor.,  Rosenmiiller,  Reichard,  Schott,  Heinrichs,  and  others,  who  supply 
fis'hpncoXvua.  This  may  indeed  seem  somewhat  harsh;  yet  it  must  be  remembered, 
that  not  a  few  things  are  so  in  the  New  Testament ;  and  dia/Joi'va)  is  there  often  used 
absolutely  of  going  up  to  Jerusalem,  and  xara/JaiVcj  of  going  from  thence.  Nor  is 
this  unexampled  in  the  classical  writers.  Xenophon  uses  the  word  in  the  very  same 
sense,  of  those  going  from  Greece  to  the  capital  of  Persia.  See  Anab.  1,  1,  2.  Hist. 
2,  1.  9,  10.  An.  1,  4,  12.  Hist.  4,  1,  2.  1,  5,  1.  1,  4,  2,  and  many  other  passages  re- 
ferred to  by  Sturz  in  his  Lex.  Xenoph.  in  voce.  Besides,  as  the  words  ci?  'IcfjosdAi-fia 
have  just  preceded,  it  is  not  very  harsh  to  repeat  them.  Kuinoel,  indeed,  and  some 
others,  treat  those  words  as  not  genuine ;  but  their  opinion  rests  on  mere  suspicion, 
unsupported  by  any  proof."    (Bloom.  Annot.  Vol.  IV.  p.  607.) 

JOURNEY  IN  ASIA  AND  RESIDENCE  IN  EPHESUS. 

From  the  very  brief  and  general  manner  in  which  the  incidents 
of  this  visit  of  Paul  to  the  eastern  continent  are  commemorated, 
the  apostolic  historian  is  left  to  gather  nothing  but  the  most  naked 


570  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

circumstances  of  the  route  pursued ;  and  from  the  results,  it  is  but 
fair  to  conclude  that  nothing  of  consequence  happened  to  the 
apostle,  as  his  duties  consisted  merely  in  a  review  and  completion 
of  the  work  he  had  gone  over  before.  Luke  evidently  did  not 
accompany  Paul  in  this  Asian  journey,  and  he  therefore  only  states 
the  general  direction  of  the  apostle's  course,  without  a  single  par- 
ticular. He  says  that  Paul,  after  making  some  stay  in  Antioch, — 
where,  no  doubt,  he  greatly  comforted  the  hearts  of  the  brethren, 
by  the  glad  tidings  of  the  triumphs  of  Christ  in  Europe, — went 
in  regular  order  over  the  regions  of  Galatia  and  Phrygia,  every- 
where confirming  the  disciples.  Beyond  this,  no  incident  what- 
ever is  preserved  ;  yet  here  great  amplification  of  the  sacred  record 
might  be  made,  from  the  amusing  narrative  of  that  venerable 
monkish  story-teller,  who  assumes  the  name  of  Abdias  Babylonius. 
But  from  the  specimens  of  his  narrative  already  given,  in  the  lives 
of  Andrew  and  John,  the  reader  will  easily  apprehend  that  they 
contain  nothing  which  deserves  to  be  intruded  into  the  midst  of 
the  honest,  authentic  statements,  of  the  original  and  genuine  apos- 
tolic history ;  and  all  these,  with  many  other  similar  inventions, 
are  wholly  dismissed  from  the  life  of  Paul,  of  whose  actions  such 
ample  records  have  been  left  in  the  writings  of  himself  and  his 
companions,  that  it  is  altogether  more  necessary  for  the  biographer 
to  condense  into  a  modernized  form,  with  proper  illustrations,  the 
materials  presented  on  the  authority  of  inspiration,  than  to  prolong 
the  narrative  with  tedious  inventions. 

SECOND  RESIDENCE  IN  EPHESUS. 

In  this  part  of  the  apostolic  history,  all  that  Luke  records  is, 
that  Paul,  after  the  before-mentioned  survey  of  the  inland  coun- 
tries of  Asia  Minor,  came  doAvn  to  the  western  shore,  and  visited 
Ephesus,  according  to  the  promise  which  he  had  made  them  at 
his  farewell,  a  few  months  before.  Since  that  hasty  visit  made  in 
passing,  some  events  important,  to  the  gospel  cause  had  happened 
among  them.  An  Alexandrine  Jew  named  Apollos,  a  man  of 
great  Biblical  learning,  (as  many  of  the  Jews  of  his  native  city 
were,)  and  indued  also  with  eloquence, — came  to  Ephesus,  and 
there  soon  distinguished  himself  as  a  religious  teacher.  Of  the 
doctrines  of  Jesus  Christ  and  his  apostles,  indeed,  he  had  never 
heard ;  but  he  had  somewhere  been  made  acquainted  with  the  pe- 
culiar reforming  principles  of  his  great  forerunner,  John  the  Bap- 
tist, and  had  been  baptized,  probably  by  some  one  of  his  disciples. 


PAUL.  571 

With  great  fervor  and  power,  he  discoursed  learnedly  of  the  things 
of  the  Lord,  in  the  synagogue  at  Ephesus,  and,  of  course,  was 
brought  under  the  notice  of  Aquilas  and  Priscilla,  whom  Paul  had 
left  to  occupy  that  important  field,  while  he  was  mciking  his  south- 
eastern tour.  They  took  pains  to  draw  ApoUos  into  their  acquaint- 
ance, and  found  him,  like  every  truly  learned  man,  very  ready  to 
learn,  even  from  those  who  were  his  inferiors  in  most  depart- 
ments of  sacred  knowledge.  From  them  he  heard  with  great  in- 
terest and  satisfaction,  the  peculiar  and  striking  truths  revealed  in 
Jesus,  and  at  once  professing  his  faith  in  this  new  revelation,  went 
forth  again  among  the  Jews,  replenished  with  a  higher  learning 
and  a  diviner  spirit.  After  teaching  for  some  time  in  Ephesus,  he 
was  disposed  to  try  his  new  powers  in  some  other  field ;  and  pro- 
posing to  journey  into  Achaia,  his  two  Christian  friends  gave  him 
letters  of  introduction  and  recommendation  to  the  brethren  of  the 
church  in  Corinth.  While  he  was  there  laboring  with  great  effi- 
ciency in  the  gospel  cause,  Paul,  returning  from  his  great  apostolic 
survey  of  the  inland  and  upper  regions  of  Asia  Minor,  came  to 
Ephesus.  Entering  on  this  work  of  perfecting  and  uniting  the 
results  of  the  various  irregular  efforts  made  by  the  different  per- 
sons who  had  before  labored  there,  he  found,  among  those  who 
professed  to  hold  the  doctrines  of  a  new  revelation,  about  a  dozen 
men,  who  knew  very  little  of  the  great  doctrines  which  Paul  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  preaching.  One  of  his  first  questions  to  them, 
of  course,  was  whether  they  had  yet  received  that  usual  con- 
vincing sign  of  the  Christian  faith, — the  Holy  Spirit.  To  which 
they  answered  in  some  surprise,  that  they  had  not  yet  heard  that 
there  was  any  Holy  Spirit ; — thus  evidently  showing  that  they 
knew  nothing  about  any  such  sign  or  its  effects.  Paul,  in  his  turn 
considerably  surprised  at  this  remarkable  ignorance  of  a  matter  of 
such  high  importance,  was  naturally  led  to  ask  what  kind  of  in- 
itiation they  had  received  into  the  new  dispensation  ;  and  learning 
from  them,  that  they  had  only  been  baptized  according  to  the  bap- 
tism of  John, — instantly  assured  them  of  the  incompleteness  of 
that  revelation  of  the  truth.  "  John  truly  baptized  with  the  bap- 
tism of  repentance,  telling  the  people  that  they  must  believe  on 
him  that  should  come  after  him, — that  is,  on  Christ  Jesus."  Hear- 
ing this,  they  consented  to  receive  from  the  apostle  of  Jesus  the 
renewal  of  the  sign  of  faith,  which  they  had  formerly  known  as 
the  token  of  that  partial  revelation  made  by  John  ;  and  they  were 
therefore  baptized  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus, — a  form  of 


BT2  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

words  which  of  course  had  never  been  pronounced  over  them  be- 
fore. Paul,  then  laying  his  hands  on  them,  invoked  the  influence 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  was  then  immediately  manifested,  by  the 
usual  miraculous  gifts  which  accompanied  its  effusion. 

"xviii.  24.  Apollos.  A  name  contracted  from  Apollonius,  (which  is  read  in  the 
Cod.  Cant.)  as  Epaphras  from  Epaphroditus,  and  Arlemus  from  Artemonius.  Of 
this  Apollonias,  mention  is  also  made  in  1  Cor.  i.  12,  iii.  5  seq.  where  Paul  speaks  of 
the  labor  he  underwent  in  the  instruction  of  the  Corinthians.  (1  Cor.  iv.  G,  xvi.  12.) 
revci,  by  birth.,  i.e.  country;  as  in  xviii.  2.  The  Jewsof  Alexandria  were  eminent  for 
Biblical  knowledge.  That  most  celebrated  city  of  Egypt  abounded  with  men  of 
learning,  both  Jews  and  Gentiles."   Kuin.    (Bloomfiejd's  Annot.  Vol  IV.  p.  608.) 

"  The  Baptism,  of  John  is  put,  by  synecdoche,  for  the  whole  of  JohiVs  ordinances. 
See  the  note  on  Matt.  xxi.  25.  (Kuin.)  It  is  generally  supposed  that  he  had  been 
baptized  by  John  himself:  but  this  must  have  been  twenty  years  before;  and  it  is  not 

firobable  that  during  that  time,  he  should  have  acquired  no  knowledge  of  Christianity, 
t  should  rather  seem  that  he  had  been  baptized  by  one  of  John's  disciples;  and  per- 
haps not  very  long  before  the  time  here  spoken  of."  (Bloomfield's  Annot.  Vol.  IV. 
p.  610.) 

"  With  respect  to  the  letters  here  mentioned,  they  were  written  for  the  purpose  of 
encouraging  Apollos,  and  recommending  him  to  the  brethren.  This  ancient  eccle- 
siastical custom  of  writing  letters  of  recommendation,  (which  seems  to  have  origi- 
nated in  the  necessary  caution  to  be  observed  in  times  of  persecution,  and  arose  out 
of  the  interrupted  and  tardy  intercourse  which,  owing  to  their  great  distance  from 
each  other,  subsisted  between  the  Christians,)  has  been  well  illustrated  by  a  tract  of 
Ferrarius  de  Epistolis  Ecclesiasticis,  referred  to  by  Wolf"  (Bloomfield,  Vol.  IV. 
p.  611.) 

"  Ephesus  was  the  metropolis  of  proconsular  Asia.  It  was  situated  at  the  moutli  of 
the  river  Cayster,  on  the  shore  of  the  Aegean  sea,  in  that  part  anciently  called  Ionia, 
(but  now  Natolir,)  and  was  particularly  celebrated  for  the  temple  of  Diana,  which 
had  been  erected  at  the  common  expense  of  the  inhabitants  of  Asia  Proper,  and  was 
reputed  one  of  the  seven  wonders  of  the  world.  In  the  time  of  Paul,  this  city 
abounded  with  orators  and  philosophers ;  and  its  inhabitants,  in  their  gentile  state, 
■were  celebrated  for  their  idolatry  and  skill  in  magic,  as  well  as  for  their  luxury  and 
lascivionsness.  Ephesus  is  now  under  the  dominion  of  the  Turks,  and  is  in  a  state 
of  almost  total  ruin,  being  reduced  to  fifteen  poor  cottages,  (not  erected  exactly  on  its 
original  site,)  and  its  once  flourishing  church  is  now  diminished  to  three  illiterate 
Greeks.  (Rev.  ii.  6.)  In  the  time  of  the  Romans,  Ephesus  was  the  metropolis  of 
Asia.  The  temple  of  Diana  is  said  to  have  been  four  hundred  and  twenty-five  feet 
long,  two  hundred  and  twenty  broad,  and  to  have  been  supported  by  one  hundred  and 
twenty-seven  pillars  of  marble,  seventy  feet  high,  whereof  twenty-seven  were  most 
beautifully  wrought,  and  all  the  rest  polished.  One  Ctesiphon,  a  famous  architect, 
planned  it,  and  with  so  much  art  and  curiosity,  that  it  took  two  hundred  years  to 
finish  it.  It  was  set  on  fire  seven  times ;  once  on  the  very  same  day  that  Socrates  was 
poisoned,  four  hundred  years  before  Christ."  (Homes  Introd.  Whitby's  Table. 
Well's  Geog.    Williams  on  Pearson.) 

After  this  successful  effort  to  confirm  and  complete  the  conver- 
sions already  effected,  Paul  went  about  his  apostolic  labors  in  the 
usual  way, — going  into  the  synagogue,  and  speaking  boldly,  dis- 
puting the  antiquated  sophistry  of  the  Jews,  and  urging  upon  all, 
the  doctrines  of  the  new  revelation.  In  this  department  of  labor, 
he  continued  for  the  space  of  three  months  ;  but  at  the  end  of  that 
time,  he  found  that  many  obstacles  were  thrown  in  the  way  of  the 
truth  by  the  stubborn  adherents  of  the  established  forms  of  old 
Judaism,  who  would  not  allow  that  the  lowly  Jesus  was  the  Mes- 
siah for  whom  their  nation  had  so  long  looked  as  the  restorer  of 


PAUL  573 

Israel.  Leaving  the  hardened  £ind  obstinate  Jews,  he  therefore, 
according  to  his  old  custom  in  such  cases  of  the  rejection  of  the 
gospel  by  them,  withdrew  from  their  society,  and  thenceforth  went 
with  those  who  had  believed  among  the  more  candid  Greeks,  who, 
with  a  truly  enlightened  and  philosophical  spirit,  held  their  minds 
open  to  the  reception  of  new  truths,  even  though  they  mio-ht  not 
happen  to  accord  with  those  which  were  sanctioned  to  them  by 
the  prejudices  of  education.  After  leaving  the  synagogue,  his  new 
place  of  preaching  and  religious  instruction  was  the  school  or  lec- 
ture-room of  one  Tyrannus, — doubtless  one  of  those  philosophical 
institutions  with  which  every  Grecian  city  abounded.  This  con- 
tinued his  field  of  exertion  lor  two  years,  during  which  his  fame 
became  very  widely  established, — all  the  inhabitants  of  Ionic  and 
Aeolic  Asia  having  heard  of  the  word  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  both  Jews 
and  Greeks.  Among  the  causes  and  effects  of  this  general  noto- 
riety, was  the  circumstance,  that  many  miraculous  cures  were 
wrought  by  the  hands  of  Paul ;  and  many  began  even  to  attach  a 
divine  regard  to  his  person ;  handkerchiefs  being  brought  to  the 
sick  from  his  body,  which,  on  application  to  those  afflicted,  either 
with  bodily  or  mental  diseases,  produced  a  perfect  cure.  This 
matter  becoming  generally  known  and  talked  of  throughout  Ephe- 
siis,  became  the  occasion  of  a  ludicrous  accident,  which  occurred 
to  some  persons  who  entertained  the  mistaken  notion  that  this  fa- 
culty of  curing  diseases  was  transferable,  and  might  be  exercised 
by  anybody  that  had  enterprise  enough  to  take  the  business  in 
hand,  and  say  over  the  form  of  words  that  seemed  to  be  so  effica- 
cious in  the  mouth  of  Paul.  A  set  of  conjurers  of  Jewish  origin, 
the  seven  sons  of  Sceva,  who  went  about  professedly  following  the 
trade  of  casting  out  devils,  straightway  caught  up  this  new  im- 
provement on  their  old  tricks,  (for  so  they  esteemed  the  divinely 
miraculous  power  of  the  apostle,)  and  soon  found  an  opportunity 
to  experiment  with  this,  which  they  considered  a  valuable  addition 
to  their  old  stock  of  impositions.  So,  calling  over  the  miserable 
possessed  subject  of  their  foolish  experiment,  they  said — "  We  ex- 
orcise you  by  Jesus,  whom  Paul  preaches."  But  the  demon  was 
not  slow  to  perceive  the  difference  between  this  second-hand,  pla- 
giaristic  mode  of  operation,  and  the  commanding  tone  of  divine 
authority  with  which  the  demoniacal  possessions  were  treated  by 
the  apostle  of  Jesus.  He  therefore  quite  turned  their  borrowed 
mummery  into  a  jest,  and  cried  out  through  the  mouth  of  the  pos- 
sessed man — "  Jesus  I  know,  and  Paul  I  know : — but  who  are  ye  ?" 


574  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

Under  the  impulse  of  the  frohesome,  mischievous  spirit,  the  man 
upon  whom  tliey  were  playing  their  conjuring  tricks,  jumped  up 
at  once,  and  fell  upon  these  rash  doctors  with  all  his  might,  and 
with  all  the  energy  of  a  truly  crazy  demoniac,  beat  the  whole 
seven,  tore  their  clothes  off  from  them,  and  threshed  them  to  such 
effect,  that  they  were  glad  to  stop  their  mummery,  and  make  oflf 
as  fast  as  possible,  but  did  not  escape  till  they  were  naked  and 
wounded.  The  affair,  of  course,  was  soon  very  generally  talked 
of,  and  the  story  made  an  impression,  on  the  whole,  decidedly  fa- 
vorable to  the  true  source  of  that  miraculous  agency,  which,  when 
foolishly  tampered  with,  had  produced  such  appalling  results. 
Many,  among  both  Jews  and  Greeks,  were  thereby  led  to  repent- 
ance and  faith,  and  more  particularly  those  who  had  been  in  the 
way  of  practising  these  arts  of  imposition.  A  very  general  alarm 
prevailed  among  all  the  conjurers,  and  many  came  and  confessed 
the  mean  tricks  by  which  they  had  hitherto  maintained  their  repu- 
tation as  controllers  of  the  powers  of  the  invisible  world.  Many 
who  had  also,  at  great  expense  of  time  and  money,  acquired  the 
arts  of  imposition,  brought  the  costly  books  in  which  were  con- 
tained all  the  mysterious  details  of  their  magical  mummery,  and 
burned  them  publicly,  without  regard  to  their  immense  estimated 
pecuniary  value,  which  was  not  less  than  nine  thousand  dollars. 
In  short,  the  results  of  this  apparently  trifling  occurrence,  followed 
up  by  the  zealous  preaching  of  Paul,  effected  a  vast  amount  of 
good,  so  that  the  word  of  God  mightily  grew  and  prevailed. 

"  In  Acts  XX.  31,  the  apostle  says,  that  for  the  space  of  three  years  he  preached  at 
Ephesus.  Grotius  and  Whitby  hold  that  these  three  years  are  to  be  reckoned  from 
his  first  coming  to  Ephesus,  xviii.  19;  that  he  does  not  specify  being  in  any  other 
city;  and  that  when  it  is  said  here,  '  So  that  all  Asia  heard  the  word,'  xix.  40,  it  arose 
from  the  concourse  that,  on  a  religious  account,  continually  assembled  in  that  city. 
The  Jews  also,  from  different  parts  of  Asia,  were  induced  by  commerce,  or  obliged 
by  the  courts  of  judicature,  to  frequent  it.  Other  commentators  contend  that,  as  only 
two  years,  with  three  months  in  the  synagogue,  are  here  mentioned,  the  remaining 
three-quarters  of  a  year  were  partly  engaged  in  a  progress  through  the  neighboring 
provinces."    (Elsley,  from  Lightfoot  and  Doddridge.) 

"  While  he  was  at  Ephesus,  '  God  wrought  special  miracles  by  the  hands  of  Paul ; 
so  that  from  his  body  were  brought  unto  the  sick,  handkerchiefs,  or  aprons,  (S:c.  &c. 
Acts  xix.  V.  11,  12.  ^ifxiKivdiov,  aprons,  is  slightly  changed  from  the  Latin  semicinc- 
ULm,  which  workmen  put  before  them  when  employed  at  their  occupations,  to  keep 
their  clothes  from  soiling.  The  difference  which  Theophylact  and  Oecumenius 
make  between  these  and  anv6\oin,  is,  that  the  latter  are  applied  to  the  head,  as  a  cap  or 
veil,  and  the  former  to  the  hands,  as  a  handkerchief  '  They  carry  them,'  says  Oecu- 
menius, '  in  their  hands,  to  wipe  off  moisture  from  their  face,  as  tears,' "  &c.  &c. 
(Calmei's  Comment.) 

"  '  And  they  counted  the  price  of  them,  [the  books,]  and  found  it  to  be  fifty  thou- 
sand pieces  of  silver,'  v.  19 — apyvpi^v  is  used  generally  in  the  Old  Testament,  LXX. 
for  the  shekel,  in  value  about  2^.  &d.,  or  the  total  6250l,  as  Num.  vii.  83;  Dent.  xxii. 
19;  2  Kings  xv.  20.    Grotius.    If  it  means  the  drachma,  as  more  frequently  used  bv 


PAUL.  675 

the  Greeks  at  9d.  each,  the  sum  will  be  18151."  [S9000.]    (Doddridge.    Elsley's  An- 
not.    Williams  on  Pearson,  pp.  53—55.) 

THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  GALATIANS. 

There  is  hardly  one  of  the  writmgs  of  Paul,  about  the  date  of 
which  there  has  been  so  much  discussion,  or  so  many  opinions  as 
this ;  but  the  results  of  all  the  elaborate  investigations  and  argumen- 
tations of  the  learned,  still  leave  this  interesting  chronological  point 
in  such  doubt,  that  this  must  be  pronounced  about  the  most  uncer- 
tain in  date  of  all  the  Pauline  epistles.  It  may,  however,  without 
any  inconsistency  with  the  historical  narrative  of  the  Acts,  or  with 
any  passages  in  the  other  epistles,  be  safely  referred  to  the  period  of 
this  residence  in  Ephesus,  probably  to  the  later  part  of  it.  The  epis- 
tle itself  contains  no  reference  whatever,  direct  or  indirect,  to  the 
place  in  which  he  was  occupied  at  the  time  of  writing,  and  only  bare 
probabilities  can  therefore  be  stated  on  it, — nor  can  any  decisive  ob- 
jection be  made  to  any  one  of  six  opinions  which  have  been  strongly 
urged.  Some  pronounce  it  very  decidedly  to  have  been  the  first  of 
all  the  epistles  written  by  Paul,  and  maintain  that  he  wrote  it  soon 
after  his  first  visit  to  them,  at  some  time  during  the  interval  between 
Paul's  departure  from  Galatia,  and  his  departure  from  Thessalonica. 
Others  date  it  at  the  time  of  his  imprisonment  in  Rome,  according 
to  the  common  subscription  of  the  epistle.  Against  this  last  may, 
however,  perhaps  be  urged  his  reproof  to  the  Galatians,  that  they 
"  Avere  so  soon  removed  from  him  that  called  them  to  the  grace  of 
Christ,"— an  expression,  nevertheless,  too  vague  to  form  any  certain 
basis  for  a  chronological  conclusion.  The  great  majority  of  critics 
refer  it  to  the  period  of  his  stay  in  Ephesus, — a  view  which  entirely 
accords  with  the  idea,  that  it  must  have  been  written  soon  after  Paul 
had  preached  to  them ;  for  on  his  last  journey  to  Ephesus,  he  had 
passed  through  Galatia,  as  already  narrated,  confirming  the  churches. 
Some  time  had,  no  doubt,  intervened  since  his  preaching  to  them, 
sufficient  at  least  to  allow  many  heresies  and  difficulties  to  arise 
among  them,  and  to  pervert  them  from  the  purity  of  the  truth,  as 
taught  to  them  by  him.  Certain  false  teachers  had  been  among  them 
since  his  departure,  inculcating  on  all  believers  in  Christ,  the  abso- 
lute necessity  of  a  minute  and  rigid  observance  of  Mosaic  forms,  for 
their  salvation.  They  also  directly  attacked  the  apostolical  charac- 
ter and  authority  of  Paul, — declaring  his  opinion  to  be  of  no  weight 
whatever,  and  to  be  opposed  to  that  of  the  true  original  apostles  of 
Jesus.  These,  Paul  meets  with  great  force  in  the  very  beginning  of 
the  epistle,  entering  at  once  into  a  particular  account  of  the  mode  of 
his  first  entering  the  apostleship, — showing  that  it  was  not  derived 
from  the  other  apostles,  but  from  the  special  commission  of  Christ 
hirnself,  miraculously  given.  He  also  shows  that  he  had,  on  this 
very  question  of  Judaical  rituals,  conferred  with  the  apostles  at  Je- 
rusalem, and  had  received  the  sanction  of  their  approbation  in  that 


576  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

course  or  open  communion  which  he  had  before  followed,  on  his 
own  inspired  authority,  and  had  ever  since  maintained,  in  the  face 
of  what  he  deemed  inconsistencies  in  the  conduct  of  Peter.  He  then 
attacks  the  Galatians  themselves,  in  very  violent  terms,  for  their  per- 
version of  that  glorious  freedom  into  which  he  had  brought  the 
Christian  doctrine,  and  fills  up  the  greater  part  of  the  epistle  with 
reproofs  of  these  errors. 

His  argument  against  the  doctrines  of  the  servile  Judaizers  is  made 
up  in  his  favorite  mode  of  demonstration,  by  simile  and  metaphor, 
representing  the  Christian  system  under  the  form  of  the  offspring  of 
Abraham,  and  afterwards  images  the  freedom  of  the  true  believers  in 
Jesus,  in  the  exalted  privilege  of  the  descendents  of  Sara,  while 
those  enslaved  to  forms  are  presented  as  analogous  in  their  condition 
to  the  children  of  Hagar.  He  earnestly  exliorts  them,  therefore,  to 
stand  fast  in  the  freedom  to  which  Christ  has  exalted  them,  and 
most  emphatically  condemns  all  observance  of  circumcision.  Thus 
pointing  out  to  them  the  purely  spiritual  nature  of  that  covenant,  of 
which  they  were  now  the  favored  subjects,  he  urges  them  to  a  truly 
spiritual  course  of  life,  bidding  them  aim  at  the  attainment  of  a  per- 
fect moral  character,  and  makes  the  conclusion  of  the  epistle  emi- 
nently practical  in  its  direction.  He  speaks  of  this  epistle  as  being  a 
testimony  of  the  very  particular  interest  which  he  feels  in  their 
spiritual  prosperity,  because  (what  appears  contrary  to  his  practice) 
he  has  written  it  with  his  own  hand.  To  the  very  last,  he  is  very 
earnest  against  those  who  are  aiming  to  bring  them  back  to  the  ob- 
servance of  circumcision,  and  denounces  those  as  actuated  only  by  a 
base  desire  to  avoid  that  persecution  which  they  mis^ht  expect  from 
the  Jews,  if  they  should  reject  the  Mosaic  ritual.  Referring  to  the 
cross  of  Christ  as  his  only  glory,  he  movingly  alludes  to  the  marks 
of  his  conformity  to  that  standard,  bearing  as  he  does  in  his  own 
body,  the  scars  of  the  wounds  received  from  the  scourges  of  his 
Philippian  persecutors.  He  closes  without  any  mention  of  personal 
salutations,  and  throughout  the  whole  makes  non^  of  those  specifi- 
cations of  names,  with  which  most  of  his  other  epistles  abound.  In 
the  opening  salutation,  he  merely  includes  with  himself  those  "  bre- 
thren that  are  with  him,"  which  seems  to  imply  that  they  knew  who 
those  brethren  were,  in  some  other  way, — perhaps  because  he  had 
but  lately  been  among  them  with  those  same  persons  as  his  assistants 
in  the  ministry. 

On  this  very  doubtful  point,  I  have  taken  the  views  adopted  by  "Witsius,  Louis 
Cappel,  Pearson,  Wall,  Hug,  Hemsen,  and  Neander.  The  notion  that  it  was  writ- 
ten at  Rome  is  supported  by  Theodoret,  Lightfoot,  and  others, — of  course,  making  it 
a  late  epistle.  On  the  contrary,  Michaelis  makes  it  the  earliest  of  all,  and  dates  it 
in  the  year  49,  at  some  place  on  Paul's  route  from  Troas  lo  Thessalonica.  Marcion 
and  Tertullian  also  supposed  it  to  be  one  of  the  earliest  epistles.  Benson  thinks  it 
was  written  during  Paul's  first  residence  in  Corinth.  Lenfant  and  Beausobre,  fol- 
lowed by  Lardner,  conjecture  it  to  have  been  written  either  at  Corinth  or  at  Ephesus, 
during  his  first  visit,  either  in  A.  D.  52,  or  53.  Fabricius  and  Mill  date  it  A.  D.  58, 
at  some  place  on  Paul's  route  to  Jerusalem.    Chrysostom  and  Theophylact,  date  it 


PAUL.  577 

before  the  epistle  to  the  Romans.  Grotius  thinks  the  same.  [Feb.  1846.  Since 
writing  the  above  (Nov.  1835),  careful  study  of  this  epistle  has  led  me  to  assign  it  a 
much  earlier  date.  It  has  internal  evidence  of  having  been  written  soon  after  Paul's 
first  visit  to  Gallatia,  and  it  is  the  oldest  epistle  in  the  canon.] 

THE  EPHESIAN  MOB. 

Paul  having  now  been  a  resident  at  Ephesus  for  nearly  three 
years,  and  having  seen  such  glorious  results  of  his  labors,  soon 
began  to  think  of  revisiting  some  of  his  former  fields  of  missionary 
exertion,  more  especially  those  Grecian  cities  of  Europe  which 
had  been  such  eventful  scenes  to  him,  but  a  few  years  previous. 
He  designed  to  go  over  Macedonia  and  Achaia,  and  then  to  visit 
Jerusalem ;  and  when  communicating  these  plans  to  his  friends  at 
Ephesus,  he  remarked  to  them  in  conclusion — "  And  after  that,  I 
must  also  visit  Rome."  He  therefore  sent  before  him  into  Mace- 
donia, as  the  heralds  of  his  approach,  his  former  assistant,  Timo- 
thy, and  another  helper  not  before  mentioned,  Erastus,  who  is  after- 
wards mentioned  as  the  treasurer  of  the  city  of  Corinth.  But  Paul 
himself  still  waited  in  Asia  for  a  short  time,  until  some  other  pre- 
liminaries should  be  arransred  for  his  removal.  During-  this  inci- 
dental  delay,  arose  the  most  terrible  commotion  that  had  ever  yet 
been  excited  against  him,  and  one  which  very  nearly  cost  him 
his  life. 

It  should  be  noticed  that  the  conversion  of  so  large  a  number 
of  the  heathen,  through  the  preaching  of  Paul,  had  struck  directly 
at  the  foundation  of  a  very  thriving  business  carried  on  in  Ephe- 
sus, and  connected  with  the  continued  prevalence  and  general 
popularity  of  that  idolatrous  worship,  for  which  the  city  was  so 
famous.  Ephesus,  as  is  well  known,  was  the  chief  seat  of  the 
peculiar  worship  of  that  great  Asian  deity,  who  is  now  known, 
throughout  all  the  world,  where  the  apostohc  history  is  read,  by 
the  name  of  "  Diana  of  the  Ephesians."  It  is  perfectly  cer- 
tain, however,  that  this  deity  had  no  real  connexion,  either  in  char- 
acter or  in  name,  with  that  Roman  goddess  of  the  chase  and  of 
chastity,  to  whom  the  name  Diana  properly  belongs.  The  true 
classic  goddess  Diana  was  a  virgin,  according  to  common  stories, 
considered  as  the  sister  of  Apollo,  and  was  worshiped  as  the  beau- 
tiful and  youthful  goddess  of  the  chase,  and  of  that  virgin  purity 
of  which  she  was  supposed  to  be  an  instance,  though  some  stories 
present  an  exception  to  this  part  of  her  character.  Upon  her  head, 
in  most  representations  of  her,  was  pictured  a  crescent,  which  was 
commonly  supposed  to  show  that  she  was  also  the  goddess  of  the 
moon :  but  a  far  more  sagacious  and  rational  supposition  refers  the 


STB  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

first  origin  of  this  sign  to  a  deeper  meaning.  But  when  the  my- 
thologies of  different  nations  began  to  be  compared  and  united,  she 
was  identified  with  the  goddess  of  the  moon,  and  with  that  Asian 
goddess  who  bore  among  the  Greeks  the  name  of  Artemis,  which 
is  in  fact  the  name  given  by  Luke  as  the  title  of  the  great  goddess 
of  the  Ephesians.  This  Artemis,  however,  was  a  deity  as  di- 
verse in  form,  character,  and  attributes,  from  the  classic  Diana,  as 
from  any  goddess  in  all  the  systems  of  ancient  mythology ;  and 
they  never  need  have  been  confounded,  but  for  the  perverse  folly 
of  those  who  were  bent,  in  spite  of  all  reason,  to  find  in  the  di- 
vinities of  the  eastern  polytheism,  the  perfect  synonyms  to  the 
objects  of  western  idolatry.  The  Asian  and  Ephesian  goddess, 
Artemis,  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  hunting  or  with  chastity. 
She  was  not  represented  as  young,  nor  beautiful,  nor  nimble,  nor 
as  the  sister  of  Apollo,  but  as  a  vast  gigantic  monster,  with  a  crown 
of  towers,  with  lions  crouching  upon  her  shoulders,  and  a  great 
array  of  pictured  or  sculptured  eagles  and  tigers  over  her  whole 
figure ;  and  her  figure  was  also  strangely  marked  by  a  multitude 
of  breasts  in  front.  Under  this  monstrous  figure,  which  evidently 
was  no  invention  of  the  tasteful  Greeks,  but  had  originated  in  the 
debasing  and  grotesque  idolatry  of  the  Orientals,  Artemis  of  the 
Ephesians  was  worshiped  as  the  goddess  of  the  earth,  of  fertility, 
of  cities,  and  as  the  universal  principle  of  life  and  wealth.  She 
was  known  among  the  Syrians  by  the  name  of  Ashtaroth,  and  was 
among  the  early  objects  of  Hebrew  idolatry.  When  the  Romans, 
in  their  all-absorbing  tolerance  of  idolatry,  began  to  introduce  into 
Italy  the  worship  of  the  eastern  deities,  this  goddess  was  also 
added  there,  but  not  under  the  name  of  Diana.  The  classic 
scholar  is  familiar  with  the  allusions  to  this  deity,  worshiped  under 
the  name  of  Cybele,  Tellus,  Rhea,  Berecynthia,  and  other  such 
names,  and  in  all  the  later  poets  of  Rome,  she  is  a  familiar  object, 
as  "  the  tower-crowned  Cybele."  This  was  the  goddess  worshiped 
in  many  of  the  Grecian  cities  of  Asia  Minor,  which  at  their  first 
colonization,  had  adopted  this  aboriginal  goddess  of  those  fertile  re- 
gions, of  whose  fertility,  civilization,  agricultural  and  commercial 
wealth,  she  seemed  the  fit  and  appropriate  personification.  But  in 
none  of  these  Asian  cities  was  she  worshiped  with  such  peculiar 
honors  and  glories  as  in  Ephesus,  the  greatest  city  of  Asia  Minor. 
Here  was  worshiped  a  much  cherished  image  of  her,  which  was 
said  to  have  fallen  from  heaven,  called  from  that  circumstance 
the  DioPETOS ;  which  here  was  kept  in  that  most  splendid  temple, 


PAUL.  •  '  579 

which  is  even  now  proverbial  as  having  been  one  of  the  wonders 
of  the  ancient  world.  Being  thus  the  most  famous  seat  of  her 
worship,  Ephesus  also  became  the  centre  of  a  great  manufacture 
and  trade  in  certain  curious  little  images  or  shrines,  representing 
this  goddess,  which  were  in  great  request,  wherever  her  worship 
was  regarded,  being  considered  as  the  genuine  and  legitimate  re- 
presentatives, as  well  as  representations  of  the  Ephesian  deity. 

This  explanation  will  account  for  the  circumstances  related  by 
Luke,  as  ensuing  in  Ephesus,  on  the  success  of  Paul's  labors 
among  the  heathen,  to  whose  conversion  his  exertions  had  been 
wholly  devoted  during  the  two  last  years  of  his  stay  in  Ephesus. 
In  converting  the  Ephesians  from  heathenism,  he  Wcis  guilty  of 
no  ordinary  crime.  He  directly  attacked  a  great  source  of  profit 
to  a  large  number  of  artizans  in  the  city,  who  derived  their  whole 
support  from  the  manufacture  of  those  little  objects  of  idolatry, 
which,  of  course,  became  of  no  value  to  those  who  believed  Paul's 
doctrine, — that  "  those  were  no  gods  which  were  made  with 
hands."  This  new  doctrine,  therefore,  attracted  very  invidious 
notice  from  those  who  thus  found  their  dearest  interests  very  im- 
mediately and  unfortunately  affected,  by  the  progress  made  by  its 
preacher  in  turning  away  the  hearts  of  Ephesians  from  their  an- 
cient reverence  for  the  shrines  of  Artemis ;  and  they  therefore 
listened  with  great  readiness  to  Demetrius,  one  of  their  number, 
when  he  proposed  to  remedy  the  difficulty.  He  showed  them  in 
a  very  clear  though  brief  address,  that  "  the  craft  was  in  danger," 
— that  warning  cry  which  so  often  bestirs  the  bigoted  in  defense  of 
the  object  of  their  regard ;  and  after  hearing  his  artful  address, 
they  all,  full  of  wrath,  with  one  accord  raised  a  great  outcry,  in 
the  usual  form  of  commendation  of  the  established  idolatry  of  their 
city — "  Great  is  Artemis  of  the  Ephesians !"  This  noise  being 
heard  by  others,  and,  of  course,  attracting  attention,  every  one 
who  distinguished  the  words,  by  a  sort  of  patriotic  impulse,  was 
driven  to  join  in  the  cry,  and  presently  the  whole  city  was  in  an 
uproar  ; — a  most  desirable  condition  of  things,  of  course,  for  those 
who  wished  to  derive  advantage  from  a  popular  commotion.  All 
bawling  this  senseless  cry,  with  about  as  much  idea  of  the  occa- 
sion of  the  disturbance  as  could  be  expected  from  such  a  mob,  the 
huddling  multitudes  learning  the  general  fact,  that  the  grand  ob- 
ject of  the  tumult  was  to  do  some  mischief  to  the  Christians,  and 
looking  about  for  some  proper  person  to  be  made  the  subject  of 
public  opinion,  fell  upon  Gaius  and  Aristarchus  of  Macexioina,  two 


580  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

traveling  companions  of  Paul,  who  happened  to  he  in  the  way, 
and  dragged  them  to  the  theatre,  whither  the  whole  mob  rushed 
at  once,  as  to  a  desirable  scene  for  any  act  of  confusion  and  folly 
which  they  might  choose  to  commit.  Paul,  with  a  lion-like  spirit, 
caring  naught  for  the  mob,  proposed  to  go  in  and  make  a  speech 
to  them ;  but  his  fi-iends,  with  far  more  prudence  and  cool  sense 
than  he, — knowing  that  an  assembly  of  the  people,  roaring  some 
popular  outcry,  is  no  more  a  subject  of  reason  than  so  many  raging 
wild  beasts, — prevented  him  from  going  into  the  theatre,  where  he 
would  no  doubt  have  been  torn  to  pieces,  before  he  could  have 
opened  his  mouth.  Some  of  the  great  magistrates  of  Asia,  too, 
who  were  friendly  to  him,  hearing  of  his  rash  intentions,  sent  to 
him  a  very  urgent  request,  that  he  would  not  venture  himself 
among  the  mob.  Meanwhile  the  outcry  continued, — the  theatre 
being  crowded  full,  and  the  whole  city  constantly  pouring  out  to 
see  what  was  the  matter,  and  every  soul  joining  in  the  religious 
and  patriotic  shout — "  Great  is  Artemis  of  the  Ephesians  !"  And 
so  they  went  on,  every  one,  of  course,  according  to  the  universal 
and  everlasting  practice  on  such  occasions,  making  all  the  noise 
he  could,  but  not  one,  except  the  rascally  silversmiths,  knowing 
what  upon  earth  they  were  all  bawling  there  for.  Still  this  igno- 
rance of  the  object  of  the  assembly  kept  nobody  still ;  but  all,  with 
undiminished  fervor,  kept  plying  their  lungs  to  swell  the  general 
roar.  As  it  is  described  in  the  very  graphic  and  picturesque  lan- 
guage of  Luke — "  Some  cried  one  thing,  and  some  another  ;  for  the 
whole  assembly  was  confused  ; — and  the  more  knew  not  wherefore 
they  were  come  together," — which  last  circumstance  is  a  very  com- 
mon difficulty  in  such  assemblies,  in  all  ages.  At  last,  searching 
for  some  other  persons  as  proper  subjects  to  exercise  their  religious 
zeal  upon,  they  looked  about  upon  the  Jews,  who  were  always 
a  suspected  class  among  the  heathen,  and  seized  one  Alexander, 
who  seems  to  have  been  one  of  the  Christian  converts,  for  the 
Jews  thrust  him  forward  as  a  kind  of  scape-goat  for  themselves. 
Alexander  made  the  usual  signs,  soliciting  their  attention  to  his 
words ;  but  as  soon  as  the  people  understood  that  he  was  a  Jew, 
they  all  drowned  his  voice  with  the  general  cry — "  Great  is  Ar- 
temis of  the  Ephesians !"  and  this  they  kept  up  steadily  for  two 
whole  hours,  as  it  were  with  one  voice.  Matters  having  come  to 
this  pass,  the  recorder  of  the  city  came  forward,  and  having  hushed 
the  people, — who  had  some  reverence  for  the  lawful  authorities, 
that  fortunately  were  not  responsible  to  them, — and  made  them  a 


PAUL.  681 

very  sensible  speech,  reminding  them  that  since  no  one  doubted 
the  reverence  of  the  Ephesians  for  the  goddess  Artemis,  and  for 
the  DioPETos,  there  surely  was  no  occasion  for  all  this  disturb- 
ance to  demonstrate  a  fact  that  everybody  knew.  He  told  them 
that  the  men  against  whom  they  were  raising  this  disturbance  had 
been  neither  robbers  of  temples  nor  blasphemers  of  the  goddess ; 
so  that  if  Demetrius  and  his  fellow-craft  had  any  thing  justly 
against  these  men,  as  having  injured  their  business,  they  had  their 
proper  remedy  at  law.  He  hinted  to  them  also  that  they  were  all 
liable  to  be  called  to  account  for  this  manifest  breach  of  Roman 
law,  and  this  defiance  of  the  majesty  of  the  Roman  government ; 
— a  hint  which  brought  most  of  them  to  their  senses ;  for  all  who 
had  any  thing  to  lose,  dreaded  the  thought  of  giving  occasion  to 
the  awfully  remorseless  government  of  the  province,  to  fine  them, 
— an  act  of  retributive  justice  which  would  most  unhesitatingly 
be  executed,  on  any  reasonable  excuse.  They  all  dispersed,  there- 
fore, with  no  more  words. 

"  '  Silver  shrines,^  v.  24.  The  heathens  used  to  carry  the  images  of  their  gods  in 
procession  from  one  city  to  another.  This  vvas  done  in  a  chariot  which  was  solemnly 
consecrated  for  that  employment,  and  by  the  Romans  styled  Thensa,  that  is,  the  cha- 
riot of  their  gnds.  But  besides  this,  it  was  placed  in  a  box  or  shrine,  called  Fercu- 
lum.  Accordingly,  when  the  Romans  conferred  divine  honors  on  their  great  men, 
alive  or  dead,  they  had  the  Circen  games,  and  in  them  the  Thensa  and  Fcrculum,  the 
chariot  and  the  shrine,  bestowed  on  them;  as  it  is  related  of  Julius  Caesar.  This 
Ferculum  among  the  Romans  did  not  differ  much  from  the  Grecian  Nudf,  a  little 
chapel,  representing  the  form  of  a  temple,  with  an  image  in  it,  which,  being  set  upon 
an  altar,  or  any  other  solemn  place,  having  the  doors  opened,  the  iinage  was  seen  by 
the  spectators  either  in  a  standing  or  a  sitting  posture.  An  old  anonymous  scholiast 
upon  Aristotle's  Rhetoric,  lib.  i.  c.  15,  has  these  words:  NaoruKu  o!  Tuvg  i-uov?  Troiovai, 

firoi  lUnvo'TTUTtn,  rii/i  fiiKoa  (vXiva  a  vco\5cn,  observing  the  vuoi  here  to  be  fuoc'xrratna,  chap- 

leis,  with  images  in  them,  of  wood,  or  metal,  (as  here  of  silver,)  which  they  made  and 
sold,  as  in  v.  25,  they  are  supposed  to  do.  Athenaeus  speaks  of  the  Kol^taKo;,  '  which,' 
says  he,  '  is  a  vessel  wherein  ihey  place  their  images  of  Jupiter.'  The  learned  Ca- 
saubon  states,  that '  these  images  were  put  in  cases,  M-hich  were  made  like  chapels. 
(Deipnos.  lib.  ii.  p.  500.)  So  St.  Chrysostom  likens  them  to  '  little  cases  or  shrines.' 
Dion  savs  of  the  Roman  ensign,  that  it  was  a  little  temple,  and  in  it  a  golden  eagle. 
(Pw/uiu-.'lib.  40.)  And  in  another  place:  '  There  was  a  little  chapel  of  Juno,  set 
upon  a  table.'  lb.  lib.  39.  This  is  the  meaning  of  the  tabernacle  of  Moloch,  Acts 
vii.  43,  where  by  the  cKri'-h,  tobervacle,  is  meant  the  chaplet,  a  shrine  of  that  false  god. 
The  same  was  also  the  ni^D  n-'23,  {Succolh  Benoth,)  the  tabernacle  of  Benoth,  or  Venus." 
(Hammond's  Annot.     Williams  on  Pearson,  p.  55.) 

Robbers  of  temples.— Think  of  the  miserable  absurdity  of  the  common  English 
translation  "in  this  passage,  (Acts  xix.  37,)  where  the  original  upoovhu  is  expres.sed  by 
"robbers  of  churches!"  Now,  who  ever  thought  of  applying  the  English  word 
"  church,"  to  any  thing  whatever  but  a  "  Christian  assembly,"  or  "  Christian  place  of 
assembly  V  Why,  then,  is  this  phrase  put  in  the  mouth  of  a  heathen  officer,  address- 
ing a  heathen  assembly,  about  persons  charged  with  violating  the  sanctity  of  heathen 
places  of  worship  1  Such  a  building  as  a  church,  {cKk-Xna'ta,  ecclesia,)  devoted  to  the 
worship  of  the  true  God,  was  not  kiiown  till  more  than  a  century  after  this  time,  in 
the  reign  of  Constantine,  who  first  erected  buildings  consecrated  especially  to  the 
•worship  of  the  Christian  God ;  and  the  Greek  word  updv,  {hieron,)  which  enters  into 
the  composition  of  the  word  in  the  sacred  text,  thus  mistranslated,  was  never  applied 
to  a  Christian  place  of  worship. 


582  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 


FIRST  EPISTLE  TO  THE  CORINTHIANS, 

Paul's  residence  in  Ephesus  is  distinguished  in  his  Uterary  history, 
as  the  period  in  which  he  wrote  that  most  eloquent  and  animated  of 
his  epistles, — "  the  first  to  the  Corinthians."  It  was  written  towards 
the  close  of  his  stay  in  Asia,  about  the  time  of  the  passover ;  accord- 
ing to  established  calculations,  therefore,  in  the  spring  of  the  year  of 
Christ  57.  The  more  immediate  occasion  of  his  writing  to  the  Co- 
rinthian Christians,  was  a  letter  which  he  had  received  from  them, 
by  the  hands  of  Stephanas,  Fortunatus,  and  Achaicus.  Paul  had 
previously  written  to  them  an  epistle,  (now  lost,)  in  which  he  gave 
them  some  directions  about  their  deportment,  which  they  did  not 
fully  understand,  and  of  which  they  desired  an  explanation  in  their 
letter.  Many  of  these  questions,  which  this  epistle  of  the  Corinthi- 
ans contained,  are  given  by  Paul,  in  connexion  with  his  own  an- 
swers to  them ;  and  from  this  source  it  is  learned  that  they  concerned 
several  points  of  expediency  and  propriety  about  matrimony.  These 
are  answered  by  Paul,  very  distinctly  and  fully ;  but  much  of  his 
epistle  is  taken  up  with  instructions  and  reproofs  on  many  points 
not  referred  to  in  their  inquiries.  The  Corinthian  church  was  made 
up  of  two  very  opposite  constituent  parts,  so  unlike  in  their  charac- 
ter, as  to  render  exceedingly  complicated  the  difficulties  of  bringing 
all  under  one  system  of  faith  and  practice  ;  and  the  apostolic  founder 
was,  at  one  time,  obliged  to  combat  heathen  licentiousness,  and  at 
another,  Jewish  bigotry  and  formalism.  The  church  also,  having 
been  too  soon  left  without  the  presence  of  a  fully  competent  head, 
had  been  very  loosely  filled  up  with  a  great  variety  of  improper  per- 
sons,— some  hypocrites,  and  some  profligates, — a  difficulty  not  alto- 
gether peculiar  to  the  Corinthian  church,  nor  to  those  of  the  apos- 
tolic age.  But  there  were  certainly  some  very  extraordinary 
irregularities  in  the  conduct  of  their  members,  some  of  whom  were  in 
the  habit  of  getting  absolutely  "drunken"  at  the  sacramental  table; 
and  others  were  guilty  of  great  sins  in  respect  to  general  purity  of 
life.  Another  peculiar  diflficulty,  which  had  arisen  in  the  church  of 
Corinth,  during  Paul's  absence,  was  the  formation  of  sects  and  par- 
ties, each  claiming  some  one  of  the  great  Christian  teachers  as  its 
head ;  some  of  them  claiming  Paul  as  their  only  apostolic  authority ; 
some  again  preferring  the  doctrines  of  Apollos,  who  had  been  labor- 
ing among  them  while  Paul  was  in  Ephesus ;  and  others  again,  re- 
ferred to  Peter  as  the  true  apostolic  chief,  while  they  wholly  denied 
to  Paul  any  authority  whatever,  as  an  apostle.  There  had,  indeed, 
arisen  a  separate  party,  strongly  opposed  to  Paul,  headed  by  a  pro- 
minent person,  who  had  done  a  great  deal  to  pervert  the  truth, 
and  to  lessen  the  character  of  Paul  in  various  ways,  which  are  al- 
luded to  by  Paul  in  many  passages  of  his  epistle,  in  a  very  indignant 
tone.  Other  difficulties  are  described  by  him,  and  various  excesses 
are  reproved,  as  a  scandal  to  the  Christian  character  j  such  as  an  in- 


PAUL.  583 

cestiious  marriage  among  their  members, — lawsuits  before  heathen 
magistrates, — dissolute  conformity  to  the  Hcentious  worship  of  the 
Corinthian  goddess,  whose  temple  was  so  infamous  for  its  scandalous 
rites  and  thousand  priestesses.  Some  of  the  Corinthian  Christians 
had  been  in  the  habit  of  visiting  this  and  other  heathen  temples,  and 
of  participating  in  the  scenes  of  feasting,  riot,  and  debauchery, 
which  were  carried  on  there  as  a  part  of  the  regular  forms  of  idola- 
trous worship. 

The  public  worship  of  the  Corinthian  church  had  been  disturbed 
also  by  various  irregularities  which  Paul  reprehends ; — the  abuse  of 
the  gift  of  tongues,  and  the  affectation  of  an  unusual  dress  in  preach- 
mg,  both  by  men  and  women.  In  the  conclusion  of  his  epistle  he 
expatiates,  too,  at  great  length,  on  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of 
the  body,  vehemently  arguing  against  some  Corinthian  heretics,  who 
had  denied  any  but  a  spiritual  existence  beyond  the  grave.  This 
argument  may  justly  be  pronounced  the  best  specimen  of  Paul's  very 
peculiar  style,  reasoning  as  he  does,  with  a  kmd  of  passion,  and  in- 
terrupting the  regular  series  of  logical  demonstrations,  by  fiery  bursts 
of  enthusiasm,  personal  appeals,  poetical  quotations,  illustrative  si- 
miles, violent  denunciations  of  error,  and  striking  references  to  his 
own  circumstances.  All  these,  nevertheless,  point  very  directly  and 
connectedly  at  the  great  object  of  the  argument,  and  the  whole  train 
of  reasoning  swells  and  mounts,  towards  the  conclusion,  in  a  man- 
ner most  remarkably  effective,  constituting  one  of  the  most  sublime 
argumentative  passages  ever  written.  He  then  closes  the  epistle 
with  some  directions  about  the  mode  of  collecting  the  contributions 
for  the  brethren  in  Jerusalem.  He  promises  to  visit  them,  and  make 
a  long  stay  among  them,  when  he  goes  on  his  journey  through  Ma- 
cedonia,— a  route  which,  he  assures  them,  he  had  now  determined 
to  take,  as  mentioned  by  Luke,  in  his  account  of  the  preliminary 
mission  of  Timothy  and  Erastus,  before  the  time  of  the  mob  at 
Ephesus ;  but  should  not  leave  Ephesus  until  after  Pentecost,  be- 
cause a  great  and  effectual  door  was  there  opened  to  him,  and  there 
were  many  opposers.  He  speaks  of  Timothy  as  being  then  on  the 
mission  before  mentioned,  and  exhorts  them  not  to  despise  this  young 
brother,  if  he  should  visit  them,  as  they  might  expect.  After  seve- 
ral other  personal  references,  he  signs  his  own  name,  with  a  general 
salutation  ;  and  from  the  terms  in  which  he  expresses  this  particular 
mark  already  alluded  to  in  the  second  epistle  to  the  Thessalonians, 
it  is  very  reasonable  to  conclude  that  he  was  not  his  own  penman 
in  any  of  these  epistles,  but  used  an  amanuensis,  authenticating  the 
whole  by  his  signature,  with  his  own  hand,  only  at  the  end ;  and 
this  opinion  of  his  method  of  carrying  on  his  correspondence,  is  now 
commonly,  perhaps  universally,  adopted  by  the  learned. 

"  Chap.  xvi.  10,  11.  '  Now,  if  Timotheus  come,  see  that  he  may  be  with  you  with- 
out fear ;  for  he  worketh  the  work  of  the  Lord,  as  I  also  do :  let  no  man  therefore 
despise  him,  but  conduct  him  forth  in  peace,  that  he  may  come  unto  me,  for  I  look 
for  him  with  the  brethren.'  ^ 


684  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

"  From  the  passage  considered  in  the  preceding  number,  it  appears  that  Timotny 
was  sent  to  Corinth,  either  with  the  epistle  or  before  it:  '  for  this  cause  have  I  sent 
unto  you  Timotheus.'  From  the  passage  now  quoted,  we  infer  that  Timothy  was 
not  sent  with  the  epistle ;  for  had  he  been  the  bearer  of  the  letter,  or  accompanied  it, 
would  St.  Paul  in  that  letter  have  said,  '  if  Timothy  comel'  Nor  is  the  sequel  con- 
sistent with  the  supposition  of  his  carrying  the  letter;  for  if  Timothy  was  with  the 
apostle  when  he  wrote  the  letter,  could  he  say,  as  he  does,  '  I  look  for  him  with  the 
brethren  V  I  conclude,  therefore,  that  Timothy  had  left  St.  Paul  to  proceed  upon  hi.s 
journey  before  the  letter  was  written.  Further,  the  passage  before  us  seems  to  imply, 
that  Timothy  was  not  expected  by  St.  Paul  to  arrive  at  Cofinth,  till  after  they  had 
received  the  letter.  He  gives  them  directions  in  the  letter  how  to  treat  him  when  he 
should  arrive:  '  if  he  come,'  act  towards  him  so  and  so.  Lastly,  the  whole  form  of 
expression  is  more  naturally  applicable  to  the  supposition  of  Timothy's  coming  to 
Corinth,  not  directly  from  St.  Paul,  but  from  some  other  quarter;  and  that  his  in- 
structions had  been,  when  he  should  reach  Corinth,  to  return.  Now,  how  stands 
this  matter  in  the  history  1  Turn  to  the  nineteenth  chapter  and  twenty-first  verse  of 
the  Acts,  and  you  will  find  that  Timothy  did  not,  when  sent  from  Ephesus,  where 
he  left  St.  Paul,  and  where  the  present  epistle  was  written,  proceed  by  a  straight 
course  to  Corinth,  but  that  he  went  round  through  Macedonia.  This  clears  up  every 
thing  ;  for,  although  Timothy  was  sent  forth  upon  his  journey  before  the  letter  was 
written,  yet  he  might  not  reach  Corinth  till  after  the  letter  arrived  there;  and  he 
would  come  to  Corinth,  and  he  did  come,  not  directly  from  St.  Paul,  at  Ephesus,  but 
from  gome  part  of  Macedonia.  Here  therefore  is  a  circumstantial  and  critical  agree- 
ment, and  unquestionably  without  design;  for  neither  of  the  two  passages  in  the 
epistle  mentions  Timothy's  journey  into  Macedonia  at  all,  though  nothing  but  a  cir- 
cuit of  that  kind  can  explain  and  reconcile  the  expressions  which  the  writer  uses." 
(Paley's  Hor.  Paul.  1  Cor.  No.  IV.)      , 

"  Chap.  V.  7,  8.  '  For  even  Christ,  our  passover,  is  sacrificed  for  us:  therefore  let 
us  keep  the  feast,  not  with  old  leaven,  neither  with  the  leaven  of  malice  and  wicked- 
ness, but  with  the  unleavened  bread  of  sincerity  and  truth.' 

"  Dr.  Benson  tells  us,  that  from  this  passage,  compared  with  chapter  xvi.  8,  it  has 
been  conjectured  that  this  epistle  was  written  about  the  time  of  the  Jewish  passover; 
and  to  me  the  conjecture  appears  to  be  very  well  founded.  The  passage  to  which 
Dr.  Benson  refers  us,  is  this:  '  I  will  tarry  at  Ephesus  xintil  Pentecost.'  With  this 
passage  he  ought  to  have  joined  another  in  the  same  context:  'And  it  may  be  that  I 
will  abide,  yea,  and  winter  with  you :'  for  from  the  two  passages  laid  together,  it  fol- 
lows that  the  epi.stle  was  written  before  Pentecost,  yet  after  winter;  which  neces- 
sarily determines  the  date  to  the  part  of  the  year  within  which  the  passover  falls.  It 
was  written  before  Pentecost,  because  he  says — '  I  will  tarry  at  Ephesus  until  Pente- 
cost.' It  was  written  after  winter,  because  he  tells  them — '  It  may  be  that  I  will  abide, 
yea,  and  winter  with  you.'  The  winter  which  the  apostle  purposed  to  pass  at  Co- 
rinth, was  undoubtedly  the  winter  next  ensuing  to  the  date  of  the  epistle  ;  yet  it  was 
a  winter  subsequent  to  the  ensuing  Pentecost,  because  he  did  not  intend  to  set  for- 
ward upon  his  journey  till  after  the  feast.  The  words — '  let  us  keep  the  feast,  not 
with  old  leaven,  neither  with  the  leaven  of  malice  and  wickedness,  but  with  the  un- 
leavened bread  of  sincerity  and  truth,'  look  very  much  like  words  suggested  by  the 
season ;  at  least  they  have,  upon  that  supposition,  a  force  and  significancy  which  do 
not  belong  to  them  upon  any  other;  and  it  is  not  a  little  remarkable,  that  the  hints 
casually  dropped  in  the  epistle,  concerning  particular  parts  of  the  year,  should  coin- 
cide with  this  supposition."    (Paley's  Hor.  Paul.  1  Cor.  No.  XII.) 

I  have  felt  much  hesitation  about  the  arrangement  of  the  dale  of  this  epistle. 
Most  writers  consider  it  to  have  been  written  before  the  time  of  the  mob.  But  the 
passage  in  chap.  xv.  verse  32,  seems  to  contain  so  distinct  a  reference  to  the  recent 
occurrence  of  these  dreadful  commotions,  that  I  feel  justified  in  placing  the  writing 
of  the  epistle  after  the  mob.  Hemsen  favors  this  view.  (Apost.  Paul.  III.  1,  3.) 
The  statement  in  Acts  xx.  1,  does  not  appear  to  require  an  immediate  departure,  after 
the  hushing  of  the  mob. 

SECOND  VOYAGE  TO  EUROPE. 

After  the  disturbances  connected  with  the  mob  raised  by  Deme- 
trius had  wholly  ceased,  and  public  attention  was  no  longer  di- 
rected to  the  motions  of  the  preachers  of  the  Christian  doctrine, 


PAUL.  685 

Paul  determined  to  execute  the  plan  which  he  had  for  some  time 
contemplated,  of  going  over  his  European  fields  of  labor  again, 
according  to  his  universal  and  established  custom  of  revisiting  and 
confirming  his  work,  within  a  moderately  brief  period  after  first 
opening  the  ground  for  evangelization.  Assembling  the  disciples 
about  him,  he  bade  them  farewell,  and  turning  northward,  came 
to  Troas,  whence,  six  or  seven  years  before,  he  had  set  out  on  his 
first  voyage  to  Macedonia.  The  plan  of  his  journey,  as  he  first 
arranged  it,  had  been  to  sail  from  the  shores  of  Asia  Minor  directly 
for  Corinth.  He  had  resolved,  however,  not  to  go  to  that  city, 
until  the  very  disagreeable  difficulties  which  had  there  arisen  in 
the  church  had  been  entirely  removed,  according  to  the  directions 
given  in  the  epistle  which  he  had  written  to  them  from  Ephesus ; 
because  he  did  not  desire,  after  an  absence  of  years,  to  visit  them 
in  such  circumstances,  when  his  Corinthian  converts  were  divided 
among  themselves,  and  against  him, — and  when  his  first  duties 
would  necessarily  be  those  of  a  rigid  censor.  He  therefore  waited 
at  Troas,  with  great  impatience,  for  a  message  from  them,  an- 
nouncing the  settlement  of  all  difficulties.  This  he  expected  to 
receive  through  Titus,  a  person  now  first  mentioned  in  the  apos- 
tle's history.  Waiting  with  great  impatience  for  this  beloved  bro- 
ther, he  found  no  rest  in  his  spirit,  and  though  a  door  was  evi- 
dently opened  by  the  Lord  for  the  preaching  of  the  gospel  in  Troas, 
he  had  no  spirit  for  the  good  work  there ;  and  desiring  to  be  as 
near  the  great  object  of  his  anxieties  as  possible,  he  accordingly 
took  leave  of  the  brethren  at  Troas,  and  crossed  the  Aegean  into 
Macedonia,  by  his  former  route.  Here  he  remained  in  great  dis- 
tress of  mind,  until  his  soul  was  at  last  comforted  by  the  long  ex- 
pected arrival  of  Titus.  Luke  only  says,  that  he  went  over  those 
parts  and  gave  them  much  exhortation.  But  though  his  route  is 
not  given,  his  apostolic  labors  are  known  to  have  extended  to  the 
borders  of  Illyricum.  At  this  time,  also,  he  made  another  import- 
ant contribution  to  the  list  of  the  apostolic  writings. 

THE  SECOND  EPISTLE  TO  THE  CORINTHIANS. 

There  is  no  part  of  the  New  Testament  canon,  about  the  date  of 
which  all  authorities  are  so  well  agreed,  as  on  the  place  and  time,  at 
which  Paul  wrote  his  second  epistle  to  the  Corinthians.  All  authori- 
ties, ancient  and  modern,  decide  that  it  was  written  during  the  second 
visit  of  Paul  to  Macedonia ;  although  as  to  the  exact  year  in  which 
this  took  place,  they  are  not  entirely  unanimous.  The  passages  in 
the  epistle  itself,  which  refer  to  Macedonia  as  the  region  in  which 


586  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

the  apostle  then  was,  are  so  numerous,  indeed,  that  there  can  be  no 
evasion  of  their  evidence.  A  sfreat  topic  of  interest  with  him,  at  the 
time  of  writing  this  epistle,  was  the  collecting  of  the  contributions 
proposed  for  the  relief  of  tlie  Christian  brethren  in  Jerusalem ;  and 
upon  this  he  enlarges  much,  informing  the  Corinthians  of  the  great 
progress  he  was  making  in  Macedonia  in  this  benevolent  under- 
taking, and  what  high  hopes  he  had  entertained  and  expressed  to 
the  Macedonians,  of  the  zeal  and  ability  of  those  in  Achaia,  about 
the  contributions.  This  matter  had  been  noticed  and  arranged  by 
him,  in  his  former  epistle  to  them,  as  already  noticed,  and  he  now 
proposed  to  send  forward  Titus  and  another  person,  (who  is  com- 
monly supposed  to  be  Luke,)  to  take  charge  of  these  funds,  thus  col- 
lected. He  speaks  of  coming  also  himself,  after  a  little  time,  and 
makes  some  allusions  to  the  difficulties  which  had  constituted  the 
subject  of  the  great  part  of  his  former  epistle.  Of  their  amendment 
in  the  particulars  then  so  severely  censured,  he  had  received  a  full 
account  through  Titus,  when  that  beloved  brother  came  on  from 
Corinth,  to  join  Paul  in  Macedonia.  Paul  assures  the  Corinthians 
of  the  very  great  joy  caused  in  him,  by  the  good  news  of  their  moral 
and  spiritual  improvement,  and  renews  his  ardent  protestations  of 
deep  affection  for  them.  The  incestuous  person,  whom  they  had 
excommunicated,  in  conformity  with  the  denunciatory  directions 
given  in  the  former  epistle,  he  now  forgives  ;  and  as  the  offender  has 
since  appeared  to  be  truly  penitent,  he  now  urges  his  restoration  to 
the  consolations  of  Christian  fellowship,  lest  he  should  be  swallowed 
up  with  too  much  sorrow.  He  defends  his  apostolic  character  for 
prudence  and  decision,  against  those  who  considered  his  change  of 
plans  about  coming  directly  from  Ephesus  to  Corinth,  as  an  exhibi- 
tion of  lightness  and  unsetded  purpose.  His  real  object  in  this  delay 
and  change  of  purpose,  as  he  tells  them,  was,  that  they  might  have 
time  to  profit  by  the  reproofs  contained  in  his  former  epistle,  so  that 
by  the  removal  of  the  evils  of  which  he  so  bitterly  complained,  he 
might  finally  be  enabled  to  come  to  them,  not  in  sorrow,  nor  in  hea- 
viness for  their  sins,  but  in  joy  for  their  reformation.  This  fervent 
hope  had  been  fulfilled  by  the  coming  of  Titus  to  Macedonia,  for 
whom  he  had  waited  in  vain,  with  so  much  anxiety  at  Troas,  as 
the  expected  messenger  of  these  tidings  of  their  spiritual  condition  ; 
and  he  was  now  therefore  prepared  to  pass  on  to  them  from  Mace- 
donia, to  which  region  he  tells  them  he  had  gone  from  Troas,  instead 
of  to  Corinth,  because  he  had  been  disappointed  about  meeting  Titus 
on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Aegean.  With  the  exception  of  these 
things,  the  epistle  is  taken  up  with  a  very  ample  and  eloquent  exhi- 
bition of  his  true  powers  and  office  as  an  apostle ;  and  in  the  course 
of  this  argument,  so  necessary  for  the  re-establishment  of  his  au- 
thority among  those  who  had  lately  been  disposed  to  contemn  it,  he 
makes  many  very  interesting  allusions  to  his  own  personal  history 
The  date  of  the  epistle  is  commonly  supposed,  and  with  good  reason 


PAUL.  587 

to  be  A,  D.  58,  the  fifth  of  Nero's  reign,  and  one  year  after  the  pre- 
ceding epistle. 

"  Chap.  ii.  12,  13.  'When  I  came  to  Troas  to  preach  Christ's  gospel,  and  a  door 
was  opened  unto  me  of  the  Lord,  I  had  no  rest  in  my  spirit,  because  1  ibund  not  Ti- 
tus my  brother;  but  taking  my  leave  of  them,  I  went  from  thence  into  Macedonia.' 

"  To  establish  a  conformity  between  this  passage  and  the  history,  nothing  more  is 
necessary  to  be  presumed,  than  ihat  St.  Paul  proceeded  from  Ephesus  to  Macedonia, 
upon  I  he  same  course  by  which  he  came  back  from  Macedonia  to  Ephesus,  or  rather 
to  Mileius,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Ephesus;  in  other  words,  that,  in  his  journey  to 
the  peninsula  of  Greece,  he  went  and  returned  the  same  way.  St.  Paul  is  now  in 
Macedonia,  where  he  had  lately  arrived  from  Ephesus.  Our  quotation  imports  that 
in  his  journey  he  had  slopped  at  Troas.  Of  this,  the  history  says  nothing,  leaving 
us  only  the  short  account,  '  that  Paul  departed  from  Ephesus,  lor  to  go  into  Mace- 
donia.' But  the  history  says,  that  in  his  return  from  Macedonia  to  Ephesus, '  Paul 
sailed  from  Philippi  to  Troas ;  and  that,  when  the  disciples  came  together  on  the  first 
day  of  the  week,  to  break  bread,  Paul  preached  unto  them  all  night;  that  from  Troas 
he  went  by  land  to  Assos;  from  Assos,  taking  ship  and  coasting  along  the  front  of 
Asia  Minor,  he  came  by  Mitylene  to  Miletus.'  Which  account  proves,  first,  that 
Troas  lay  in  the  way  by  which  St.  Paul  passed  between  Ephesus  and  Macedonia ;  se- 
condly, that  he  had  disciples  there.  In  one  journey  between  these  two  places,  the 
epistle,  and  in  another  journey  between  the  same  places,  the  history  makes  him  stop 
at  this  city.  Of  the  first  journey,  he  is  made  to  say—'  that  a  door  was  in  that  city 
opened  unto  him  of  the  Lord  ;'  in  the  second,  we  find  disciples  there  collected  around 
him,  and  the  apostle  exercising  his  ministry  with,  what  was,  even  in  him,  more  than 
ordinary  zeal  and  labor.  The  epistle,  therefore,  is  in  this  instance  confirmed,  if  not 
by  the  terms,  at  least  by  the  probability  of  the  history;  a  species  of  confirmation  by 
no  means  to  be  despised,  because,  as  far  as  it  reaches,  it  is  evidently  uncontrived. 

"  Grotius,  I  know,  refers  the  arrival  at  Troas,  to  which  the  epistle  alludes,  to  a 
different  period,  but  I  think  very  improbably ;  for  nothing  appears  to  me  more  certain, 
than  that  the  meeting  with  Titus,  which  St.  Paul  expected  at  Troas,  was  the  same 
meeting  which  took  place  in  Macedonia,  viz.  ilpon  Titus's  coming  out  of  Greece. 
In  the  quotation  before  us,  he  tells  the  Corinthians — '  When  I  came  to  Troas,  I  had 
no  rest  in  my  spirit,  because  I  found  not  Titus,  my  brother;  but,  taking  my  leave  of 
them,  I  went  from  thence  into  Macedonia.'  Then  in  the  seventh  chapter  he  writes 
— '  When  we  were  come  into  Macedonia,  our  flesh  had  no  rest,  but  we  were  troubled 
on  every  side;  without  were  fightings,  within  were  fears;  nevertheless,  God,  that 
comforteth  them  that  are  cast  down,  comforted  us  by  the  coming  of  Titus.'  These 
two  passages  plainly  relate  to  the  same  journey  of  Titus,  in  meeting  with  whom  St. 
Paul  had  been  disappointed  at  Troas,  and  rejoiced  in  Macedonia.  And  amongst 
other  reasons  which  fix  the  former  passage  to  the  coming  of  Titus  out  of  Greece,  is 
the  consideration,  that  it  was  nothing  to  the  Corinthians  that  St.  Paul  did  not  meet 
with  Titus  at  Troas,  were  it  not  that  he  was  to  bring  intelligence  from  Corinth.  The 
mention  of  the  disappointment  in  this  place,  upon  any  other  supposition,  is  irrela- 
tive."   (Paley's  Hor.  Paul.  2  Cor.  No.  VIII.) 

SECOND  JOURNEY  TO  CORINTH. 

Among  his  companions  in  Macedonia,  was  Timothy,  his  ever 
zealous  and  affectionate  assistant  in  the  apostolic  ministry,  who 
had  been  sent  thither  before  him  to  prepare  the  way,  and  had  been 
laboring  in  that  region  ever  since,  as  plainly  appears  from  the  fact, 
that  he  is  joined  with  Paul  in  the  opening  address  of  the  second 
epistle  to  the  Corinthians, — a  circumstance  in  itself  sufficient  to 
overthrow  a  very  common  supposition  of  the  critics, — that  Timo- 
thy returned  to  Asia ;  that  Paul  at  that  time  "  left  him  in  Ephe- 
sus," and  at  this  time  wrote  his  first  epistle  to  Timothy  from  Ma- 
cedonia.    It  is  also  most  probable  that  Timothy  was  the  personal 


688  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

companion  of  Paul,  not  only  during  the  whole  period  of  his  se- 
cond ministration  in  Macedonia,  but  also  accompanied  him  from 
that  province  to  Corinth;  because  Timothy  is  distinctly  mentioned 
by  Luke,  among  those  who  went  with  Paul  from  Macedonia  to 
Asia,  after  his  brief  second  residence  in  that  city.  No  particulars 
whatever  are  given  by  Luke  of  the  labors  of  Paul  in  Corinth. 
From  his  epistles,  however,  it  is  learned  that  he  was  at  this  time 
occupied  in  part,  in  receiving  the  contributions  made  throughout 
Achaia  for  the  church  of  Jerusalem,  to  which  city  he  was  now  pre- 
paring to  go.  The  difficulties,  of  which  so  much  mention  had 
been  made  in  his  epistles,  were  now  entirely  removed,  and  his 
work  there  doubtless  went  on  without  any  of  that  opposition  which 
had  arisen  after  his  first  departure.  There  is,  however,  one  very 
important  fact  in  his  literary  history,  which  took  place  in  Corinth, 
during  his  residence  there. 

THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  ROMANS. 

From  the  very  earliest  period  of  apostolic  labor,  after  the  ascen- 
sion, there  appear  to  have  been  in  Rome  some  Jews  who  professed 
the  faith  of  Jesus.  Among  the  visiters  in  Jerusalem  at  the  Pente- 
cost, when  the  Holy  Spirit  first  descended,  were  some  from  Rome, 
who  sharing  in  the  gifts  of  that  remarkable  effusion,  and  returning 
to  their  home  in  the  imperial  city,  would  there  in  themselves  consti- 
tute the  rudiment  of  a  Christian  church.  It  is  perfectly  certain  that 
they  had  never  been  blessed  in  their  own  city  with  the  personal  pre- 
sence of  an  apostle ;  and  all  their  associated  action  as  a  Christian 
church,  must  therefore  have  been  entirely  the  result  of  a  voluntary 
organization,  suggested  by  the  natural  desire  to  keep  up  and  to 
spread  the  doctrines  which  they  had  first  received  in  Jerusalem, 
under  such  remarkable  circumstances.  Yet  the  members  of  the 
church  would  be  not  merely  those  who  were  converted  at  the  Pen- 
tecost ;  for  there  was  a  constant  influx  of  Jews  from  all  parts  of  the 
world  to  Rome,  and  among  these  there  would  naturally  be  some  who 
had  participated  in  the  light  of  the  gospel,  now  so  widely  diffused 
throughout  the  eastern  section  of  the  world.  There  is,  moreover, 
distinct  information  of  certain  persons,  of  high  qualifications  as 
Christian  teachers,  who  had  at  Rome  labored  in  the  cause  of  the 
gospel,  and  had  no  doubt  been  among  the  most  efficient  means  of 
that  advancement  of  the  Roman  church,  which  seems  to  be  implied 
in  the  communication  now  first  made  to  them  by  Paul.  Aquilas 
and  Priscilla,  who  had  been  the  intimate  friends  of  Paul  at  Corinth, 
and  who  had  been  already  so  active  and  distinguished  as  laborers  in 
the  gospel  cause,  both  in  that  city  and  in  Ephesus,  had  returned  to 
Rome  on  the  death  of  Claudius,  when  that  emperor's  foolish  decree 
of  banishment,  against  the  Jews,  expired  along  with  its  author,  in 


PAUL.  589 

the  year  of  Christ,  54.  These,  on  re-establishing  their  residence  in 
Rome,  made  their  own  house  a  place  of  assembly  for  a  part  of  the 
Christians  in  the  capital, — probably  for  such  as  resided  in  their  own 
immediate  neighborhood,  while  others  sought  different  places,  ac- 
cording as  suited  their  convenience  in  this  particular.  Many  other 
persons  are  mentioned  by  Paul  at  the  close  of  this  epistle,  as  having 
been  active  in  the  work  of  the  gospel  at  Rome  ; — among  whom  An- 
dronicus  and  Junias  are  particularly  noticed  with  respec-t,  as  having 
highly  distinguished  themselves  in  apostolic  labors.  From  all  these 
evangelizing  efforts,  the  church  of  Rome  attained  great  importance, 
and  was  now  in  great  need  of  the  counsels  and  presence  of  an  apos- 
tle, to  confirm  it,  and  impart  to  its  members  spiritual  gifts.  It  had 
long  been  an  object  of  attention  and  interest  to  Paul,  and  he  had 
already  expressed  a  determination  to  visit  the  imperial  city,  in  tVie 
remarks  which  he  made  to  the  brethren  at  Ephesus,  when  he  was 
making  arrangements  to  go  into  Macedonia  and  Achaia.  The  way 
was  afterwards  opened  for  this  visit,  by  a  very  peculiar  providence, 
which  he  does  not  seem  to  have  then  anticipated ;  but  while  residing 
in  Corinth,  his  attention  being  very  particularly  called  to  their  spi- 
ritual condition,  he  could  not  wait  till  he  should  have  an  opportunity 
to  see  them  personally,  to  counsel  them  ;  but  wrote  to  them  this  very 
copious  and  elaborate  epistle,  which  seems  to  have  been  the  subject 
of  more  comment  among  dogmatic  theologians,  than  almost  any 
other  portion  of  his  writings,  on  account  of  its  being  supposed  to  fur- 
nish different  polemic  writers  with  the  most  important  arguments  for 
the  peculiar  dogmas  of  one  or  another,  according  to  the  fancy  of 
each.  It  undoubtedly  is  the  most  doctrinal  and  didactic  of  all  Paul's 
epistles,  alluding  very  little  to  local  circumstances,  which  are  the 
theme  of  so  large  a  part  of  most  of  his  writings,  but  attacking  di- 
rectly certain  general  errors  entertained  by  the  Jews,  on  the  subject 
of  justification,  predestination,  election,  and  many  peculiar  privileges 
which  they  attributed  to  themselves  as  the  descendents  of  Abraham. 
This  epistle,  like  most  of  the  rest,  was  written  by  an  amanuensis, 
who  is  herein  particularly  named,  as  Tertius, — a  word  of  Roman 
origin ;  but  beyond  this  nothing  else  is  known  of  him.  It  was  car- 
ried to  Rome  by  Phebe,  an  active  female  member  of  the  church  at 
Cenchreae,  the  port  of  Corinth,  who  happened  to  be  journeying  to 
Rome  for  some  other  purposes,  and  is  earnestly  recommended  by 
Paul  to  the  friendly  regard  of  the  «hurch  there. 

RETURN  TO  ASIA. 

After  passing  three  months  in  Corinth,  he  took  his  departure 
from  that  city  on  his  pre-determined  voyage  to  the  east,  the  direc- 
tion of  which  was  somewhat  changed  by  the  information  that  the 
Jews  of  the  place  where  he  then  was,  were  plotting  some  mischief 
against  him,  which  he  thought  best  to  avoid  by  taking  a  different 


590  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

route  from  that  before  planned,  which  was  a  direct  voyage  to  Syria. 
To  escape  the  danger  prepared  for  him  by  them,  at  his  expected 
place  of  embarkation,  he  first  turned  northward  by  land,  through 
Macedonia  to  Philippi,  and  thence  sailed  by  the  now  familiar  track 
over  the  Aegean  to  Troas.  On  this  journey,  he  was  accompanied 
by  quite  a  retinue  of  apostolic  assistants, — not  only  his  faithful 
disciple  and  companion  Timothy,  but  also  Sosipater  of  Beroea, 
Aristarchus  and  Secundus  of  Thessalonica,  Gaius,  or  Caius  of 
Derbe,  and  Luke  also,  who  now  carries  on  the  apostolic  narrative 
in  the  first  person,  thus  showing  that  he  was  himself  a  sharer  in 
the  adventures  which  he  narrates.  Besides  these  immediate  com- 
panions, two  brethren  from  Asia,  Tychicus  and  Trophimus,  took 
the  direct  route  from  Corinth  to  Troas,  at  which  place  they  waited 
for  the  rest  of  the  apostolic  company,  who  took  the  circuitous 
route  through  Macedonia.  The  date  of  the  departure  of  Paul  is 
very  exactly  fixed  by  his  companion  Luke,  who  states  that  they 
left  Philippi  at  the  time  of  the  passover,  which  was  in  the  middle 
of  March;  and  other  circumstances  have  enabled  modern  critics 
to  fix  the  occurrence  in  the  year  of  Christ  59.  After  a  five  days' 
voyage,  arriving  at  Troas  on  Saturday,  they  made  a  stay  of  seven 
days  in  that  place;  and  on  the  first  day  of  the  week,  the  Chris- 
tians of  that  place  having  assembled  for  the  communion  usual  on 
the  Lord's  day,  Paul  preached  to  them;  and  as  it  was  the  last  day 
of  his  stay,  he  grew  very  earnest  in  his  discourse  and  protracted 
it  very  late,  speaking  two  whole  hours  to  the  company,  who  were 
met  in  the  great  upper  hall,  where,  in  all  Jewish  houses,  thes*?  fes- 
tal entertainments  and  social  meetings  were  always  held.  It  was, 
of  course,  the  evening,  when  the  assembly  met,  for  this  was  the 
usual  time  for  a  social  party,  and  there  were  many  lights  in  the 
room,  which,  with  the  number  of  people,  must  have  made  the  air 
very  warm,  and  had  the  not  very  surprising  effect  of  causing  drow- 
siness, in  at  least  one  of  Paul's  hearers,  a  young  man  named  Eu- 
tychus,  whose  interest  in  what  was  said,  could'  not  keep  his  atten- 
tion alive  against  the  pressure  o^  drowsiness.  He  fell  asleep;  and 
slipping  over  the  side  of  the  gallery,  in  the  third  loft,  fell  into  the 
court  below,  where  he  was  taken  up  lifeless.  But  Paul,  hearing 
of  the  accident,  stopped  his  discourse,  and  going  down  to  the 
young  man,  fell  on  him  and  embraced  him,  saying — "  Trouble  not 
yourselves,  for  the  life  is  in  him."  And  his  words  were  verified 
by  the  result ;  for  they  soon  brought  him  up  alive,  and  were  not 
a  little  comforted.     Paul,  certain  of  his  recovery,  did  not  suffer 


PAUL.  691 

the  accident  to  mar  the  enjoyment  of  the  social  farewell  meeting ; 
but  going  up  and  breaking  bread  with  them  all,  talked  with  them 
a  long  time,  passing  the  whole  night  in  this  pleasant  way,  and  did 
not  leave  them  till  day-break,  when  he  started  to  go  by  land  over 
to  Assos,  about  twenty-four  miles  southeast  of  Troas,  on  the  Adra- 
myttian  gulf,  which  sets  up  between  the  north  side  of  the  island 
of  Lesbos  and  the  mainland.  His  companions,  coming  around  by 
water,  through  the  rnouth  of  the  gulf,  took  Paul  on  board  at  Assos, 
according  to  his  plan ;  and  then,  instead  of  turning  back,  and  sail- 
ing out  into  the  open  sea,  around  the  outside  of  Lesbos,  ran  up 
the  gulf  to  the  eastern  end  of  the  north  coast  of  the  island,  where 
there  is  another  outlet  to  the  gulf,  between  the  eastern  shore  of 
Lesbos  and  the  continent.  Sailing  southward  through  this  passage, 
after  a  course  of  between  thirty  and  forty  miles,  they  came  to  Mity- 
lene,  on  the  southeastern  side  of  the  island.  Thence  passing  out 
of  the  strait,  they  sailed  southwestward,  coming  between  Chios  and 
the  mainland,  and  arrived  the  next  day  at  Trogyllium,  at  the 
southwest  corner  of  Samos.  Then  turning  their  course  towards 
the  continent,  they  came  in  one  day  to  Miletus,  near  the  mouth  of 
the  Maeander,  about  forty  miles  south  of  Ephesus. 

Landing  here,  and  desiring  much  to  see  some  of  his  Ephesian 
brethren  before  his  departure  to  Jerusalem,  he  sent  to  the  elders 
of  the  church  in  that  city,  and  on  their  arrival  poured  out  his 
whole  soul  to  them  in  a  parting  address,  wliich  for  pathetic  ear- 
nestness and  touching  beauty,  is  certainly,  beyond  any  doubt,  the 
most  splendid  passage  that  all  the  recoixis  of  ancient  eloquence  can 
furnish.  No  force  can  be  added  to  it  by  a  new  version,  nor  can 
any  recapitulation  of  its  substance  do  justice  to  its  beauty.  At 
the  close,  took  place  a  most  affecting  farewell.  In  the  simple  and 
forcible  description  of  Luke,  (who  was  himself  present  at  the 
moving  scene,  seeing  and  hearing  all  he  narrates,) — "  When  Paul 
had  thus  spoken,  he  kneeled  down  and  prayed  with  them  all." 
The  subjects  of  this  prayer  were  the  guardians  of  that  little  flock 
which  he,  amid  perils  and  death,  had  gathered  from  the  heathen 
waste  of  Ionic  Asia  to  the  fold  of  Christ.  When  he  left  it  last, 
the  raging  wolves  of  persecution  and  wrath, — the  wild  beasts  of 
Ephesus, — were  howling  death  and  destruction  to  the  devoted  be- 
lievers of  Christ,  and  they  were  still  environed  with  temptations 
and  dangei-s,  that  threatened  to  overwhelm  these  feeble  ones,  left 
thus  early  without  the  fostering  care  of  their  apostolic  shepherd. 
Passing  on  his  way  to  the  great  scene  of  his  coming  trials,  he 


5^2 


LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 


could  not  venture  among  them  to  give  them  his  parting  counsels, 
and  could  now  only  intrust  to  their  constituted  guardians,  this  dear 
charge,  with  renewed  exhortations  to  them  to  be  faithful,  as  in  the 
presence  of  their  God,  to  those  objects  of  his  labors,  his  cares,  his 
prayers,  and  his  daily  tears.  Amid  the  sorrows  of  that  long  fare- 
well, arose  on  the  prophetic  vision  of  the  apostle  some  gloomy 
foreshadowings  of  future  woes  to  fall  on  that  Ephesian  charge ; 
and  this  deepened  the  melancholy  feeling  of  his  heart  almost  to 
agony.  This  no  doubt  was  the  burden  of  his  last  prayer,  when 
with  their  elders,  and  for  them,  he  kneeled  down  on  the  shore,  and 
sent  up  in  earnest  petition  to  God,  that  voice  which  they  were 
doomed  to  hear  no  more  for  ever. 

Such  passages  as  this  in  the  life  and  words  of  Paul,  constitute 
a  noble  addition  to  the  reader's  idea  of  his  character.  They  show 
how  nobly  were  intermingled  in  the  varied  frame  of  his  spirit,  the 
affectionate,  the  soft,  and  the  winning  traits,  with  the  high,  the 
stern,  the  harsh,  and  the  bitter  feelings,  that  so  often  were  called 
out  by  the  unparalleled  trials  of  his  situation.  They  show  that 
he  truly  felt  and  acted  out,  to  the  life,  that  divine  principle  of 
Christian  love  which  inspired  the  most  eloquent  effort  of  his  pen ; 
— and  that  he  trusted  not  to  the  wonder-working  powers  that 
moved  his  lips,  as  with  the  eloquence  of  men  and  angels, — not  to 
the  martyr-spirit,  that,  sacrificing  all  earthly  substance,  devoted  it- 
self to  the  raging  flames  of  persecution,  in  the  cause  of  God, — not 
to  the  genius  whose  discursive  glance  searched  all  the  mysteries 
of  human  and  divine  knowledge, — but  to  that  pure,  exalted,  and 
exalting  spirit  of  ardent  love  for  those  for  whom  he  lived  like  his 
Savior,  and  for  whom  he  was  ready  to  die  like  him,  also.  This 
was  the  inspiration  of  his  words,  his  writings,  and  his  actions, — 
the  motive  and  spirit  of  his  devotion, — the  energy  of  his  being. 
Wherever  he  went,  and  whatever  he  did, — in  spite  of  the  frequent 
outbreaks  of  his  rougher  and  fiercer  nature,  this  honest,  fervent, 
animated  spirit  of  charity, — glowing  not  to  inflame,  but  to  melt, — 
softened  the  austerities  of  his  character,  and  kindled  in  all  who 
truly  knew  him,  a  deep  and  lasting  affection  for  him,  like  that 
which  was  so  strikingly  manifested  on  this  occasion.  Who  can 
wonder  that  to  a  man  thus  constituted,  the  lingering  Ephesians 
still  clung  with  such  enthusiastic  attachment  ?  In  the  fervid  ac- 
tion of  that  Oriental  clime,  they  fell  on  his  neck  and  kissed  him, 
sorrowing  most  of  all  for  the  words  which  he  said. — that  they 
should  see  his  face  no  more.     Still  loth  to  take  their  last  look  at 


PAUL.  693 

« 

one  so  loved,  they  accompanied  him  to  the  ship,  which  bore  him 
away  from  them,  to  perils,  sufferings,  and  chains, — perhaps  to 
death, 

"  Assos  was  a  sea-port  town,  situated  on  the  southwest  part  of  the  province  of 
Troas,  and  over  against  the  island  Lesbos.  By  land  it  is  much  nearer  Troas  than 
by  sea,  because  of  a  promontory  that  runs  a  great  way  into  the  sea,  and  must  be 
doubled  to  come  to  Assos,  which  was  perhaps  the  reason  that  the  apostle  chose  rather 
to  walk  it." 

"  MUylcne  (ch.  xx.  ver.  14)  was  one  of  the  principal  cities  in  the  island  of  Lesbos, 
situated  on  a  peninsula  with  a  commodious  haven  on  each  side ;  the  whole  island  was 
also  called  by  that  name,  as  well  as  Pentapolis,  from  the  five  cities  in  it,  viz.,  Issa  or 
Antissa,  Pyrrhe,  Eressos,  Arisba,  and  Mitylene.  It  is  at  present  calle:i  Metclin. 
The  island  is  one  of  the  largest  in  the  Archipelago,  and  was  renowned  for  the  many 
eminent  persons  it  produced;  such  as  Sappho,  the  inventress  of  Sapphic  verses, — 
Alcaeus,  a  famous  Lyric  poet, — Pittacus,  one  of  the  seven  wise  men  of  Greece, — 
Theophrastus,  the  noble  physician  and  philosopher, — and  Arion  the  celebrated  musi- 
cian. It  is  now  in  the  po.ssession  of  the  Turks.  As  mentioned  by  St.  Luke,  it  may 
be  understood  either  the  island  or  the  citv  itself." 

"Chios  (ver.  15)  was  an  island  in  the  Archipelago,  next  to  Lesbos,  both  as  to  situa- 
tion and  size.  It  lies  over  against  Smyrna,  and  is  not  above  four  leagues  distant 
from  the  Asiatic  continent.  JELorace  and  Martial  celebrate  it  for  the  wine  and  figs 
that  it  produced.     It  is  now  renowned  for  producin?  the  best  mastic  in  the  world. 

"  Sir  Paul  Ricaur,  in  his  '  Present  Stale  of  the  Greek  Church,'  tells  us,  that  there 
is  no  place  in  the  Turkish  dominions  where  Christians  enjoy  more  freedom  in  their 
religion  and  estates  than  in  this  island,  to  which  they  are  entitled  by  an  ancient  ca- 
pitulation made  with  Sultan  Muhammed. 

"  Samos  (ver.  15)  was  another  island  of  the  Archipelago,  lying  southeast  of  Chios, 
and  about  five  miles  from  the  Asiatic  continent.  It  was  famous  among  heathen 
writers  for  the  worship  of  Juno;  for  one  of  the  Sibyls  called  Sibylla  Samiana;  for 
Pherecydes,  who  foretold  an  earthquake  that  happened  there,  by  drinking  of  the 
waters;  and  more  especially  for  the  birth  of  Pythagoras.  It  was  formerly  a  free 
commonwealth;  at  present,  the  Turks  have  reduced  it  to  a  mean  and  depopulated 
condition;  so  that  ever  since  the  year  1676,  no  Turk  has  ventured  to  live  on  it,  on 
account  of  its  being  frequented  by  pirates,  who  carry  all  whom  they  take  into  cap- 
tivity." 

"  Trogyllmm  (ver.  15)  is  a  promontory  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Mycale,  opposite  to, 
and  five  iniles  from  Samos:  there  was  also  a  town  there  of  the  same  name,  mentioned 
by  Pliny,  Lib.  v.  c.  29.  p.  295." 

"  Miletus,  (ver.  15,)  a  sea-port  town  on  the  continent  of  Asia  Minor,  and  in  the 
province  of  Caria,  memorable  for  being  the  birth-place  of  Thales,  one  of  the  seven 
wise  men  of  Greece,  and  father  of  the  Ionic  philosophy ;  of  Anaximander,  his  scholar ; 
Timotheus,  the  musician ;  and  Anaximenes,  the  philosopher.  It  is  called  now,  by 
the  Turks,  Melas;  and  not  far  distant  from  it  is  the  true  Meander.  (Whitby's  Table 
and  Well's  Geog.  quoted  by  Williams  on  Pearson,  pp.  66,  67.) 

Tearing  himself  thus  from  the  embraces  of  his  Ephesian  bre- 
thren, Paul  sailed  off  to  the  southward,  hurrying  on  to  Jerusalem, 
in  order  to  reach  there,  if  possible,  before  the  Pentecost.  After 
leaving  Miletus,  the  apostolic  company  made  a  straight  course  to 
Coos,  and  then  rounding  the  great  northwestern  angle  of  Asia 
Minor,  turned  eastwardly  to  Rhodes,  and  passing  probably  through 
the  strait,  between  that  island  and  the  continent,  landed  at  Patara, 
a  town  on  the  coast  of  Lycia,  which  was  the  destination  of  their 
first  vessel.  They  therefore  at  this  place  engaged  a  passage  in  a 
vessel  bound  to  Tyre,  and  holding  on  southeastward,  came  next 
in  sight  of  Cyprus^  which  they  passed,  leaving  it  on  the  left,  and 


694  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

then  steering  straight  for  the  Syrian  coast,  landed  at  Tyre,  where 
their  vessel  was  to  unlade ;  so  that  they  were  detained  here  for  a 
whole  week,  which  they  passed  in  the  company  of  some  Christian 
brethren  who  constituted  a  church  there.  These  Tyrian  disciples 
hearing  of  Paul's  plan  to  visit  Jerusalem,  and  knowing  the  dan- 
gers to  which  he  would  there  be  exposed  by  the  deadly  hate  of  the 
Jews,  were  very  urgent  with  him  against  his  journey ;  but  he  still 
resolutely  held  on  his  course,  as  soon  as  a  passage  could  be  pro- 
cured, and  bade  them  farewell,  with  prayer  on  the  shore,  to  which 
the  brethren  accompanied  him  with  their  women  and  children. 
Standing  off  from  the  shore,  they  then  sailed  on  south,  to  Ptole- 
mais,  where  they  spent  a  day  with  the  Christians  in  that  place, 
and  then  re-embarking,  and  passing  round  the  promontory  of  Car- 
mel,  reached  Caesarea,  where  their  sea-voyage  terminated.  Here 
they  passed  several  days  in  the  house  of  Philip  the  evangelist,  one 
of  the  seven  deacons,  who  had  four  daughters  that  were  prophet- 
esses. While  they  were  resting  themselves  in  this  truly  religious 
family,  from  the  fatigues  of  their  long  voyage,  they  were  visited  by 
Agabus,  a  prophet  from  Jerusalem, — the  same  who  had  formerly 
visited  Antioch  when  Paul  was  there,  and  who  had  then  foretold 
the  coming  famine,  which  threatened  all  the  world.  This  remark- 
able man  predicted  to  Paul  the  misfortunes  which  awaited  him  in 
Jerusalem.  In  the  solemnly  impressive  dramatic  action  of  the  an- 
cient prophets,  he  took  Paul's  girdle,  and  binding  his  own  hands 
with  it,  said — "  Thus  says  the  Holy  Spirit,  '  So  shall  the  Jews  at 
Jerusalem  bind  the  man  that  owns  this  girdle,  and  shall  deliver 
him  to  the  Gentiles.'  "  On  hearing  this  melancholy  announce- 
ment, all  the  companions  of  Paul  and  the  Christians  of  Caesarea, 
united  in  beseeching  Paul  to  give  up  his  purpose  of  visiting  Jeru- 
salem. But  he,  resolute  against  all  entreaty,  declared  himself  ready 
not  only  to  be  bound,  but  to  die  in  Jerusalem  for  the  Lord  Jesus. 
And  when  they  found  that  he  would  not  be  persuaded,  they  all 
ceased  to  harass  him  with  their  supplications,  and  resigned  him  to 
Providence,  saying — "  The  will  of  the  Lord  be  done,"  They  then 
all  took  carriages,  and  rode  up  to  Jerusalem,  accompanied  by  some 
brethren  from  Caesarea,  and  by  Mnason,  an  old  believer,  formerly 
of  Cyprus,  but  now  of  Jerusalem,  who  had  engaged  them  as  his 
guests  in  that  city. 

"  Coos,  (ch.  xxi.  ver.  1,)  an  island  in  the  Aegean  or  Icarian  sea,  near  Mnydos  and 
Cnidus,  which  had  a  city  of  the  same  name,  from  which  Hippocrates,  the  celebrated 
physician,  and  Apelles,  the  famous  painter,  were  called  Coi.    Here  was  a  large  tern- 


i^AUL.  596 

pie  of  Aesculapius,  and  another  of  Juno.  It  abounded  in  rich  wines,  and  is  very 
often  uienlioned  by  I  he  classic  poets."    (Whitby's  Alphab.  Table.) 

Witsius  very  absurdly  detines'the  situation  of  this  island  by  saying  that  it  is  "near 
Crete." — "Coos,  quae  maris  Medilerranei  insula  est  prope  Crelam."  Jt  is  in  the 
Aegean  sea  properly,  and  iwt  in  ihe  Mediterranean;  and  can  not  be  less  than  one 
hundred  and  twenty  miles  from  Crete,  much  farther  off  from  it  than  is  Rhodes, — the 
next  island  in  Paul's  route,  and  there  are  many  islands  between  Coos  and  Ci'ete,  so 
that  the  statement  gives  no  just  idea  of  the  situation  of  the  island.  It  would  be  as 
proper  to  say  that  Barbadoes  is  7icar  Cuba,  or  the  Isle  of  Man  7icar  France. 

"  Bh-odes,  (ver.  I,)  an  island,  supposed  to  have  taken  its  name  {and  tmv  'Po'Jwc)  from 
the  many  roses  which  were  known  to  grow  there.  It  lies  south  of  the  province  of 
Caria,  and  it  is  accounted  next  to  Cyprus  and  Le.sbos  for  its  dignity  among  the  Asiatic 
islands.  It  was  remarkable  among  the  ancients  for  the  expertness  of  its  inhabitants 
in  navigation;  for  a  college,  in  which  the  students  were  eminent  for  eloquence  and 
mathematics;  and  for  the  clearness  of  its  air,  insomuch  that  there  was  not  a  day  in 
which  the  sun  did  not  shine  upon  it^  and  more  especially  celebrated  for  its  prodigious 
statue  of  brass,  consecrated  especially  to  the  sun,  and  called  his  Colossus.  This 
statue  was  seventy  cubits  high,  and  every  finger  as  large  as  an  ordinary  sized  man, 
and  as  it  stood  astride  over  the  mouth  of  the  harbor,  ships  pa.ssed  under  its  legs." 
(Whitby's  Table  and  Wells's  Geog.  quoted  by  Williams  on  Pearson,  pp.  67,  68.) 

LAST  VISIT  TO  JERUSALEM. 

Paul  was  now  received  in  Jerusalem  by  the  brethren  with  great 
joy,  and  going,  on  the  day  after  his  arrivai,  to  see  James,  now  the 
principal  apostle  resident  in  the  Holy  city,  communicated  to  him 
and  all  the  elders  a  full  account  of  all  his  various  labors.  Having 
heard  his  very  interesting  communications,  they  were  moved  with 
gratitude  to  God  for  this  triumph  of  his  grace ;  but  knowing  as 
they  did,  with  what  rumors  against  Paul  these  events  had  been 
connected  by  common  fame,  they  desired  to  arrange  his  introduc- 
tion to  the  temple  in  such  a  manner  as  would  most  effectually  si- 
lence these  prejudicial  stories.  The  plan  proposed  by  them  was, 
that  he  should,  in  the  company  of  four  Jews  of  the  Christian  faith, 
who  had  a  vow  on  them,  go  through  with  all  the  usual  forms  of 
purification  prescribed  under  such  circumstances  for  a  Jew,  on  re- 
turning from  the  daily  impurities  to  which  he  was  exposed  by 
a  residence  among  the  Gentiles,  to  a  participation  in  the  holy 
services  of  solemn  worship  in  the  temple.  The  apostles  and  elders, 
however,  in  recommending  this  course,  declared  to  him,  that  they 
believed  that  the  Gentiles  ought  not  to  be  bound  to  the  perform- 
ance of  the  Jewish  rituals,  but  should  be  exempt  from  all  restric- 
tions, except  such  as  had  formerly  been  decided  on  by  the  council 
of  Jei-usaiem.  Paul,  always  devout  and  exact  in  the  observance  of 
the  institutions  of  his  national  religion,  followed  their  advice  ac- 
cordingly, and  went  on  quietly  and  unpretendingly  in  the  regular 
performance  of  the  prescribed  ceremonies,  waiting  for  the  termi- 
nation of  the  seven  days  of  purification,  when  the  offering  should 
be  made  for  himself,  and  one  for  each  of  his  companions,  after 


596  LIVES   OP  THE   APOSTLES. 

which,  they  v/ere  all  to  be  admitted,  of  coarse,  to  the  full  honors 
of  Mosaic  purity,  and  the  religious  privileges  of  conforming  Jews. 
But  these  ritual  observances  were  not  destined  to  save  him  from 
the  calamities  to  which  the  hatred  of  his  enemies  had  devoted  him. 
Near  the  close  of  the  seven  days  allotted  by  the  Mosaic  ritual  for 
the  purification  of  a  regenerated  Israelite,  some  of  the  Asian  .Tews, 
who  had  known  Paul  in  his  missionary  journeys  through  their 
own  country,  and  who  had  come  to  Jerusalem  to  attend  the  festi- 
val, seeing  their  old  enemy  in  the  midst  of  the  temple,  against 
whose  worship  they  had  understood  him  to  have  been  preaching 
to  the  Gentiles,— instantly  raised  a  great  outcry,  and  fell  upon  him, 
dragging  him  along,  and  shouting  to  the  multitude  around — "  Men 
of  Israel !  help !  This  is  the  man  that  everywhere  teaches  all  men 
against  the  people,  and  the  law,  and  this  place ;  and  he  lias,  fur- 
thermore, brought  Greeks  into  the  temple,  and  has  polluted  this 
holy  place."  It  seems  they  had  seen  Trophimus,  one  of  his  Gen- 
tile companions  from  Ephesus,  with  him  in  the  city,  and  imagined 
also  that  Paul  had  brought  him  into  the  temple,  within  the  sanc- 
tuary, whose  entrance  was  expressly  forbidden  to  all  Gentiles,  who 
were  never  allowed  to  pass  beyond  the  outermost  court.  The 
sanctuary  or  court  of  the  Jews  could  not  be  crossed  by  an  uncir- 
cumcised  Gentile,  and  the  transgression  of  the  holy  limit  was 
punished  with  death.  Within  this  holy  court,  the  scene  now  de- 
scribed took  place,  and  as  the  whole  sanctuary  was  then  crowded 
with  Jews,  who  had  come  from  all  parts  of  the  world  to  attend  the 
festival  in  Jerusalem,  the  outcry  raised  against  Paul  im.mediately 
drew  thronging  thousands  around  him.  Hearing  the  complaint 
that  he  was  a  renegade  Jew,  who,  in  other  countries,  had  used  his 
utmost  endeavors  to  throw  contempt  on  his  own  nation,  and  to 
bring  their  holy  worship  into  disrepute,  and  yet  had  now  the  im- 
pudence to  show  himself  in  the  sanctuary,  which  he  had  thus 
blasphemed, — and  ^ad,  moreover,  even  profaned  it  by  introducing 
into  the  sacred  precincts  one  of  those  Gentiles  for  whose  company 
he  had  forsaken  the  fellowship  of  Israel, — they  all  joined  in  the 
rush  upon  him,  and  dragged  him  out  of  the  temple,  the  gates  of 
which  were  immediately  shut  by  the  Levites  on  duty,  lest  in  the 
riot  that  was  expected  to  ensue,  the  consecrated  pavement  should 
be  polluted  with  the  blood  of  the  renegade.  Not  only  those  in  the 
temple,  but  also  those  in  the  city,  were  called  out  by  the  disturb- 
ance, and  came  running  together  to  join  in  the  mob  against  the 


PAUL.  597 

profaner  of  the  sanctuary ;  and  Paul  now  seemed  in  a  fair  way  to 

win  the  bloody  crown  of  martyrdom. 

The  great  noise  made  by  the  swarming  multitudes  who  were 
gathering  around  Paul,  soon  reached  the  ears  of  the  Roman  gar- 
rison in  Castle  Antonia,  and  the  soldiers  instantly  hastened  to  tell 
the  commanding  ofticer,  that  "  the  whole  city  was  in  an  uproar." 
The  tribune,  Claudius  Lysias,  probably  thinking  of  a  rebellion 
against  the  Romans,  instantly  ordered  a  detachment  of  several 
companies  under  arms,  and  hurried  down  with  them,  in  a  few  mo- 
ments, to  the  scene  of  the  riot.  The  mob  meanwhile  were  dili- 
gently occupied  in  beating  Paul ;  but  as  soon  as  the  military  force 
made  their  way  among  the  crowd,  the  rioters  left  off  beating  him, 
and  fell  back.  The  tribune  coming  near,  and  seeing' Paul  alone 
in  the  midst,  who  seemed  to  be  the  object  and  occasion  of  all  the 
disturbance,  without  hesitation  seized  him,  and  putting  him  in 
chains,  took  him  out  of  the  throng.  He  then  demanded  what  all 
this  riot  meant.  To  his  inquiry,  tlie  whole  mob  replied  with  va- 
rious accounts ;  some  cried  one  thing,  and  some  another ;  and  the 
tribune  finding  it  utterly  impossible  to  learn  from  the  rioters  who 
he  was  or  what  he  had  done,  ordered  him  to  be  taken  up  to  the 
castle.  Castle  Antonia  stood  at  the  northwestern  angle  of  the  tem- 
ple, close  by  one  of  the  great  colonnades,  in  whi<^  the  riot  seems 
to  have  taken  place.  To  this,  Paul  was  now  taken,  and  was  borne 
by  the  surrounding  soldiers,  to  keep  off  the  multitude,  who  were 
raging  for  his  blood,  like  hungry  wolves  after  the  prey  snatched 
from  their  jaws, — and  they  all  pressed  after  him,  shouting — "  kill 
him !"  In  this  way  Paul  was  carried  up  the  stairs  which  led  to 
the  high  entrance  of  the  castle,  which,  of  course,  the  soldiers  would 
not  allow  the  multitude  to  mount ;  and  when  he  had  reached  the 
top  of  the  stairs,  he  was  therefore  perfectly  protected  from  their 
violence,  though  perfectly  well  situated  for  speaking  to  them,  so  as 
to  be  distinctly  seen  and  heard.  As  they  were  taking  him  up  the 
stairs,  he  begged  the  attention  of  the  tribune,  saying — "  May  I 
speak  to  thee?"  The  tribune  hearing  this,  in  some  surprise  asked 
— "  Canst  thou  speak  Greek  ?  Art  thou  not  that  Egyptian  that 
raised  a  sedition  some  time  ago,  and  led  away  into  the  wilderness 
a  band  of  four  thousand  cut-throats  ?"  This  alarming  revolt  had 
been  but  lately  put  down  with  great  trouble,  and  was  therefore 
fresh  in  the  mind  of  Lysias,  who  had  been  concerned  in  quelling 
it,  along  with  the  whole  Roman  force  in  Palestine, — and  from  some 
of  the  outcries  of  the  mob,  he  now  took  up  the  notion  that  Paul 


698  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

was  the  very  ringleader  of  that  revolt,  and  had  now  just  returned 
from  his  place  of  refuge  to  make  new  trouble,  and  had  been  de- 
tected by  the  multitude  in  the  temple.  Paul  answered  the  foolish 
accusation,  of  the  tribune,  by  saying — "  I  am  a  Jewish  citizen  of 
Tarsus,  in  Cilicia,  which  is  no  mean  city ;  and  I  beg  of  thee,  to 
let  me  speak  to  the  people."  The  tribune,  quite  glad  to  have  his 
unpleasant  suspicions  removed,  as  an  atonement  for  the  unjust  ac- 
cusation, immediately  granted  the  permission  as  requested,  and  Paul 
therefore  turned  to  the  raging  multitude,  waving  his  hand  in  the 
usual  gesture  for  requesting  silence.  The  people,  curious  to  hear 
his  account  of  himself,  listened  accordingly,  and  he  therefore  up- 
lifted his  voice  in  a  respectful  request  for  their  attention  to  his  plea 
in  his  own  behalf  "  Men  !  Brethren  !  and  Fathers  !  Hear  ye  ray 
defence  which  I  make  to  you  !" 

Those  words  were  spoken  in  the  vernacular  language  of  Pales- 
tine, the  true  Hebraistic  dialect  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  multitude 
were  thereby  immediately  undeceived  about  his  character,  for  they 
had  been  as  much  mistaken  as  the  tribune  was,  though  their  mis- 
take was  of  a  very  opposite  nature ;  for  they  supposed  him  to  be 
entirely  Greek  in  his  habits  and  language,  if  not  in  his  origin ; 
and  the  vast  concourse  was  therefore  hushed  in  profound  silence, 
to  hear  his  address  made  in  the  true  Jewish  langfuaofe.  Before 
this  strange  audience,  Paul  then  stood  up  boldly,  to  declare  his 
character,  his  views,  and  his  apostolic  commission.  On  the  top  of 
the  lofty  rampart  of  Castle  Antonia, — with  the  dark  iron  forms  of 
the  Roman  soldiery  around  him,  guarding  the  steep  ascent  against 
the  raging  mob, — and  with  the  enormous  mass  of  the  congreg-ated 
thousands  of  Jerusalem,  and  of  the  strangers  who  had  come  up  to 
the  festival,  all  straining  their  fierce  eyes  in  wrath  and  hate  upon 
him,  as  a  convicted  renegade, — one  feeble,  slender  man,  now  stood, 
the  object  of  the  most  painful  attention  to  all, — yet,  less  moved 
with  passion  and  anxiety  than  any  one  present.  Thus  stationed, 
he  began,  and  gave  to  the  curious  multitude  an  interesting  account 
of  the  incidents  connected  with  that  great  change  in  his  feelings 
and  belief,  which  was  the  occasion  of  the  present  difficulty.  After 
giving  them  a  complete  statement  of  these  particulars,  he  was  nar- 
rating the  circumstance  of  a  revelation  made  to  him  in  the  temple, 
while  in  a  devotional  trance  there,  on  his  first  return  to  Jerusalem, 
after  his  conversion.  In  repeating  the  solemn  commission  there 
confirmed  to  him  by  the  voice  of  God,  he  repeated  the  crowning 
sentence,  with  which  the  Lord  removed  his  doubts  about  engaging 


PAUL.  699 

in  the  work  of  preaching  the  gospel,  when  his  hands  were  yet,  as 
it  were,  red  with  the  blood  of  the  martyred  faithful, — "  And  he 
said  to  me,  *  Go :  for  I  will  send  thee  far  hence  unto  the  Gen- 
tiles.' "  But  when  the  listening  multitude  heard  this  clear  de- 
claration of  liis  having  considered  himself  authorized  to  commu- 
nicate to  the  Gentiles  those  holy  things  which  had  been  especially 
consigned  by  God  to  his  pecuHar  people, — they  took  it  as  a  clear 
confession  of  the  charge  of  having  desecrated  and  degraded  his 
national  religion,  and  all  interrupted  him  with  the  ferocious  cry — 
"  Take  him  away  from  the  earth  !  for  such  a  fellow  does  not  de- 
serve to  live."  The  tribune,  finding  that  this  discussion  was  not 
likely  to  answer  any  good  purpose,  instantly  put  a  stop  to  it,  by 
dragging  him  into  the  castle,  and  gave  directions  that  he  should 
be  examined  by  scourging,  that  they  might  make  him  confess  truly 
who  he  was,  and  what  he  had  done  to  make  the  people  cry  out  so 
against  him.  While  the  guard  were  binding  him  with  thongs,  be- 
fore they  laid  on  the  scourge,  Paul  spoke  to  the  centurion,  who  was 
superintending  the  operation,  and  said  in  a  sententiously  inquiring 
way — "  Is  it  lawful  for  you  to  scourge  a  Roman  citizen  without 
legal  condemnation  ?"  This  question  put  a  stop  to  all  proceedings 
at  once.  The  centurion  immediately  dropped  the  thongs,  and  ran 
to  the  tribune,  saying — "  Take  heed  what  thou  doest,  for  this  man 
is  a  Roman  citizen."  The  tribune  then  came  to  Paul,  in  much 
trepidation,  and  with  great  solemnity  said — "  Tell  me  truly,  art 
thou  a  Roman  citizen  ?"  Paul  distinctly  declared — "  Yes."  De- 
sirous to  learn  the  mode  in  which  the  prisoner  had  obtained  this 
most  sacred  and  unimpeachable  privilege,  the  tribune  remarked  of 
himself,  that  he  had  obtained  this  right  by  the  payment  of  a  large 
sum  of  money, — perhaps  doubting  whether  a  man  of  Paul's  poor 
aspect  could  ever  have  been  able  to  buy  it ;  to  which  Paul  boldly 
replied — "  But  I  was  born  free."  This  clear  declaration  satisfied 
the  tribune  that  he  had  involved  himself  in  a  very  serious  diffi- 
culty, by  committing  this  illegal  violence  on  a  person  thus  entitled 
to  all  the  privileges  of  a  subject  of  law.  All  the  subordinate  agents 
also  were  fully  aware  of  the  nature  of  the  mistake,  and  all  imme- 
diately let  him  alone.  Lysias  now  kept  Paul  with  great  care  in 
the  castle,  as  a  place  of  safety  from  his  Jewish  persecutors ;  and 
the  next  day,  in  order  to  have  a  full  investigation  of  his  character 
and  the  charges  against  him,  he  took  him  before  the  Sanhedrim 
for  examination.  Paul  there  opened  his  defence  in  a  very  appro- 
priate and  self-vindicating  style.     "  Men  !  Brethren  !  and  Fathers  ! 


600  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

1  have  heretofore  lived  before  God  with  a  good  conscience."  At 
these  words,  Ananias,  the  high  priest,  provoked  by  Paul's  seeming 
assurance  in  thus  vindicating  himself,  when  under  the  accusation 
of  the  heads  of  the  Jewish  religion,  commanded  those  that  stood 
next  to  Paul  to  smite  him  on  the  mouth,  Paul,  indignant  at  the 
high-handed  tyranny  of  this  outrageous  attack  on  him,  answered 
in  honest  wrath — "  God  shall  smite  thee,  thou  whited  wall !  For 
dost  thou  command  me  to  be  smitten  contrary  to  the  law,  when 
thou  sittest  as  a  judge  over  me  ?"  The  other  bystanders,  enraged 
at  his  boldness,  asked  him — "Revilest  thou  God's  high  priest?" 
To  which  Paul,  not  having  known  the  fact  that  Ananias  then  held 
that  office  which  he  had  so  disgraced  by  his  infamous  conduct,  re- 
plied— "  I  knew  not,  brethren,  that  he  was  the  high  priest ;  for  it 
is  written,  '  thou  shalt  not  speak  evil  of  the  ruler  of  thy  people.' " 
Then,  perceiving  the  mixed  character  of  the  council,  he  deter 
mined  to  avail  himself  of  the  mutual  hatred  of  the  two  great  seets, 
for  his  defense,  by  making  his  own  persecution  a  kind  of  party 
question  ;  and  therefore  called  out  to  them — "  I  am  a  Pharisee,  the 
son  of  a  Pharisee.  Of  the  hope  of  the  resurrection  of  the  dead, 
I  am  called  in  question."  These  words  had  the  expected  effect. 
Instantly,  all  the  violent  party  feeling  between  these  two  sects 
broke  out  in  full  force,  and  the  whole  council  was  divided  and 
confused, — the  scribes,  who  belonged  to  the  Pharisaic  order,  arising, 
and  declaring — "We  find  no  occasion  of  evil  in  this  man.  But 
if  a  spirit  or  an  angel  has  spoken  to  him,  let  us  not  fight  against 
God."  This  last  remark,  of  course,  was  throwing  down  the  gaunt- 
let at  the  opposite  sect ;  for  the  Sadducees,  denying  absolutely  the 
existence  of  either  angel  or  spirit,  could,  of  course,  believe  no  part 
of  Paul's  story  about  his  vision  and  spiritual  summons.  They  all 
therefore  broke  out  against  the  Pharisees,  who  being  thus  involved, 
took  Paul's  side  very  determinedly,  and  the  party  strife  grew  so 
hot  that  Pa,ul  was  like  to  be  torn  in  pieces  between  them.  The 
tribune,  seeing  the  pass  to  which  matters  had  come,  then  ordered 
out  the  castle-guard,  and  took  him  by  force,  bringing  him  back  to 
his  former  place  of  safety. 

"  The  reason  why  St.  Paul  chose  to  speak  in  the  Hebrew  tongue,  may  be  accounted 
for  thus.  There  were  at  this  time  two  sorts  of  Jews,  some  called  by  Chrysoslom  ti 
ffaOeii  'KSpaioi,  profound  Hebrews,  who  used  no  other  language  but  the  Hebrew,  and 
would  not  admit  the  Greek  Bible  into  their  assemblies,  but  only  the  Hebrew,  with 
the  Jerusalem  Targum  and  Paraphrase.  The  other  sort  spoke  Greek,  and  used  that 
translation  of  the  scriptures;  these  were  called  Hellenists.  This  was  a  cause  of  great 
dissension  among  these  two  parties,  even  after  they  had  embraced  Christianity,  (Acts 
vi.  1.)    Of  this  latter  sort  was  St.  Paul,  because  he  always  made  use  of  the  Greek 


PAUL.  601 

translation  of  the  Bible  in  his  writings,  so  that  in  this  respect  he  might  not  be  ac- 
ceptable to  the  other  party.  Those  of  them  who  Avere  converted  to  Christianity, 
were  much  prejudiced  against  him,  (Acts  xxi.  21,)  which  is  given  as  a  reason  for 
his  concealing  his  name  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  And  as  for  those  who  were 
not  converted,  they  could  not  so  much  as  endure  him  :  and  this  is  the  reason  which 
Chrysostom  gives,  why  he  preached  to  the  Hellenists  only.  Acts  ix.  28.  Therefore, 
that  he  might  avert  the  great  displeasure  which  the  Jews  had  conceived  against  him, 
he  accosted  them  in  their  favorite  language,  and  by  his  compliance  in  this  respect, 
they  were  so  far  pacified  as  to  give  him  audience."  (Hammond's  Annot.  quoted  by 
Williams  on  Pearson,  p.  70.) 

"  Scourging  was  a  method  of  examination  used  by  Romans  and  other  nations,  to 
force  such  as  were  supposed  guilty,  to  confess  what  they  had  done,  what  were  their 
motives,  and  w-ho  were  accessory  to  the  fact.  Thus  Tacitus  tells  us  of  Herennius 
Gallus,  that  he  received  several  stripes,  that  it  might  be  known  for  what  price,  and 
with  what  confederates,  he  had  betrayed  the  Roman  army.  It  is  to  be  observed,  how- 
ever, that  the  Romans  were  punished  in  this  wise,  not  by  whips  and  scourges,  but 
with  rods  only;  and  therefore  it  is  that  Cicero,  (Orat.  pro  Rabirio,)  speaking  against 
Labienus,  tells  his  audience  that  the  Porcian  law  permitted  a  Roman  to  be  whipped 
with  rods,  but  he,  like  a  good  and  merciful  man,  (speaking  ironically,)  had  done  it 
with  scourges ;  and  still  further,  neither  by  whips  nor  rods  could  a  citizen  of  Rome  be 
punished,  until  he  were  first  adjudged  to  lose  his  privilege,  to  be  uncitizened,  and 
to  be  declared  an  enemy  to  the  commonwealth ;  then  he  might  be  scourged  or  put  to 
death.  Cicero  (Orat.  in  Ver.)  says — '  It  is  a  foul  fault  for  any  praetor,  &c.,  to  bind 
a  citizen  of  Rome;  a  piacular  offense  to  scourge  him;  a  kind  of  parricide  to  kill 
him:  what  shall  I  call  the  crucifying  of  such  an  one"?'  "  (Williams's  notes  on  Pear- 
son, pp.  70,  71.) 

"  Ananias,  the  son  of  Nebedaeus,  was  high  priest  at  the  time  that  Helena,  queen 
of  Adiabene,  supplied  the  Jews  with  corn  from  Egypt,  (Jos.  Ant.  lib.  xx.  c.  5,  §  2,) 
during  the  famine  which  took  place  in  the  fourth  year  of  Claudius,  mentioned  in  the 
eleventh  chapter  of  the  Acts.  St.  Paul,  therefore,  who  took  a  journey  to  Jerusalem 
at  that  period,  (Acts  xv.)  could  not  have  been  ignorant  of  the  elevation  of  Ananias 
to  that  dignity.  Soon  after  the  holding  of  the  first  council,  as  it  is  called,  at  Jerusa- 
lem, Ananias  was  dispossessed  of  his  office,  in  consequence  of  certain  acts  of  vio- 
lence between  the  Samaritans  and  the  Jews,  and  sent  prisoner  to  Rome,  (Jos.  Ant. 
lib.  XX.  c.  6,  §  2,)  whence  he  was  afterwards  released  and  returned  to  Jerusalem. 
Now  from  that  period  he  could  not  be  called  high  priest,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the 
word,  though  Josephus  (Ant.  lib.  xx.  c.  9,  §  c.  and  Bell,  Jud.  lib.  ii.  c.  17,  §  9)  has 
sometimes  given  him  the  title  of  dpyitpevi,  taken  in  the  more  extensive  meaning  of  a 
priest  who  had  a  seal  and  voice  in  the  Sanhedrim;  (apYfcpaf,  in  the  plural  number,  is 
frequently  used  in  the  New  Testament,  when  allusion  is  made  to  the  Sanhedrim;) 
and  Jonathan,  though  we  are  not  acquainted  with  the  circumstances  of  his  elevation, 
had  been  raised,  in  the  mean  time,  to  the  supreme  dignity  in  the  Jewish  church.  Be- 
tween the  death  of  Jonathan,  who  was  murdered  (Jos.  Ant.  Jud.  lib.  xx.  c.  8,  §  5)  by 
order  of  Felix,  and  the  high  priesthood  of  Ismael,  who  was  invested  with  that  office 
by  Agrippa,  (Jos.  Ant.  lib.  xx.  c.  8,  §  3,)  elapsed  an  interval  in  which  this  dignity 
continued  vacant.  Now  it  happened  precisely  in  this  interval,  that  St.  Paul  was  ap- 
prehended at  Jerusalem;  and,  the  Sanhedrim  being  destitute  of  a  president,  he  under- 
took, of  his  own  authority,  the  discharge  of  that  office,  which  he  executed  with  the 
greatest  tyranny.  (Jos.  Ant.  lib.  xx.  c.  9,  §  2.)  It  is  possible,  therefore,  that  St.  Paul, 
who  had  been  only  a  few  days  at  Jerusalem,  might  be  ignorant  that  Ananias,  who 
had  been  dispossessed  of  the  priesthood,  had  taken  upon  himself  a  trust  to  which  he 
was  not  entitled.  He  might  therefore  very  naturally  exclaim—'  I  wist  not,  brethren, 
that  he  was  the  high  priest!'  Admitting  him,  on  the  other  hand,  to  have  been  ac- 
quainted with  the  fact,  the  expression  must  be  considered  as  an  indirect  reproof,  and 
a  tacit  refusal  to  recognize  usurped  authority."    (Michaelis,  Vol.  I.  pp.  51,  56.) 

"  The  prediction  of  St.  Paul,  v.  3— 'God  shall  smite  thee,  thou  whited  wall,'  was, 
according  to  Josephus,  fulfilled  in  a  short  time.  For  when,  in  the  government  of 
Florus,  his  son  Eleazar  set  himself  at  the  head  of  a  party  of  mutineers,  who,  having 
made  themselves  masters  of  the  temple,  would  permit  no  sacrifices  to  be  offered  for 
the  emperor;  and  being  joined  by  a  company  of  assassins,  compelled  persons  of  the 
best  quality  to  fly  for  their  safety  and  hide  themselves  in  sinks  and  vaults; — Ananias 
and  his  brother  Hezekias,  were  both  drawn  out  of  one  of  these  places,  and  murdered, 
(Jos.  de  Bell.  lib.  ii.  c.  17,  18,)  though  Dr.  Lightfoot  will  have  it  that  he  perished  at 
the  siege  of  Jerusalem !"    (Whitby's  Annot.  quoted  by  Williams.) 


602  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

During  that  night,  the  soul  of  Paul  was  comforted  by  a  hea- 
venly vision,  in  which  the  Lord  exhorted  him  to  maintain  the 
same  high  spirit, — assuring  him  that  as  he  had  testified  of  him  in 
Jerusalem,  even  so  he  should  bear  witness  in  Rome.  His  dangers 
in  Jerusalem,  however,  were  not  yet  over.  The  furious  Jews, 
now  cut  oiF  from  all  possibility  of  doing  any  violence  to  Paul,  un- 
der the  sanction  of  legal  forms,  determined  to  set  all  moderation 
aside,  and  forty  of  the  most  desperate  bound  themselves  by  a  so- 
lemn oath,  neither  to  eat  nor  drink  till  they  had  slain  Paul.  In 
the  arrangement  of  the  mode  in  which  their  abominable  vow 
should  be  performed,  it  was  settled  between  them  and  the  high 
priest,  that  a  request  should  be  sent  to  the  tribune  to  bring  down 
Paul  before  the  council  once  more,  as  if  for  the  sake  of  putting 
some  additional  inquiries  to  him  for  their  final  and  perfect  satisfac- 
tion ;  and  then,  that  these  desperadoes  should  station  themselves 
where  they  could  make  a  rush  upon  Paul,  just  as  he  was  entering 
the  council-hall,  and  kill  him  before  the  guard  could  bestir  them- 
selves in  his  defense,  or  seize  the  murderers;  and  even  if  some  of 
them  should  be  caught  and  punished,  it  need  never  be  known  that 
the  high  priest  was  accessory  to  the  assassination.  But  while  they 
were  arranging  this  hopeful  piece  of  wickedness,  they  did  not  ma- 
nage it  so  snugly  as  was  necessary  for  the  success  of  the  plot ;  for 
it  somehow  or  other  got  to  the  ears  of  Paul's  nephew, — a  young 
man  nowhere  else  mentioned  in  the  New  Testament,  and  of  whose 
character  and  situation  nothing  whatever  is  known.  He,  hearing 
of  the  plot,  came  instantly  to  his  uncle,  who  sent  him  to  commu- 
nicate the  tidings  to  the  tribune.  Lysias,  on  receiving  tliis  account 
of  the  utterly  desperate  character  of  the  opposition  to  Paul,  deter- 
mined not  to  risk  his  prisoner's  life  any  longer  in  Jerusalem,  even 
when  guarded  by  the  powerful  defenses  of  Castle  Antonia.  He 
dismissed  the  young  man  with  the  strongest  injunctions,  to  observe 
the  most  profound  secrecy,  as  to  the  fact  of  his  having  made  this 
communication  to  him ;  and  immediately  made  preparations  to 
send  off  Paul,  that  very  night,  to  Caesarea,  designing  to  have  him 
left  there  with  the  governor  of  the  province,  as  a  prisoner  of  state, 
and  thus  to  rid  himself  of  all  responsibility  about  this  very  diffi- 
cult and  perilous  business.  He  ordered  two  centurions  to  draw  out 
a  detachment,  of  such  very  remarkable  strength,  as  shows  the  ex- 
cess of  his  fears  for  Paul.  Two  hundred  heavy-armed  soldiers, 
seventy  horsemen,  and  two  hundred  lancers,  were  detached  as  a 
guard  for  Paul,  and  were  all  mounted  for  speed,  to  take  him  be- 


PAUL.  603 

yond  the  reach  of  the  Jerusalem  desperadoes  that  very  night.  He 
gave  to  that  portion  of  the  detachment  that  was  designed  to  go  all 
the  way  to  Caesarea,  a  letter  to  be  delivered  to  Felix,  the  governor, 
giving  a  fair  and  faithful  account  of  all  the  circumstances  con- 
nected with  Paul's  imprisonment  and  perils  in  Jerusalem. 

RETURN  TO  CAESAREA. 

The  strong  mounted  detachment,  numbering  four  hundred  and 
seventy  full-armed  Roman  warriors,  accordingly  set  out  that  night 
at  nine  o'clock,  and  moving  silently  off  from  the  castle,  which 
stood  near  one  of  the  western  gates  of  the  city,  passed  out  of  Jeru- 
salem unnoticed  in  the  darkness,  and  galloped  away  to  the  north- 
west. After  forty  miles  of  hard  riding,  they  reached  Antipatris 
before  day,  and  as  all  danger  of  pursuit  from  the  Jerusalem  assas- 
sins was  out  of  the  question  there,  the  mounted  infantry  and  the 
lancers  returned  to  Jerusalem,  leaving  Paul,  however,  the  very  re- 
spectable military  attendence  of  the  seventy  horse-guards.  With 
these,  he  journeyed  to  Caesarea,  only  about  twenty-five  miles  off, 
where  he  was  presented  by  the  commander  of  the  detachment  to 
Felix,  the  Roman  governor,  who  always  resided  in  Caesarea,  the 
capital  of  the  province.  The  governor,  on  reading  the  letter,  and 
learning  that  Paul  was  of  Cilicia,  deferred  giving  his  case  a  full 
hearing,  until  his  accusers  had  also  come ;  and  committed  him  for 
safe  keeping,  in  the  interval,  to  an  apartment  in  the  great  palace, 
built  by  Herod  the  Great,  the  royal  founder  of  Caesarea. 

After  a  delay  of  five  days,  the  high  priest  and  the  elders  came 
down  to  Caesarea,  to  prosecute  their  charges  against  Paul  before 
the  governor.  They  brought  with  them,  as  their  advocate,  a 
speech-maker,  named  Tertullus,  whose  name  shows  him  to  have 
been  of  Roman  connexions  or  education,  and  who,  on  account  of 
his  acquaintance  with  the  Latin  forms  of  oratory  and  law,  was  no 
doubt  selected  by  Ananias  and  his  coadjutors,  as  a  person  better 
qualified  than  themselves  to  maintain  their  cause  with  effect,  before 
the  governor.  Tertullus  accordingly  opened  the  case,  and  when 
Paul  had  been  confronted  with  his  accusers,  began  with  a  very  te- 
dious string  of  formal  compliments  to  Felix,  and  then  set  forth  a 
complaint  against  Paul  in  very  bitter  and  abusive  terms,  stating 
his  offense  to  be,  the  attempt  to  profane  the  temple,  for  which  the 
Jews  would  have  convicted  and  punished  him,  if  Lysias  had  not 
violently  hindered,  and  put  them  to  the  trouble  of  bringing  the 
whole  business  before  the  governor,  though  a  matter  exclusively 


604  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

concerning  their  religious  law.    To  all  his  assertions  the  Jews  tes- 
tified. 

This  presentation  of  the  accusation  being  made,  Paul  was  then 
called  on  for  his  defense,  which  he  thereupon  delivered  in  a  tone 
highly  respectful  to  the  governor,  and  maintained  that  he  had  been 
guilty  of  none  of  the  troublesome  and  riotous  conduct  of  which 
he  was  accused ;  but  quietly,  without  any  eiFort  to  make  a  commo- 
tion among  the  people  any^vhere,  had  come  into  the  city  on  a 
vigit,  after  many  years'  absence,  to  bring  alms  and  offerings ;  and 
that  when  he  was  seized  by  the  Asian  Jews  in  the  temple,  he  was 
going  blamelessly  through  the  established  ceremonies  of  purifica- 
tion. He  complained,  also,  that  his  original  accusers,  the  Asian 
Jews,  were  not  confronted  with  him,  and  challenged  his  present 
prosecutors  to  bring  any  evidence  against  him.  Felix,  after  this 
hearing  of  the  case,  on  the  pretence  of  needing  Lysias  as  a  witness 
on  the  facts,  deferred  his  decision,  and  left  both  accusers  and  ac- 
cused to  the  enjoyment  of  the  delays  and  "  glorious  uncertainties 
of  the  law."  Meanwhile  he  committed  Paul  to  the  charge  of  a 
centurion,  with  directions  that  he  should  be  allowed  all  reasonable 
liberty,  and  should  not  be  in  any  particular  restricted  from  the 
freest  intercourse  with  his  friends.  The  imprisonment  of  Paul  at 
Caesarea  was  merely  nominal ;  and  he  must  have  passed  his  time 
both  pleasantly  and  profitably,  with  the  members  of  the  church  at 
Caesarea,  with  whom  he  had  formerly  been  acquainted,  especially 
with  Philip  and  his  family.  Besides  these,  he  was  also  favored 
with  the  company  of  several  of  his  assistants,  who  had  been  the 
companions  of  his  toils  in  Europe  and  Asia ;  and  through  them 
he  could  hold  the  freest  correspondence  with  any  of  the  numerous 
churches  of  his  apostolic  charge  throughout  the  world.  He  resided 
here  for  two  whole  years,  at  least,  of  Felix's  administration ;  and 
during  that  time,  was  more  than  once  sent  for  by  the  governor,  to 
hold  conversations  with  him  on  the  great  objects  of  his  life,  in 
some  of  which  he  expressed  himself  so  forcibly  on  righteousness, 
temperance,  and  judgment  to  come,  that  the  wicked  governor, — at 
that  moment  sitting  in  the  presence  of  the  apostle  with  an  adul- 
terous paramour, — trembled  at  the  view  presented  by  Paul  of  the 
consequences  of  those  sins  for  which  Felix  was  so  infamous.  But 
his  repentant  tremors  soon  passed  off,  and  he  merely  dismissed  the 
apostle  with  a  vague  promise,  that  at  some  more  convenient  season 
he  would  send  for  him.  He  did,  indeed,  often  send  for  him  after 
this ;  but  the  motive  of  these  renewals  of  intercourse  seems  to 


PAUL.  605 

have  been  of  the  basest  order,  for  it  is  stated  by  the  sacred  histo- 
rian, that  his  real  object  was  to  induce  Paul  to  offer  him  a  bribe, 
which  he  supposed  could  be  easily  raised  by  the  contributions  of 
his  devoted  friends.  But  the  hope  was  vain.  It  was  no  part 
of  Paul's  plan  of  action  to  hasten  the  decision  of  his  movements 
by  such  means,  and  the  consequence  was,  that  Felix  found  so  little 
occasion  to  befriend  him,  that  when  he  went  out  of  the  office 
which  he  had  uniformly  disgraced  by  tyranny,  rapine,  and  mur- 
der, he  thought  it,  on  the  whole,  worth  while  to  gratify  the  late 
subjects  of  his  hateful  sway  by  leaving  Paul  still  a  prisoner. 

"  This  Drusilla  was  the  youngest  daughter  of  Herod  Agrippa.  (Jos.  lib.  xix.  c. 
9,  in.)  Josephus  gives  the  followiog  account  of  her  marriage  with  Felix  : — '  Agrippa, 
having  received  this  present  from  Caesar,  (viz.  Claudius,)  gave  his  sister  Drusilla  in 
marriage  to  Azizus,  king  of  the  Emesenes,  when  he  had  consented  to  be  circum- 
cised. For  Epiphanes,  the  son  of  king  Antiochus,  had  broken  the  contract  with  her, 
by  refusing  to  embrace  the  Jewish  customs,  although  he  had  promised  her  father  he 
"would.  But  this  marriage  of  Drusilla  with  Azizus  was  dissolved  in  a  short  time, 
after  this  manner.  When  Felix  was  procurator  of  Judaea,  having  had  a  sight  of  her, 
he  was  mightily  taken  with  her;  and,  indeed,  she  was  the  most  beautiful  of  her  sex. 
He  therefore  sent  to  her  Simon,  a  Jew  of  Cyprus,  who  was  one  of  his  friends,  and 
pretended  to  magic,  by  whom  he  persuaded  her  to  leave  her  husband,  and  marry  him  ; 
promising  to  make  her  perfectly  happy,  if  she  did  not  disdain  him.  It  was  far  from 
being  a  sufficient  reason ;  but  to  avoid  the  envy  of  her  sister  Bernice,  who  was  con- 
tinually doing  her  ill  offices,  because  of  her  beauty,  she  was  induced  to  transgress 
Ihe  laws  of  her  country,  and  marry  Felix.'  "  (Lardner's  Credibility,  4to.  Vol.  I.  pp. 
16,  17,  edit,  London,  1815,  quoted  by  Williams  on  Pearson,  p.  78.) 

HEARING  BEFORE  FESTUS. 

The  successor  of  Felix  in  the  government  of  Palestine,  was 
Porcius  Festus,  a  man  whose  administration  is  by  no  means  char- 
acterized in  the  history  of  those  times  by  a  reputation  for  justice 
or  prudence ;  yet,  in  the  case  of  Paul,  his  conduct  seems  to  have 
been  much  more  accordant  with  right  and  reason  than  was  that  of 
the  truly  infamous  Felix.  Visiting  the  religious  capital  of  the 
Jews  soon  after  his  first  entrance  into  the  province,  he  was  there 
earnestly  petitioned  by  the  ever-spiteful  foes  of  Paul,  to  cause  this 
prisoner  to  be  brought  up  to  Jerusalem  for  trial,  intending  when 
Paul  should  enter  the  city,  to  execute  their  old  plan  of  assassina- 
tion, which  had  been  formerly  frustrated  by  the  benevolent  pru- 
dence and  energy  of  Claudius  Lysias.  But  Festus,  perhaps  having 
received  some  notification  of  this  plot  from  the  friends  of  Paul, 
utterly  refused  to  bring  the  prisoner  to  Jerusalem,  but  required  the 
presence  of  the  accusers  in  the  proper  seat  of  the  supreme  provin- 
cial administration  of  justice  at  Caesarea.  After  a  ten  days'  stay 
in  Jerusalem,  he  returned  to  the  civil  capital,  and  with  a  com- 
mendable activity  in  his  judicial  proceedings,  on  the  very  next 


606  LTVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

day  after  his  arrival  in  Caesarea,  summoned  Paul  and  his  accusers 
before  him.  The  Jews,  of  course,  told  their  old  story,  and  brought 
out  against  Paul  many  grievous  complaints,  which  they  could  not 
prove.  His  only  reply  to  all  this  accusation  without  testimony 
was — "  Neither  against  the  law  of  the  Jews,  nor  against  the  tem- 
ple, nor  yet  against  Caesar,  have  I  offended  in  any  particular." 
But  Festus  having  been  in  some  way  influenced  to  favor  the  de- 
signs of  the  Jews,  urged  Paul  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem,  there  to  be 
tried  by  the  supreme  religious  court  of  his  own  nation.  Paul  re- 
plied by  a  bold  and  distinct  assertion  of  his  rights  as  a  Roman 
citizen,  before  the  tribunal  of  his  liege  lord  and  sovran  : — "  I  stand 
before  Caesar's  judgment-seat,  where  I  ought  to  be  judged.  To 
the  Jews  I  have  done  no  wrong,  as  thou  very  well  knowest.  If 
I  am  guilty  of  any  thing  that  deserves  death,  I  refuse  not  to  die  ; 
but  if  I  have  done  none  of  these  things  of  which  they  accuse  me, 
no  man  can  deliver  me  into  their  hands.  I  appeal  to  Caesar." 
This  solemn  concluding  formula  put  him  at  once  far  beyond  the 
reach  of  all  inferior  tyranny  ;  henceforth  no  governor  in  the  world 
could  direct  the  fate  of  the  appellant  Roman  citizen,  throwing  be- 
fore himself  the  adamantine  aegis  of  Roman  law.  Festus  him- 
self, though  evidently  displeased  at  this  turn  of  events,  could  not 
resist  the  course  of  law ;  but  after  a  conference  with  his  council, 
replied  to  Paul — "  Dost  thou  appeal  to  Caesar  1  To  Caesar  shalt 
thou  go." 

hearing  before  agrippa. 

While  Paul  was  still  detained  at  Caesarea,  after  this  final  refer- 
ence of  his  case  to  the  highest  judicial  authority  in  the  world, 
Festus  was  visited  at  Caesarea  by  Agrippa  II.,  king  of  Iturea,  Tra- 
chonitis,  Abilene,  and  other  northern  regions  of  Palestine,  the  son 
of  that  Herod  Agrippa  whose  character  and  actions  were  connected 
with  the  incidents  of  Peter's  life.  He,  passing  through  Judea 
with  his  sister  Bernice,  stopped  at  Caesarea,  to  pay  their  compli- 
ments to  the  new  Roman  governor.  During  their  stay  there,  Fes- 
tus, with  a  view  to  find  rational  entertainment  for  his  royal  guests, 
bethought  himself  of  Paul's  case,  as  one  that  would  be  likely  to 
interest  them,  connected  as  the  prisoner's  fate  seemed  to  be,  with 
the  religious  and  legal  matters  of  that  peculiar  people  to  whom 
Agrippa  himself  belonged,  and  in  the  minutiae  of  whose  law  and 
theology  he  had  been  so  well  instructed,  that  his  opinion  on  the 
case  would  be  well  worth  having,  to  one  as  little  acquainted  with 


PAUL.  607 

these  matters  as  the  heathen  governor  himself  was.  Festus  there- 
fore gave  a  very  full  account  of  the  whole  case  to  Agrippa,  in 
terms  that  sufficiently  well  exhibited  the  perplexities  in  which  he 
was  involved,  and  in  expressions  which  are  strikingly  and  almost 
amusingly  characteristic, — complaining  as  he  does  of  the  very  ab- 
struse and  perplexing  nature  of  the  accusations  brought  by  the 
Jews,  as  being  "  certain  questions  of  their  own  relio-ion,  and  of 
one  Jesus,  whom  Paul  affirmed  to  be  alive."  Agrippa  was  so  much 
interested  in  the  case  that  he  expressed  a  wish  to  hear  the  man  in 
person;  and  Festus  accordingly  arranged  that  he  should  the  next 
day  be  gratified  with  the  hearing. 

"  '  King  Agrippa  and  Bernice.'  Acts  xxv.  13.  This  Agrippa  was  the  son  of  Herod 
Agrippa;  St.  Luke  calls  him  king,  which  Josephus  also  does  very  often.  (Ant.  lib. 
XX.  c.  viii.  §  6,  et  passim.)  But  St.  Luke  does  not  suppose  him  to  be  king  of  Judeaj 
for  all  the  judicial  proceedings  of  that  country  relating  to  St.  Paul,  are  transacted 
before  Felix,  and  Festus  his  successor;  besides  he  says,  that  'Agrippa  came  to  Caesa- 
rea  to  salute  Festus,'  to  compliment  him  on  his  arrival,  &c.  ver.  1.  When  his  father 
died,  Claudius  would  have  immediately  put  him  in  possession  of  his  father's  domin- 
ions, but  he  was  advised  not  to  do  so,  on  account  of  the  son's  youth,  then  only  seven- 
teen; the  emperor,  therefore,  '  appointed  Cuspius  Fadus  praefect  of  Judea  and  the 
whole  kingdom,  (Jos.  Ant.  lib.  xix.  c.  9,  ad  fin.)  who  was  succeeded  by  Tiberius,  Al- 
exander, Cumanus,  Felix,  and  Festus,  though  these  did  not  possess  the  province  in 
the  same  extent  that  Fadus  did.'    (Ant.  xx.  Bell.  lib.  ii.) 

"  Agrippa  had,  notwithstanding,  at  this  time,  considerable  territories.  '  Herod, 
brother  of  king  Agrippa  the  Great,  died  in  the  eighth  year  of  the  reign  of  Claudius. 
Claudius  then  gave  his  government  to  the  young  Agrippa.'  (Jos.  Ant.  xx.  p.  887.) 
This  is  the  Agrippa  mentioned  in  this  twenty-fifth  chapter.  '  The  twelfth  year  of 
his  reign  being  completed,  Claudius  gave  to  Agrippa  the  tetrarchy  of  Philip  and  Ba- 
tanea,  adding  also  Trachonitis  with  Abila.  This  had  been  the  tetrarchy  of  Ly.sanias. 
But  he  took  away  from  him  Chalcis,  after  he  had  governed  it  four  years.'  (Jos.  Ant. 
XX.  p.  890,  V.  25,  &c.)  '  After  this,  he  sent  Felix,  the  brother  of  Pallas,  to  be  pro- 
curator of  Judea,  Galilee,  Samaria,  and  Peraea ;  and  promoted  Agrippa  from  Chal- 
cis to  a  greater  kingdom,  giving  him  the  tetrarchy  which  had  been  Philip's.  (This 
is  Batanea,  and  Trachonitis,  and  Gauionitis ;)  and  he  added,  moreover,  the  kingdom 
of  Lysanias,  and  the  province  that  had  been  Varus's.'  (Jos.  de  Bell.  lib.  ii.  c.  12, 
fin.)  '  Nero,  in  the  first  year  of  his  reign,  gave  Agrippa  a  certain  part  of  Galilee, 
ordering  Tiberias  and  Tarichaea  to  be  subject  to  him.  He  gave  him  also  Julias,  a 
city  of  Peraea,  and  fourteen  towns  in  the  neighborhood  of  it.'  (Ant.  xx.  c.  7,  §  4.) 
St.  Luke  is  therefore  fully  justified  in  styling  this  Agrippa  king  at  this  time."  (Lard- 
ner's  Credibility,  4to.  Vol.  I.  pp.  17,  18,  quoted  by  Williams  on  Pearson,  pp.  81,  82.) 

On  the  next  day,  preparations  were  made  for  this  audience,  with 
a  solemnity  of  display  most  honorable  to  the  subject  of  it.  The 
great  hall  of  the  palace  was  arrayed  in  grand  order  for  the  occa- 
sion, and,  in  due  time,  king  Agrippa,  with  his  royal  sister,  and  the 
Roman  governor,  entered  it  with  great  pomp,  followed  by  a  train 
composed  of  all  the  great  military  and  civil  dignitaries  of  the  vice- 
imperial  court  of  Palestine.  Before  all  this  stately  array,  the  apos- 
tolic prisoner  was  now  set,  and  a  solemn  annunciation  was  made 
by  Festus,  of  the  circumstances  of  the  prisoner's  previous  accusa- 
tion, trial,  and  appeal ;  all  which  were  now  summarily  recapitulated 
in  public,  for  the  sake  of  form,  although  they  had  before  been  com- 
80 


608  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

municated  in  private  to  Agrippa.  The  king,  as  the  highest  au- 
thority present,  having  graciously  invited  Paul  to  speak  for  himself, 
the  apostle  stretched  forth  his  hand  and  began,  in  that  respectful 
style  of  elaborately  elegant  compliment,  which  characterizes  the 
exordiums  of  so  many  of  his  addresses  to  the. great.  After  having, 
with  most  admirable  skill,  conciliated  the  attention  and  kind  regard 
of  the  king,  by  expressing  his  happiness  in  being  called  to  speak 
in  his  own  defense  before  one  so  learned  in  Hebrew  law,  he  went 
on ;  and  in  a  speech  which  is  well  known  for  its  noble  eloquence, 
so  resplendent,  even  through  the  disguise  of  a  quaint  translation, 
presented  not  merely  his  own  case,  but  the  claims  of  that  revela- 
tion, for  proclaiming  which  he  was  now  a  prisoner.  So  admirably 
did  he  conduct  his  whole  plea,  both  for  himself  and  the  cause  of 
Christ,  that  in  spite  of  the  sneer  of  Festus,  Agrippa  paid  him  the 
very  highest  compliment  in  his  power,  and  pronounced  him  to  be 
utterly  guiltless  of  the  charges.  No  part  of  this  plea,  and  its  at- 
tendent  discussions,  needs  to  be  recapitulated  ;  but  a  single  charac- 
teristic of  Paul,  which  is  most  strikingly  evinced,  deserves  espe- 
cial notice.  This  is  his  profound  regard  for  all  the  established 
forms  of  polite  address.  He  is  not  satisfied  with  a  mere  respectful 
behavior  towards  his  judges,  but  even  distinguishes  himself  by  a 
minute  observance  of  all  the  customary  phrases  of  politeness ;  nor 
does  he  suffer  his  courtly  manner  to  be  disturbed,  even  by  the  ab- 
rupt remark  of  Festus,  accusing  him  of  frenzy.  In  his  reply,  he 
styles  his  accuser  "  Most  noble ;"  and  yet  every  reader  of  Jewish 
history  knows,  and  Paul  knew,  that  this  Festus,  to  whom  he  gave 
this  honorable  title,  was  one  of  the  very  wicked  men  of  those 
wicked  times.  The  instance  shows,  then,  that  those  who,  from 
religious  scruples,  refuse  to  give  the  titles  of  established  respect  to 
those  who  are  elevated  in  station,  and  reject  all  forms  of  genteel 
address,  on  the  same  ground,  have  certainly  constructed  their  sys- 
tem of  practical  religion  on  a  model  wholly  different  from  that  by 
which  the  apostle's  demeanor  was  guided ;  and  the  whole  impres- 
sion made  on  a  common  reader  by  Luke's  clear  statement  of  Paul's 
behavior  before  the  most  dignified  and  splendid  audience  that  he 
ever  addressed,  must  be,  that  he  was  complete  in  all  the  forms  and 
observances  of  polite  intercourse  ;  and  he  must  be  considered,  both 
according  to  the  high  standard  of  his  refined  and  dignified  hearers, 
and  also  by  the  universal  standard  of  the  refined  of  all  ages, — not 
only  a  finished,  eloquent  orator,  but  a  person  of  polished  manners, 


PAUL.  609 

delicate  tact,  ready  compliment,  and  graceful,  courtly  address : — in 

short,  A  PERFECT   GENTLEMAN. 

VOYAGE  TO  ROME. 

As  Paul,  however,  had  previously  appealed  to  Caesar,  his  case 
was  already  removed  from  any  inferior  jurisdiction,  and  his  hear- 
ing before  Agrippa  was  intended  only  to  gratify  the  king  himself, 
and  to  cause  the  particulars  of  his  complicated  case  to  be  more 
fully  drawn  out  before  his  royal  hearer,  who  was  so  accomplished 
in  Hebrew  law,  that  his  opinion  was  very  naturally  desired  by 
Festus ;  for  as  the  governor  himself  confessed,  the  technicalities 
and  abiHruse  points  involved  in  the  charge,  were  altogether  beyond 
the  comprehension  of  a  Roman  judge,  with  a  mere  heathen  educa- 
tion. Tfie  object,  therefore,  of  obtaining  a  full  statement  of  par- 
ticulars, to  be  presented  to  his  most 'august  majesty,  the  emperor, 
being  completely  accomplished  by  this  hearing  of  Paul  before 
Agrippa,— there  was  nothing  now  to  delay  the  reference  of  the 
case  to  Nero ;  and  Paul  was  therefore  consigned,  along  with  other 
prisoners  of  state,  to  the  care  of  a  Roman  officer,  Julius,  a  centu- 
rion of  the  Augustan  cohort.  Taking  passage  at  Caesarea,  in  an 
Adramyttian  vessel,  Julius  sailed  with  his  important  charge  from 
the  shores  of  Palestine,  late  in  the  year  60.  Following  the  usual 
cautious  course  of  all  ancient  navigators, — along  the  shores,  and 
from  island  to  island,  venturing  across  the  open  sea  only  with  the 
fairest  winds — the  vessel  which  bore  the  apostle  on  his  first  voy- 
age to  Italy,  coasted  along  by  Syria  and  Asia  Minor.  Of  those 
Christian  associates  who  accompanied  Paul,  none  are  known  ex- 
cept Timothy,  Luke,  his  graphically  accurate  historian,  and  Aris- 
tarchus  of  Thessalonica,  the  apostle's  long  known  companion  in 
travel.  These,  of  course,  were  a  source  of  great  enjoyment  to 
Paul  on  this  tedious  voyage,  surrounded,  as  he  was,  otherwise,  by 
strangers  and  heathen,  by  most  of  whom  he  must  have  been  re- 
garded in  the  light  of  a  mere  criminal,  held  in  bonds  for  trial.  He 
was,  however,  very  fortunate  in  the  character  of  the  centurion  to 
whose  keeping  he  was  intrusted,  as  is  shown, in  more  than  one  in- 
cident related  by  Luke.  After  one  day's  sail,  the  vessel  touching 
at  Sidon,  Julius  here  politely  gave  Paul  permission  to  visit  his 
Christian  friends  in  that  place, — thus  conferring  a  great  favor,  both 
on  the  apostle  and  on  the  church  of  Sidon.  Leaving  this  place, 
their  course  was  next  along  the  coast  of  Syria,  and  then  eastward, 
along  the  southern  shore  of  Asia  Minor,  keeping  in  the  Cilician 


610  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

Strait,  between,  that  province  and  the  great  island  of  Cyprus,  on 
account  of  the  violence  of  the  southwesters.  Coasting  along  by 
Pamphylia  and  Lycia,  they  next  touched  at  Myra,  a  city  in  the 
latter  province,  where  they  were  obliged  to  take  passage  in  another 
vessel,  bound  from  Alexandria  to  Italy.  In  this  vessel,  they  also 
kept  close  to  the  coast,  their  course  being  still  retarded  by  head 
winds,  until  they  reached  Cnidus,  the  farthest  southeastern  point 
of  Asia  Minor,  and  thence  stretched  across  the  Carpathian  sea,  to 
Crete,  approaching  it  first  at  Cape  Salmone,  the  most  eastern  point 
at  the  island,  and  then  passing  on  to  a  place  called  "the  Fair 
Haven,"  near  Lasea,  probably  one  of  the  hundred  cities  of  Crete, 
but  mentioned  in  no  other  ancient  writer.  At  this  place,  Paul, 
whose  experience  in  former  voyages  was  already  considerable, 
having  been  twice  shipwrecked,  had  sagacity  enough  to  see  that 
any  further  navigation  that  season  would  be  dangerous  ;  for  it  was 
now  the  beginning  of  October,  and  the  most  dreadful .  tempests 
might  be  reasonably  expected  on  the  wintry  sea,  before  they  could 
reach  the  Italian  coast.  He  warned  the  centurion,  accordingly,  of 
the  peril  to  which  all  their  lives  were  exposed ;  but  the  owner  and 
commander  of  the  vessel,  anxious  to  find  a  better  place  for  win- 
tering than  this,  persuaded  Julius  to  risk  the  passage  to  the  south 
side  of  the  island,  when  they  might  find,  in  the  port  of  Phoenix, 
a  more  convenient  winter  harbor.  So,  after  the  south  wind  had 
nearly  died  away,  they  attempted  to  take  advantage  of  this  ap- 
parent lull,  and  work  their  way,  close  to  the  shore,  along  the  south 
side  of  Crete ;  but  presently  they  were  caught  by  a  tremendous 
Levanter,  which  carried  them  with  great  velocity  away  to  the 
west,  to  the  island  of  Clauda,  which  lies  south  of  the  west  end  of 
Crete.  Here  the  danger  of  the  ship's  breaking  in  pieces  was  so 
great,  that  having  with  much  ado  overhauled  their  boat,  they  un- 
dergirded  the  ship  with  cables,  to  keep  it  together, — a  measure  not 
unknown  in  modern  navigation.  Finding  that  they  were  in  much 
danger  of  grounding  among  the  quicksands  on  the  coast  of  the 
island,  they  were  glad  to  stand  out  to  sea ;  and  taking  in  all  sail, 
scudded  under  bare  poles  for  fourteen  days,  during  a  great  part  of 
which  time  they  saw  neither  sun,  moon,  nor  stars,  the  whole  sky 
being  constantly  overcast  with  clouds,  so  that  they  knew  nothing 
of  their  position.  The  wind,  of  course,  carried  them  directly  west, 
over  what  was  then  called  the  sea  of  Adria, — not  what  is  now 
called  the  Adriatic  gulf,  but  that  part  of  the  Mediterranean  which 
hes  between  Greece,  Italy,  and  Africa.     In  their  desperation,  the 


PAUL.  611 

passengers  threw  over  their  own  baggage,  to  Hghten  the  ship ;  and 
they  began  to  lose  all  hope  of  being  saved  from  shipwreck.  Paul, 
however,  encouraged  them  by  the  narration  of  a  dream,  in  which 
God  had  revealed  to  him  that  every  one  of  them  should  escape ; 
and  they  still  kept  their  hopes  alive  to  the  fourteenth  night,  when 
the  sailors,  thinking  that  the  long  western  course  must  have 
brought  them  near  Sicily,  or  the  mainland  of  Italy  which  lay  not 
far  out  of  this  direction,  began  to  heave  the  lead,  that  they  might 
avoid  the  shore ;  and  at  the  first  sounding,  found  but  twenty  fa- 
thoms, and  at  th^next  fifteen.  Of  course,  the  peril  of  grounding 
was  imminent,  and  they  therefore  cast  anchor,  and  waited  for  day. 
Knowing  that  they  were  now  near  some  shore,  the  sailors  deter- 
mined to  provide  for  their  own  safety,  and  accordingly  undertook 
to  let  down  the  boat  to  make  their  escape,  and  leave  the  passen- 
gers to  provide  for  themselves.  But  Paul  represented  to  the  cen- 
turion the  certainty  of  their  destruction,  if  the  ship  should  be  left 
without  any  seamen  to  manage  it ;  and  the  soldiers  of  the  prison- 
ers' guard,  determined  not  to  be  thus  deserted,  though  they  should 
sink  all  together,  cut  off  the  ropes  by  which  the  boat  was  held, 
and  let  it  fall  off.  All  being  thus  inevitably  committed  to  one 
doom,  Paul  exhorted  them  to  take  food,  and  thus  strengthen  them- 
selves for  the  effort  to  reach  the  shore.  They  did  so  accordingly, 
and  then,  as  a  last  resort,  flung  out  the  wheat  with  which  the  ship 
was  loaded,  and  at  day-break,  when  land  appeared,  seeing  a  small 
creek,  they  made  an  effort  to  run  the  ship  into  it,  weighing  anchor 
and  hoisting  the  mainsail ;  but  knowing  nothing  of  the  ground, 
soon  struck,  and  the  overstrained  ship  was  immediately  broken  by 
the  waves,  the  bows  being  fast  in  the  sand-bank,  while  the  stern 
was  heaved  by  every  surge.  The  soldiers,  thinking  first  of  their 
weighty  charge,  for  whose  esca|>e  they  were  to  answer  with  their 
lives,  advised  to  kill  them  all,  lest  they  should  swim  ashore.  But 
the  more  humane  centurion  forbade  it,  and  gave  directions  that 
every  man  should  provide  for  his  own  safety.  They  did  so;  and 
those  that  could  not  swim,  clinging  to  the  fragments  of  the  wreck, 
the  whole  two  hundred  and  seventy-six  who  were  in  the  vessel  got 
safe  to  land, 

"*  'When  sailing  was  now  darigerous,  because  the  fast  was  already  paM,^  ver.  9. 
There  is  no  question  but  that  this  is  the  great  fast  of  expiation,  Lev.  xvi.  29,  the  de- 
scription of  which  we  have  in  Isa.  Iviii.  under  the  name  of  a  saWjath,  ver.  13.  The 
precise  time  of  this  sabbatic  fast  is  on  the  t€nth  day  of  the  seventh  month,  Tizri, 
•which  falls  on  the  same  time  very  nearly  with  our  September,  the  first  day  of  Tizri 
on  the  seventh  of  that,  and  so  the  10th  of  Tizri  on  the  16th  of  September,  that  is, 
thirteen  days  befare  our  Michaelmas,    This  being  premised,  the  apostle's  reasoning 


612  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

becomes  clear;  for  it  is  precisely  the  same  as  though  he  should  have  said,  because  it 
was  past  l.he  tweniieih  (ihe  day  Scaliger  sets  for  the  solemnization  of  the  fast)  of  Sep- 
teviber ;  it  being  observed  by  all  sailors,  that  for  some  weeks  before  and  after  Michael- 
mas, there  are  on  the  sea  sudden  and  frequent  storms,  (probably  the  equinoctial,) 
which  have  in  modern  times  received  the  name  of  Michaelmas  flaws,  and  must,  of 
course,  make  sailing  dangerous.  Hesiod  himself  tells  us,  that  at  the  going  down  of 
Pleiades,  which  was  at  Ihe  end  of  autumn,  navigation  was  hazardous."  (Williams.) 
"  '  Vttdergirding  the  ship,'  ver.  17.  We  learn  from  various  pa.ssages  in  the  Greek 
and  Roman  writers,  that  the  ancients  had  recourse  to  this  expedient,  in  order  to  save 
the  ship  from  imminent  danger;  and  this  method  has  been  used  in  modern  times. 
The  process  of  undergirding  a  ship  is  thus  performed : — a  stout  cable  is  slipped  under 
the  vessel  at  the  prow,  which  can  be  conducted  to  any  part  of  the  ship's  keel,  and 
then  fasten  the  two  ends  on  the  deck,  to  keep  the  planks  from  starting.  An  instance 
of  this  kind  is  mentioned  in  'Lord  Anson's  Voyage  round  the  World.'  Speaking 
of  a  Spanish  man-of-war  in  a  storm,  the  writer  say.s — '  Th§3»were  obliged  to  throw 
overboard  all  their  upper-deck  guns,  and  ta/ie  six  turns  of  the  cable  round  the  ship,  to 
prczxnt  her  opening,'  (p.  21,  4to.  edit.)  Bp.  Pearce  and  Dr.  Clarke,  on  Acts  xxvii. 
17.  Two  instances  of  undergirding  the  ship  are  noticed  in  the  '  Chevalier  de  John- 
stone's Memoirs  of  the  Rebellion  in  1745—6,'  London  1822,  8vo.  pp.  421,  454."  (Wil- 
liams's notes  on  Pearson,  p.  85.) 

They  now  found  that  they  had  struck  on  the  island  of  Melita, 
(now  Malta,)  which  lies  just  south  of  Sicily,  in  the  direct  track  in 
which  the  eastern  gale  must  have  blown  them.  The  uncivilized 
inhabitants  of  this  desolate  spot  received  the  shipwrecked  voyagers 
with  the  kindest  attention,  and  very  considerately  kindled  a  fire, 
to  warm  and  dry  them,  after  their  long  soaking  in  cold  water. 
The  dripping  apostle  took  hold  with  the  rest  to  make  the  fire  blaze 
up,  and  gathered  a  bundle  of  dry  sticks  for  the  purpose ;  but  with 
them  he  unconsciously  gathered  a  viper,  which  was  sheltering  it- 
self among  them  from  the  cold,  and  roused  by  the  heat  of  the  fire, 
now  crept  out  upon  his  hand.  He,  of  course,  as  any  other  man 
would,  gave  a  jerk,  and  shook  it  off,  as  soon  as  he  saw  it, — a  very 
natural  occurrence ;  but  the  superstitious  barbarians  thought  this 
a  perfect  miracle,  as  they  had  before  foolishly  considered  it  a  token 
of  divine  wrath  ;  and  having  looked  on  him  as  an  object  of  hor- 
ror, and  a  wicked  criminal,  they  now,  with  equal  sense,  adored 
him  as  a  God. 

Another  incident  of  more  truly  miraculous  character,  occurred 
to  Paul  soon  after,  in  the  part  of  the  island  on  which  they  were 
wrecked,  which  had  the  effect  of  gaining  him  a  much  more  solid 
fame.  The  father  of  Publius,  the  Roman  officer  who  governed 
the  island,  as  the  deputy  of  the  praetor  of  Sicily,  was  at  that  time 
very  sick  of  the  dysentery ;  and  Paul  going  to  see  him,  laid  his 
hands  on  him  and  prayed, — thus  effecting  a  complete  recovery. 
This  being  known,  other  diseased  persons  were  presented  as  the 
subjects  of  Paul's  miraculous  powers,  and  the  same  cures  following 
his  words,  he  with  his  associates  soon  became  the  objects  of  a  far 
more  rational  reverence  than  had  been  excited  by  the  deliverance 


PAUL.  613 

from  the  viper.  The  reverence,  too,  was  extended  beyond  mere 
empty  honor.  The  shipwrecked  apostohc  company  havino^  lost  all 
their  baggage  and  provisions,  were  abundantly  provided  with  every 
thing  that  they  needed,  by  the  grateful  contributions  of  the  islanders ; 
and  when,  after  a  stay  of  three  months,  Paul  and  his  companions 
departed,  they  were  loaded  with  things  necessary  for  the  voyage. 

Sailing,  on  the  return  of  spring,  in  another  Alexandrine  vessel, 
of  the  same  very  common  name  borne  by  that  in  which  they  were 
shipwrecked,  they  came  next  to  Syracuse,  on  the  east  side  of  the 
island  of  Sicily,  and  after  a  stay  of  three  days,  turned  through  the 
Sicilian  strait  to  Rhegium,  on  the  mainland,  directly  opposite  the 
island.  There  Paul  first  saw  the  soil  of  Italy,  but  did  not  leave 
the  vessel  for  his  land  journey,  till  they  came,  with  a  fresh  south 
wind,  to  Puteoli,  a  port  in  the  bay  of  >s'aples.  Here  they  found 
Christians,  who  invited  them  to  rest  among  them  for  a  week  ;  after 
which  they  journeyed  alono-  the  coast,  on  the  noble  road  of  Poz- 
zuoli  and  Baiae,  for  about  a  hundred  miles,  to  Appius's  Forum, 
a  village  about  eighteen  miles  from  Rome.  At  this  place,  they 
were  met  by  a  number  of  brethren  from  the  church  of  Rome  ;  and 
having  journeyed  along  the  Appian  way,  to  the  Three  Taverns, — 
a  little  stopping-place,  a  few  miles  from  the  city, — they  were  re- 
ceived by  stiD  another  deputation  of  Roman  Christians,  come  out 
to  greet  the  great  apostle,  M'hose  name  had  long  been  known  among 
them,  and  whose  counsels  and  revelations  they  had  already  en- 
joyed by  his  writings.  This  noble  testimony  of  the  esteem  in 
which  they  held  him,  was  a  most  joyful  assurance  to  Paul,  that, 
even  on  this  foreign  shore,  a  stranger  and  a  prisoner,  he  had  many 
near  and  dear  friends ;  and  his  noble  spirit,  before  probably  de- 
pressed and  melancholy,  in  the  dark  prospect  of  his  approach  to 
the  awful  seat  of  that  remorseless  imp)erial  power  that  was  to  de- 
cide his  doom,  now  rose  to  feelings  of  exultation  and  gratitude. 
Entering  the  vast  imperial  city,  the  prisoners  were  remanded  by 
the  centurion  to  the  custody  of"  Burrhus,  the  noble  and  influential 
praefect  of  the  praetorian  guard,  who  was,  ex-ojlcio,  the  keeper  of 
all  prisoners  of  state,  brought  from  the  provinces  to  Rome.  Bur- 
rhus, however,  was  as  kind  and  accommodating  to  Paul  as  Julius 
had  been,  and  allowed  him  to  live  by  himself  in  a  private  house, 
with  only  a  soldier  as  an  attendent  guard. 

After  three  days,  Paul  invited  to  his  lodgings  the  chief  men  of 
the  Jewish  faith,  in  Rome,  and  made  known  to  them  the  circum- 
stances under  which  he  had  been  sent  thither,  and  his  present  re- 
81 


614  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

lations  to  the  heads  of  their  rehgion  in  Jerusalem.  In  reply,  they 
merely  stated  that  they  had  received  no  formal  communications 
respecting  him  from  Jerusalem,  nor  had  those  of  their  brethren 
who  had  arrived  from  Judea  spoken  ill  of  him.  They  expressed 
also  a  great  desire  to  hear  from  him  the  peculiar  doctrine,  for  en- 
tertaining which  he  had  been  thus  denounced,  of  which  they  pro- 
fessed to  know  nothing,  but  that  there  was  a  universal  prejudice 
against  it.  A  day  was  accordingly  appointed  for  a  full  conference 
on  these  very  important  subjects, — and  at  the  set  time,  Paul,  with 
no  small  willingness,  discoursed  at  great  length  on  his  views  of 
the  accomplishment  of  all  the  ancient  prophecies  respecting  the 
Messiah,  in  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  His  hearers 
were  very  much  divided  in  opinion  about  these  points,  after  his 
discourse  was  over, — some  believing,  and  some  disbelieving. 
Leaving  them  to  meditate  on  what  he  had  said,  Paul  dismissed 
them  with  a  warning  quotation  from  Isaiah  against  their  preju- 
dices, and  sternly  reminded  them,  that  though  they  did  reject  the 
truth,  the  waiting  Gentiles  were  prepared  to  embrace  it,  and  should 
receive  the  word  of  God  immediately.  They  then  left  him,  and 
made  his  words  a  subject  of  much  discussion  among  themselves 
but  the  results  are  unrecorded.  Paul  having  hired  a  house  in 
Rome,  made  that  city  the  scene  of  his  active  labors  for  two  whole 
years,  receiving  all  that  called  to  inquire  into  religious  truth,  and 
proclaiming  the  doctrines  of  Christianity  with  the  most  unhesi- 
tating boldness  and  freedom ;  and  no  man  in  Rome  could  molest 
him  in  making  known  his  belief  to  as  many  as  chose  to  hear  him ; 
for  it  was  not  till  many  years  after  that  the  Christians  were  de- 
nounced and  persecuted  by  Nero. 

HIS  EPISTLES  WRITTEN  FROM  ROME. 

With  these  facts  the  noble  narrative  of  Luke  ceases  entirely, 
and  henceforth  no  means  are  left  of  ascertaining  the  events  of 
Paul's  life,  except  in  those  incidental  allusions  which  his  subse- 
quent writings  make  to  his  circumstances.  Those  epistles  which 
are  certainly  known  and  universally  agreed  to  have  been  written 
from  Rome  during  this  imprisonment,  are  those  to  the  Philippians, 
the  Ephesians,  the  Colossians,  and  to  Philemon.  There  are  pas- 
sages in  all  these  which  imply  that  he  was  then  near  the  close  of 
his  imprisonment,  for  he  speaks  with  great  confidence  of  being 
able  to  visit  them  shortly,  and  very  particularly  requests  prepara- 
tion to  be  made  for  his  accommodation  on  his  arrival. 


PAUL.  615  ' 

There  is  good  reason  to  think  that  the  epistles  to  the  Ephesians, 
to  the  Colossians,  and  to  Philemon,  were  written  about  the  same 
time,  and  were  sent  together.  This  appears  from  the  fact,  that 
Tychicus  is  spoken  of,  in  both  the  two  former,  as  sent  by  the  apos- 
tle to  make  known  to  them  all  his  circumstances  more  fully,  and 
is  also  implied  as  the  bearer  of  both,  while  Onesimus,  the  bearer 
of  the  latter,  is  also  mentioned  in  the  epistle  to  the  Colossians  as 
accompanying  Tychicus. 

THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS. 

The  most  important  question  which  has  been  raised  concerning 
this  epistle,  regards  the  point,  whether  it  was  truly  directed  and  sent 
by  Paul  to  the  church  in  Ephesus,  as  the  common  reading  distinctly 
specifies.  Many  eminent  modern  critics  have  maintained  that  it  was 
originally  sent  to  the  church  in  Laodicea,  and  that  the  word  Ephe- 
sus, in  the  direction  and  in  the  first  verse,  is  a  change  made  in  later 
times  by  those  who  felt  interested  to  claim  for  this  city  the  honor  of 
an  apostolic  epistle.  Others  incline  to  the  opinion,  that  it  was  di- 
rected to  no  particular  church,  but  was  sent  as  a  circular  to  several 
churches  in  Asia  Minor,  among  which  were  those  of  Ephesus  and 
Laodicea,  and  that  several  copies  were  sent  at  the  same  time,  each 
copy  being  differently  directed.  They  suppose  that  when  the  epis- 
tles of  Paul  were  first  collected,  that  copy  which  was  sent  to  Ephe- 
sus was  the  one  adopted  for  this,  and  that  the  original  manuscript 
being  soon  lost,  all  written  trace  of  its  original  general  direction  dis- 
appeared also. 

The  prominent  reason  for  this  remarkable  supposition,  unsupport- 
ed as  it  is  JDy  the  authority  of  any  ancient  manuscript,  is  that  Paul 
writes  apparently  with  no  local  reference  whatever  to  the  circum- 
stances of  the  Ephesians,  among  whom  he  had  lived  for  three  years, 
although  his  other  epistles  to  places  which  he  had  visited  are  so  fiill 
of  personal  and  local  matters ;  and  that  he  speaks,  on  the  contrary, 
as  though  he  knew  little  of  them,  except  by  hearsay.  A  reference 
to  the  particular  details  of  the  reasoning  by  which  this  opinion  is 
supported,  would  altogether  transcend  the  proper  limits  of  this  work ; 
since  even  a  summary  of  them  fills  a  great  many  pages  of  those  cri- 
tical and  exegetical  works,  to  which  these  discussions  properly  be- 
long ;  and  all  which  can  be  stated  here  is  the  general  result,  that  a 
great  weight  of  authority  favors  the  view  that  this  was  probably  a 
circular  epistle ;  but  the  whole  argument  in  favor  of  either  notion, 
rests  on  so  slight  a  foundation,  that  it  is  not  worth  while  to  disturb 
the  common  impression  for  it. 

The  epistle  certainly  does  not  seem  to  dwell  on  any  local  difficul- 
ties, but  enlarges  eloquently  upon  general  topics,  showing  the  holy 
watchfulness  of  the  apostle  over  the  faith  of  his  readers.  He  appears, 
nevertheless,  to  emphasize  with  remarkable  force  the  doctrines  that 


616  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

Christ  alone  was  the  source  and  means  of  salvation,  "  the  chief  cor- 
ner-stone," and  that  in  him  all  are  united,  both  Jews  and  Gentiles,  in 
one  holy  temple.  There  is  something  in  many  such  passages,  with 
which  the  epistle  abounds,  that  seems  peculiarly  well  fitted  to  the  cir- 
cumstances of  mixed  communities,  made  up  of  Jews  and  Gentiles, 
and  as  if  the  apostle  wished  to  prevent  the  former  from  creating  any 
distinctions  in  the  church,  in  their  own  favor.  Many  passages  in  this 
epistle,  also,  are  very  pointedly  opposed  to  those  heresies,  which  about 
that  period  were  beginning  to  rise  up  in  those  regions,  and  were  af- 
terwards famous  under  the  name  of  the  Gnosis, — the  first  distinct 
sect  that  is  known  to  have  perverted  the  purity  of  the  Christian  truth. 
Paul  here  aims  with  remarkable  energy  to  prove  that  salvation  was 
to  be  attributed  to  Christ  alone,  and  not  to  the  intervention  of  any 
other  superior  beings,  by  whatever  names  they  are  called,  whether 
principaUties,  or  powers,  or  might,  or  dominion,  both  in  this  world 
and  the  world  to  come, — in  heavenly  places  as  well  as  earthly. 
The  apostle,  also,  is  very  full  in  the  moral  and  practical  part, — urging 
with  great  particularity,  the  observance  of  those  virtues  which  are 
the  essentials  of  the  Christian  character,  and  specifying  to  each  par- 
ticular age,  sex,  rank,  and  condition,  its  own  peculiar  duties. 

THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  COLOSSIANS. 

In  the  first  verse  of  the  second  chapter,  the  apostle  expresses  a  pe- 
culiar anxiety  for  the  spiritual  safety  of  those  Christians  who  have 
not  seen  iiis  face  in  the  flesh,  among  whom  he  appears  to  number 
the  Colossians  and  Laodiceans.  It  seems  quite  evident  that  he  had 
never  been  at  Colosse ;  for  though  lie  traversed  Phrygia,  on  two 
several  occasions  liefore  this  time,  he  is  not  said  to  have  visited  either 
Colosse  or  Laodicea ; — but  his  route  is  so  described,  as  to  make  it 
almost  impossible  for  him  to  have  taken  either  city  directly  in  his 
way.  This  circumstance  may  account  for  the  fact  of  his  distin- 
guishing in  this  manner  a  single  city  like  Colosse,  of  no  great  size  or 
importance ;  because  as  it  appears  from  tlie  general  tenor  of  the  epis- 
tle, certain  peculiar  errors  had  arisen  among  them,  which  were  pro- 
bably more  dangerously  rife,  from  the  circumstance  of  their  never 
havins:  heen  blessed  by  the  personal  presence  and  labors  of  an  apostle. 
The  errors  which  he  particularly  attacks,  seem  to  be  those  of  the  Ju  • 
daizers,  who  were  constantly  insisting  on  the  necessity  of  Mosaical  ob- 
servances, such  as  circumcision,  sabbaths,  abstinence  from  unclean 
meats,  and  other  things  of  the  same  sort.  He  cautions  them  particu- 
larly against  certain  false  doctrines,  also  referred  to  under  the  names 
of  philosophy,  vain  deceit,  the  traditions  of  men,  (fee,  whicli  are  com- 
monly thought  to  refer  to  the  errors  of  the  Essenes,  a  Jewish  sect, 
characterized  by  Josephus  in  terms  somewhat  similar,  and  who  are 
supposed  to  have  introduced  their  ascetic  and  mystical  doctrines 
into  the  Christian  church,  and  to  have  formed  one  of  the  sources  of 
,  the  great  system  of  Gnosticism,  as  afterwards  perfected.    The  moral 


PAUL.  617 

part  of  this  epistle  bears  a  very  striking  similarity,  even  in  words,  to 
the  conclusion  of  that  to  the  Ephesians, — a  resemblance  probably 
attributable  in  part,  to  the  circumstance,  that  they  were  written  about 
the  same  time.  The  circumstance  that  he  has  mentioned  to  the  Co- 
lossians  an  epistle  to  be  sent  for  by  them  from  Laodicea,  has  given 
rise  to  a  forged  production,  purporting  to  be  this  very  epistle  from 
Paul  to  the  Laodiceans ;  but  it  is  manifestly  a  mere  brief  rhapsody, 
collected  from  Paul's  other  epistles,  and  has  never  for  a  moment  im- 
posed upon  the  critical.  It  has  been  supposed  that  the  true  epistle 
meant  by  Paul  is  another,  now  lost,  written  by  Paul  to  Laodicea ; 
and  the  supposition  is  not  unreasonable. 

THE  EPISTLE  TO  PHILEMON. 

This  was  merely  a  private  letter  from  Paul  to  a  person  otherwise 
not  known,  but  appearing,  from  the  terms  in  which  he  is  herein 
mentioned,  to  have  been  at  some  time  or  other  associated  with  Paul 
in  the  gospel  work  ;  since  he  styles  him  "  fellow-laborer."  He  ap- 
pears to  have  been  a  man  of  some  property  and  generosity,  because 
he  had  a  house  spacious  enough  to  hold  a  worshiping  assembly  who 
were  freely  acconmiodated  by  him  ;  and  he  is  likewise  mentioned  as 
hospitably  entertaining  traveling  Christians.  The  possession  of  some 
wealth  is  also  implied  in  the  circumstance  which  is  the  occasion  of 
this  epistle.  Like  almost  all  Christians  of  that  age  who  were  able 
to  do  so,  he  owned  at  least  one  slave,  by  name  Onesimus,  who  had 
run  away  from  him  to  Rome,  and  there  falling  under  the  notice  of 
Paul,  was  made  the  subject  of  his  personal  attentions,  and  was  at 
last  converted  by  him  to  the  Christian  faith.  Paul  now  sends  him 
back  to  his  old  master,  with  this  letter,  in  which  he  narrates  the  cir- 
cumstances connected  with  the  flight  and  conversion  of  Onesimus, 
and  then  with  great  earnestness,  yet  with  mildness,  entreats  Phile- 
mon to  receive  him  now,  not  as  a  slave,  but  as  a  brother, — to  forgive 
him  his  offenses,  and  restore  him  to  favor.  Paul  himself  ofiigrs  to  be- 
come personally  responsible  for  all  pecuniary  loss  experienced  by 
Philemon,  in  consequence  of  the  absence  of  his  servant  in  Rome, 
where  he  had  been  ministering  to  Paul ;  and  the  apostle  gives  his 
own  note  of  hand  for  any  reasonable  amount  which  Philemon  may 
choose  to  claim.  Throughout  the  whole,  he  speaks  in  great  confi- 
dence of  the  ready  compliance  of  Philemon  with  these  requests,  and 
evidently  considers  him  a  most  intimate  friend,  loving  and  beloved. 
He  also  speaks  with  great  confidence  of  his  own  speedy  release  from 
his  bonds,  and  begs" Philemon  to  prepare  him  a  lodging;  for  he 
trusts  that  through  his  prayers,  he  shall  shortly  be  given  to  him. 

THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  PHILIPPIANS. 

That  this  was  written  after  the  others  that  were  sent  from  Rome 
by  Paul  during  this  imprisonment,  is  proved  by  several  circum- 
stances.    Luke  was  certainly  with  him  when  he  wrote  to  the  Colos- 


618  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

sians  and  to  Philemon  ;  but  no  mention  whatever  is  made  of  him  in 
the  epistle  to  the  Phihppians,  who  would,  nevertheless,  feel  as  much 
interest  in  him  as  in  Timothy  or  any  companion  of  Paul ;  because 
he  had  resided  in  Philippi  many  years,  and  must  have  had  many  ac- 
quaintances there,  who  would  expect  some  account  of  him,  and  some 
salutation  from  him.  Paul,  moreover,  says,  that  he  trusts  to  send 
Timothy  shortly  to  them,  because  he  has  no  man  with  him  who  is 
like  minded,  or  who  will  care  for  their  state ; — a  remark  which,  if 
Luke  had  been  with  him,  he  could  not  have  made  with  any  justice 
to  that  faithful  and  diligent  associate,  who  was  himself  a  personal 
acquaintance  of  the  Philippians.  There  were  some  circumstances 
connected  with  the  situation  of  Paul,  as  referred  to  in  this  epistle, 
which  seem  to  imply  a  different  date  from  those  epistles  just  men- 
tioned. His  condition  seems  improved  in  many  respects,  although 
before  not  uncomfortable,  and  his  expectations  of  release  still  more 
confident,  though  before  so  strong.  He  speaks  also  of  a  new  and 
remarkable  field  in  which  his  preaching  had  been  successful,  and 
that  is,  the  palace  of  the  imperial  Caesar  himself,  among  whose 
household  attendents  were  many  now  numbered  among  the  saints 
who  sent  salutations  to  Philippi.  The  terms  in  which  he  mentions 
his  approaching  release,  are  still  more  remarkable  than  those  in  the 
former  epistles.  He  says — "  Having  this  confidence,  I  kno^o  that  I 
shall  abide  and  continue  with  you  all,"  &c.,  "  that  your  rejoicing  may 
be  more  abundant,  by  my  coming  to  you  again."  "  I  trust  in  the 
Lord  that  I  shall  myself  also  come  shortly." 

The  immediate  occasion  of  this  epistle  was  the  return  of  Epaphro- 
ditus,  the  apostle  or  messenger  of  the  Philippian  church,  by  whom 
Paul  now  wrote  this,  as  a  grateful  acknowledgment  of  their  gene- 
rosity in  contributing  to  iiis  support  that  money,  of  which  Epaphro- 
ditus  was  the  bearer.  In  the  epistle,  he  also  took  occasion,  after 
giving  them  an  account  of  his  life  in  Rome,  to  warn  them  against 
the  errors  of  the  Judaizers,  whose  doctrines  were  the  occasion  of  so 
much  difficulty  in  the  Christian  churches. 

THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  HEBREWS. 

The  release  which  Paul  so  confidently  anticipated,  probably  hap- 
pened shortly  after  the  writing  of  the  last  epistle;  and  at  this  time, 
just  before  leaving  Italy  for  another  field  of  labor,  it  is  commonly 
beheved  that  he  wrote  his  epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  Of  the  particular 
place,  the  time,  the  immediate  object,  and  the  persons  who  were  the 
receivers  of  this  epistle,  nothing  is  with  any  certainty  known  ;  and 
the  whole  range  of  statements  in  standard  works  of  exegetical  and 
critical  theology,  on  this  writing,  is  the  most  appalling  mass  of  vague 
speculations,  unfounded  conclusions,  and  contradictory  assertions, 
that  presents  itself  to  the  historian  of  the  apostolic  works  in  any  di- 
rection ;  and  in  respect  to  all  these  points,  referring  the  critical  to  any 
or  all  of  the  thousand  and  one  views,  given  in  the  learned  and  elabo- 


6" 


remained  untaomi.    It  is  better  to  leave  a  question  m  a  state  of  un- 
SrtanUy"h«i°rhout  foundation  to  adopt  an  opmion  whieh  may 

lead  to  material  errors." 

VOYAGE  TO  THE  EAST. 

On  leaving  Italy  after  this  release,  he  seems  to.  have  directed 
his  eourse  eastward  ;  but  nothing  whatever  is  known  of  his  mo- 
tions, except  that  from  the  epistle  of  Titus  it  is  learned  that  he 
ourneved  to  Miletus,  to  Ephesus,  to  Troas,  to  Macedonia  to  Crete, 
rd™o  Epi  us,-and  last  of  all,  probably,  to  Rome.    H.s  first  move- 
men  s  on  his  release  were,  doubtless,  in  conformity  with  his  pre- 
"ous  designs,  as  expressed  in  his  epistles.    He  probably  went  first 
risia  visiting  Ephesus,  Miletus,  Colosse,  &c.     On  this  voyage 
he  m"hthave\ft  Titus  in  Crete,  (as  specified  in  his  letter  to  that 
minister,)  and  on  embarking  for  Macedonia,  left  Timothy  at  Ephe- 
7ns  (as  mentioned  in  the  first  epistle  to  him.)     After  visiting  Phi- 
Uppi  and  other  places  in  Macedonia  where  he  wrote  to  Timothy, 
hrseel  to  have  crossed  over  the  country  to  the  shore  of  the 
?o„  anTea  to  Nicopolis,  whence  he  wrote  to  Titus,  to  come  from 
Crete  and  join  him  there.     These  two  epistles,  being  of  a  merely 
SS:;;i  character,  containing  instructions  for  the  e.xercise  of   he 
apostolic  functions  of  ordination,  &c.,  m  the  .»te™^«  "^  P™'' ^!" 
not  need  any  particular  historical  notice,  being  so  simple  m  their 
Xct  thanLy  sufficiently  explain  themselves.     Respecting  that 
to  Ttaothy,  however,  it  may  be  specified  that  some  of  its  peculiar 
expressions  seem  to  be  aimed  at  the  rising  heresy  ol  the  Jewish 
and  Oriental  mystics,  who  were  then  infecting  the  eastern  churche 
wi'h  the  first  beginnings  of  that  heresy  which  under  the  name 
of  Gnosis,  or  science,  (falsely  so  called,)  soon  after  corruped  vv,^ 
its  dogmas  a  vast  number  in  Asia  Minor,  Greece,  and  Syria^^  The 
style  and  tenor  of  both  of  the  epistles  are  so  ^  ^rent  f  om  aU 
Paul's  other  writings,  as  to  make  it  very  evident  that  they  were 
wrUtent  a  dTffereift  time,  and  under  very  different  circumstances 
from  the  rest.  gg 


620  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

RETURN  TO  ROME. 

The  only  real  evidence  of  this  movement  of  Paul  is  found  in 
the  tenor  of  certain  passages  in  the  second  epistle  to  Timothy, 
which  seem  to  show  that  it  was  written  during  the  author's  im- 
prisonment in  Rome,  but  which  cannot  be  connected  with  his 
former  confinement  there.  In  the  former  epistles  written  from 
Rome,  Timothy  was  with  Paul ; — but  this,  of  course,  implies  that 
he  was  absent.  In  them,  Demas  is  declared  to  be  with  Paul ; — 
in  this,  he  is  mentioned  as  having  forsaken  him,  and  gone  to  Thes- 
salonica.  In  the  first  epistle  to  Timothy,  Mark  was  also  with  Paul, 
and  joined  in  saluting  the  Colossians  j  in  this,  Timothy  is  in- 
structed to  bring  him  to  Paul,  because  he  is  profitable  to  him  in 
the  ministry.  In  the  fourth  chapter,  Paul  says  that  "  Erastus  abode 
at  Corinth ;" — an  expression  which  implies  that  Erastus  abode  in 
Corinth  when  Paul  left  it.  But  Paul  took  no  journey  from  Co- 
rinth before  his  first  imprisonment ;  for  when  he  left  that  place  for 
the  last  time  before  his  journey  to  Jerusalem, — when  he  was  seized 
and  sent  to  Rome, — he  was  accompanied  by  Timothy ;  and  there 
could  therefore  be  no  need  of  informing  him  of  that  fact.  In  the 
same  passage  of  this  epistle,  he  also  says  that  he  had  left  Tro- 
phimus  sick  at  Miletus ;  but  when  Paul  passed  through  Miletus, 
on  that  journey  to  Jerusalem,  Trophimus  certainly  was  not  left 
behind  at  Miletus,  but  accompanied  him  to  Jerusalem ;  for  he  was 
seen  there  with  him  by  the  Asian  Jews.  These  two  passages, 
therefore,  refer  to  a  journey  taken  subsequent  to  Paul's  first  impri- 
sonment,— and  the  epistle  which  refers  to  them,  and  purports,  in 
other  passages,  to  have  been  written  during  an  imprisonment  in 
Rome,  shows  that  he  returned  thither  after  his  first  imprisonment. 

The  most  striking  passage  in  this  epistle  also  refers  with  great 
distinctness  to  his  expectation  of  being  very  speedily  removed  from 
apostolic  labors  to  an  eternal  apostolic  reward.  "  I  am  now  ready 
to  be  offered,  and  the  time  of  my  departure  is  at  hand.  I  have 
fought  the  good  fight ;  I  have  finished  my  course  ;  I  have  kept  the 
faith :  hencefortli,  there  is  laid  up  for  me  a  crown  of  life,  which 
the  Lord,  the  righteous  judge,  shall  give  me  at  that  day."  All 
these  expressions  are  utterly  at  variance  with  those  hopes  of  re- 
lease, and  of  the  speedy  renewal  of  his  labors  in  an  eastern  field ; 
and  show  very  plainly  that  all  the  tasks  to  which  he  once  looked 
forward  were  now  completed,  and  that  he  could  hope  for  no  de- 


PAUL.  621 

liverance,  but  that  which  should  call  him  from  chains  and  toils  to 
an  eternal  crown. 

HIS  DEATH, 

The  circumstance  of  his  being  again  in  Rome  a  prisoner,  after 
having  been  once  set  free  by  the  mandate  of  the  emperor  himself, 
after  a  full  hearing,  must  at  once  require  a  reference  to  a  state  of 
things,  in  which  Paul's  religious  profession  and  evangelizing  la- 
bors, before  esteemed  so  blameless  that  no  man  in  Rome  forbade 
him  to  preach  the  gospel  there, — had  now,  by  a  mighty  revolution 
in  opinions,  become  a  crime,  since  for  these,  he  was  now  held  in 
bondage,  without  the  possibility  of  escape  from  the  threatened  death. 
Such  a  change  actually  did  occur  in  the  latter  part  of  the  reign 
of  Nero,  when,  as  already  related  in  the  history  of  St.  Peter's  first 
epistle,  the  whole  power  of  the  imperial  government  was  turned 
against  the  Christians,  as  a  sect,  and  they  were  convicted  on  that 
accusation  alone,  as  deserving  of  death.  The  date  of  this  revo- 
lution in  the  condition  of  the  Christians,  is  fixed  by  Roman  his- 
tory in  the  sixty-fourth  year  of  Christ ;  and  the  time  when  Paul 
was  cast  into  chains  the  second  time,  must  therefore  be  referred  to 
this  year.  His  actual  death  evidently  did  not  take  place  at  once, 
but  was  deferred  long  enough  to  allow  of  his  writing  to  Timothy, 
and  for  him  to  make  some  arrangements  therein,  for  a  short  con- 
tinuance of  his  labors.  The  date  which  is  commonly  fixed  as 
the  time  of  his  execution,  is  in  the  year  of  Christ  65  ;  but,  in  truth, 
nothing  whatever  is  known  about  it,  nor  can  even  a  probability  be 
confidently  affirmed  on  the  subject.  Being  a  Roman  citizen,  he 
could  not  die  by  a  mode  so  infamous  as  that  of  the  cross,  but  was 
beheaded,  as  a  more  honorable  exit ;  and  with  this  view,  the  testi- 
mony of  most  of  the  early  Fathers,  who  particularize  his  death, 
distinctly  accords. 

Of  the  various  fictions  which  the  monkish  story-tellers  have  invented  to  gratify 
the  curiosity  which  Christian  readers  feel  about  other  particulars  of  the  apostle's 
character,  the  following  is  an  amusing  specimen.  "  Paul,  if  we  may  believe  Nice- 
phorus,  was  of  a  low  and  small  stature,  somewhat  stooping;  his  complexion  fair;  his 
countenance  grave;  his  head  small ;  his  eyes  sparkling;  his  nose  high  and  bending; 
and  his  hair  thick  and  dark,  but  mixed  with  gray.  His  constitution  was  weak,  and 
often  subject  to  distempers;  but  his  mind  was  strong,  and  endued  with  a  solid  judg- 
ment, quick  invention,  and  prompt  memory,  which  were  ail  improved  by  art,  and  the 
advantages  of  a  liberal  education.  Besides  the  epistles  which  are  owned  to  be  genu- 
ine, several  other  writings  are  falsely  ascribed  to  him :  as  an  epistle  to  the  Laodiceans, 
a  third  to  the  Thessalonians,  a  third  to  the  Corinthians,  a  second  to  the  Ephesians, 
his  letter  to  Seneca,  his  Acts,  his  Revelation,  his  voyage  to  Thecla,  and  his  Ser- 
mons."   (Cave's  Lives  of  the  Apostles.) 

But  the  honors  and  saintship  of  Paul  are  recorded,  not  in  the 


622  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

vague  and  misty  traces  of  bloody  martyr-death,  but  in  the  far 
more  glorious  achievments  of  a  heroic  Ufe.  In  these,  are  con- 
tained the  essence  of  his  greatness ;  to  these,  all  the  Gentile  world 
owes  its  salvation ;  and  on  these,  the  modern  historian,  follow- 
ing the  model  of  the  sacred  writers,  dwells  with  far  more  mi- 
nuteness and  particularity,  than  on  a  dull  mass  of  uncertain  tra- 
dition. 


JOSEPH    BARNABAS. 


Op  this  apostle  so  few  circumstances  are  known,  that  are  not 
inseparably  connected  with  the  life  of  Paul,  in  which  they  have 
been  already  recorded,  that  only  a  very  brief  space  can  be  occu- 
pied with  the  events  of  his  distinct  life.  The  first  passage  in 
which  he  is  mentioned,  is  that  in  the  fourth  chapter  of  Acts,  where 
he  is  specified  as  having  distinguished  himself  among  those  who 
sold  their  lands,  for  the  sake  of  appropriating  the  avails  to  the 
support  of  the  Christian  community.  Introduced  to  the  notice  of 
the  reader  under  these  most  honorable  circumstances,  he  is  there 
described  as  of  the  tribe  of  Levi,  and  yet  a  resident  in  the  island  of 
Cyprus,  where  he  seems  to  have  held  the  land  which  he  sacrificed 
to  the  purposes  of  religious  charity.  This  island  was  for  a  long 
time,  before  and  after  that  period,  inhabited  by  great  numbers  of 
wealthy  Jews,  and  there  was  hardly  any  part  of  the  world  where 
they  were  so  powerful  and  so  favored  as  in  Cyprus ;  so  that  even 
the  sacred  order  of  the  Levites  might  well  find  inducements  to 
leave  that  consecrated  soil  to  which  they  were  more  especially  at- 
tached by  the  peculiar  ordinances  of  the  Mosaic  institutions,  and 
seek  on  this  beautiful  and  fertile  island  a  new  home,  and  a  new 
seat  for  the  faith  of  their  fathers.  The  occasion  on  which  Joseph 
(for  that  was  his  original  name)  left  Cyprus  to  visit  Jerusalem,  is 
not  known;  nor  can  it  even  be  determined  whether  he  was  ever 
himself  a  personal  hearer  of  Jesus.  He  may  very  possibly  have 
been  one  of  the  foreign  Jews  present  at  the  Pentecost,  and  may 
there  have  been  first  converted  to  the  Christian  faith.  On  his  dis- 
tinguishing himself  among  his  new  brethren,  both  by  good  words 
and  generous  deeds,  he  was  honored  by  the  apostles  with  the  name 
of  Barnabas,  which  is  interpreted  in  Greek  by  words  that  may 
mean  either  "  son  of  consolation"  or  "  son  of  exhortation"  The 
former  sense,  of  course,  would  aptly  refer  to  his  generosity  in 
comforting  the  poor  apostolic  community,  by  his  pecuniary  contri- 
butions, as  just  before  mentioned ;  and  this  has  induced  many  to 
prefer  that  meaning ;  but  the  majority  of  critical  translators  and 


624  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

commentators  have  been  led,  on  a  careful  investigation  both  of  the 
original  Hebrew  word  and  of  the  Greek  translation  of  it,  to  prefer 
the  meaning  of  "  son  of  exhortation^^  or  "  instruction,^^  a  meaning 
which  certainly  well  accords  with  the  subsequent  distinction  at- 
tained by  him  in  his  apostolic  labors.  Both  senses  may,  however, 
have  been  referred  to,  with  an  intentional  equivoque. 

"  Acts,  ch.  iv.  ver.  37.  virapxovToq  avTtfi  dypov.  He  could  not  have  sold  that  which 
•was  his  paternal  inheritance  as  a  Levit'e ;  but  this  might  perhaps  be  some  legacy,  or 
purchase  of  land  in  Judea,  to  which  he  might  have  a  title  till  the  next  jubilee,  or  per- 
haps some  land  in  Cyprus.  (Doddridge.)  That  it  was  lawful  for  the  Levites  to  buy 
land,  we  learn  from  the  example  of  Jeremiah  himself,  who  was  of  the  tribe  of  Levi. 
See  Jer.  xxxii.  17.  It  is  observed  by  Bp.  Pearce,  that  those  commentators  who  con- 
tend that  this  land  must  have  belonged  to  his  wife,  because,  according  to  the  law 
mentioned  in  Numb,  xviii.  20,  23,  and  24,  a  Levite  could  have  no  inheriiance  in  Israel, 
seem  to  have  mistaken  the  sense  of  that  law,  '  which,'  says  he,  '  means  only  that  the 
Levites,  as  a  tribe,  were  not  to  have  a  share  in  the  division  of  Canaan  among  the 
other  tribes.  This  did  not  hinder  any  Levite  from  possessing  lands  in  Judea,  either 
by  purchase  or  by  gift,  as  well  as  in  right  of  his  wife.  Josephus  was  a  Levite,  and 
a  priest,  too;  and  yet  in  his  Life,  ch.  76,  he  speaks  of  l/inds  which  he  had  lying  about 
Jerusalem,  and  in  exchange  of  which,  Vespasian  gave  him  others,  for  his  greater  be- 
nefit and  advantage.  After  all,  I  see  no  reason  why  we  may  not  suppose  that  this 
land,  which  Barnabas  had  and  sold,  was  not  land  in  Judea;  and  if  so,  the  words  of 
the  law,  'no  inheritance  in  Israel,'  did  not,  however  understood,  affect  their  case. 
His  land  might  have  been  in  his  own  country,  Cyprus,  an  island  at  no  great  distance 
from  Judea;  and  he  might  have  sold  ii  at  Jerusalem  to  some  purchaser  there;  per- 
haps to  one  of  his  own  countrymen.'  "    (Bloomfield's  Annot.  Vol.  IV.  pp.  147,  148.) 

In  all  the  other  passages  of  the  New  Testament  in  which  he 
is  mentioned,  he  is  associated  with  Paul,  and  every  recorded  act 
of  his  life  has  been  already  given  in  the  life  of  his  great  associate. 
His  first  acquaintance  with  him  on  his  return  to  Jerusalem  after 
his  conversion, — his  mission  to  Antioch,  and  labors  there  in  con- 
junction with  Paul,  when  he  had  brought  him  from  Tarsus, — their 
visit  to  Jerusalem, — their  return  to  Antioch, — their  first  great 
mission  through  Asia  Minor — their  visit  to  Jerusalem,  at  the  coun- 
cil, and  their  joint  report, — their  second  return  to  Antioch, — their 
proposed  association  in  a  new  mission, — their  contention  and  sepa- 
ration,— have  all  been  fully  detailed  ;  nor  is  there  any  authentic 
source  from  which  any  facts  can  be  derived,  as  to  the  subsequent 
incidents  of  his  life.  All  that  is  related  of  him  in  the  Acts,  is, 
that  after  his  separation  from  Paul,  he  sailed  to  Cyprus ;  nor  is 
any  mention  made,  in  any  of  the  epistles,  of  his  subsequent  life. 
The  time  and  place  of  his  death  are  also  unknown. 


JOHN    MARK. 


Of  the  family  and  birth  of  this  eminent  apostohc  associate,  it  is 
recorded  in  the  New  Testament,  that  his  mother  was  named  Mary, 
and  had  a  house  in  Jerusalem,  which  was  a  regular  place  of  reli- 
gious assembly  for  the  Christians  in  that  city ;  for  Peter,  on  his 
deliverance  from  prison,  went  directly  thither,  as  though  sure  of 
finding  there  some  of  the  brethren  ;  and  he  actually  did  find  a 
number  of  them  assembled  for  prayer.  Of  the  other  connexions 
of  Mark,  the  interesting  fact  is  recorded,  that  Mary,  his  mother, 
was  the  sister  of  Barnabas ;  and  he  was  therefore  by  the  maternal 
line,  at  least,  of  Levite  descent.  From  the  mode  in  which  Mary 
is  mentioned,  it  would  seem  that  her  husband  was  dead  at  that 
time ;  but  nothing  else  can  be  inferred  about  the  father  of  Mark. 
The  first  event  in  which  he  is  distinctly  mentioned  as  concerned, 
is  the  return  of  Paul  and  Barnabas  from  Jerusalem  to  Antioch, 
after  Peter's  escape.  These  two  apostles,  on  this  occasion,  .are 
said  to  have  "  taken  with  them,  John  whose  surname  was  Mark ;" 
and  he  is  afterwards  mentioned  under  either  of  these  names,  or 
both  together.  The  former  was  his  original  appellation  ;  but  being 
exceedingly  common  among  the  Jews,  and  being,  moreover,  borne 
by  one  of  the  apostles,  it  required  another  distinctive  word  to  be 
joined  with  it.  It  is  remarkable  that  a  Roman,  heathen  appellation, 
was  chosen  for  this  purpose ; — Marcus,  which  is  the  true  form  in 
the  original,  being  a  name  of  purely  Latin  origin,  and  one  of  the 
commonest  praenomens  among  the  Romans.  It  might  have  been 
the  name  of  some  person  connected  with  the  Roman  government 
in  Jerusalem,  who  had  distinguished  himself  as  a  friend  or  patron 
of  the  family:  but  the  conjecture  is  hardly  worth  offering. 

After  returning  with  Paul  and  Barnabas  to  Antioch,  he  was 
next  called  to  accompany  them  as  an  assistant  in  their  apostolic 
voyage  through  Cyprus  and  Asia  Minor ;  but  on  their  coming  to 
Perga,  in  Pamphylia,  he  suddenly  left  them  and  returned  to  Jeru- 
salem ; — a  change  of  purpose  which  was  considered,  by  Paul  at 
least,  as  resulting  from  a  want  of  resolution,  steadiness,  or  courage, 
83 


626  LIVES  OP  THE  APOSTLES. 

and  was  the  occasion  of  a  very  serious  difficulty ;  for  Mark  having 
returned  to  Antioch  afterwards,  was  taken  by  Barnabas  as  a  proper 
associate  on  the  proposed  mission  over  the  former  fields  of  labor ; 
but  Paul  utterly  rejected  him,  because  he  had  already,  on  the  same 
route,  once  deserted  them,  when  they  needed  his  services,  and  he 
therefore  refused  to  go  in  his  company  again.  This  difference  was 
the  occasion  of  that  unhappy  contention,  the  incidents  of  which 
have  already  been  particularly  detailed  in  the  Life  of  Paul.  Mark, 
however,  being  resolutely  supported  by  his  uncle,  accompanied 
him  to  Cyprus ;  but  of  his  next  movement  as  little  is  known  as  in 
respect  to  Barnabas.  The  next  occasion  on  which  his  name  is 
mentioned,  is  by  Paul,  in  his  epistles  to  the  Colossians  and  Phile- 
mon, as  being  then  with  him  in  Rome ;  from  which  it  appears  the 
great  apostle  had  now  for  a  long  time  been  reconciled  to  him,  and 
esteemed  him  as  a  valuable  associate  in  the  ministry.  He  is  not 
mentioned  in  the  epistle  to  the  Philippians,  which  therefore  makes 
it  probable  that  he  had  then  gone  to  the  east.  In  the  second  epis- 
tle to  Timothy,  Paul  requests  that  Mark  may  be  sent  to  him,  be- 
cause he  is  profitable  to  him  for  the  ministry ;  which  is  a  most 
abundant  testimony  to  his  merits,  and  to  the  re-establishment  of 
Paul's  confidence  in  his  zeal,  resolution,  and  ability.  Whether  he 
was  actually  sent  to  Rome  as  requested,  does  not  appear ; — but  he 
is  afterwards  distinctly  mentioned  by  Peter,  in  that  epistle  which 
he  wrote  from  Babylon,  as  being  then  with  him.  The  title  of 
"  son,"  which  Peter  gives  him,  seems  to  imply  a  very  near  and  fa- 
miliar intimacy  between  them ;  and  is  probably  connected  with  the 
circumstance  of  his  being  made  the  subject  of  the  chief  apostle's 
particular  religious  instructions  in  his  youth,  in  consequence  of  the 
frequent  meetings  of  the  brethren  at  the  house  of  his  mother,  Mary. 
This  passage  is  sufficient  evidence  that  after  Mark  had  finally  left 
Rome,  he  journeyed  eastward  and  joined  Peter,  his  venerable  first 
instructor,  who,  as  has  already  been  abundantly  shown  in  his  Life, 
was  at  this  time  in  Babylon,  whence,  in  the  year  65,  he  wrote  his 
first  epistle. 

"  It  is  thought  by  Benson  that  Mark  departed  because  his  presence  was  required 
by  the  apostles  for  converting  the  Jews  of  Palestine.  But  why  then  should  Paul 
have  expressed  indignation  at  his  departure  1  The  same  objection  will  apply  to  the 
conjecture  of  others,  that  he  departed  on  account  of  ill  health.  The  most  probable 
opinion  is  that  of  Grotius,  Wetstein,  Bengel,  Heumann,  and  others,  that  Mark  wa3, 
at  that  time,  somewhat  averse  to  labors  and  dangers ;  this,  indeed,  is  clear,  from  the 
words  KoX  f.iri  avvtKQdvTa  airoTi  ci'j  ro  epyov.  Thus  aipicsTr)jn  is  used  of  defection  in  Luke 
viii.  13.  Tim.  iv.  1.  It  should  seem  that  Mark  had  now  repented  of  his  inconstancyj 
(and,  as  Bengel  thinks,  new  ardor  had  been  infused  into  him  by  the  decree  of  the  Sy- 
nod at  Jerusalem,  and  the  free  admission  of  the  Gentiles ;)  and  hence  his  kind-hearted 


JOHN  MARK.  627 

and  obliging  relation,  Barnabas,  wished  to  take  him  as  a  companion  of  their  present 
journey.  But  Paul,  who  had  'no  respect  of  persons,'  Gal.  ii.  11,  and  thought  that 
disposition  rather  than  relationship  should  be  consulted,  distrusted  the  constancy  of 
Mark,  and  was  therefore  unwilling  to  take  him.  This  severity  of  Paul,  however, 
rendered  much  service  both  to  Mark  and  to  the  cause  of  Christianity.  For  Mark 
profited  by  the  well-meant  admonition,  and  was,  for  the  future,  more  zealous  and 
courageous;  and  the  gospel,  being  preached  in  diiferent  places  at  the  same  time,  was 
the  more  widely  propagated.  Nor  were  the  bands  of  amity  between  Paul  and  Bar- 
nabas permanently  separated  by  this  disagreement.  See  1  Cor.  ix.  6.  Nay,  Paul 
afterwards  received  Mark  into  his  friendship.  See  Col.  iv.  10:  2  Tim.  iv.  11:  Phi- 
lem.  23."  Kuin.    (Bloomfield's  Annot.  Vol.  IV.  p.  504,  505.) 

HIS  GOSPEL. 

The  circumstance  which  makes  this  apostle  more  especially 
eminent,  and  makes  him  an  object  of  interest  to  the  Christian 
reader,  is,  that  he  is  the  author  of  an  important  portion  of  the  his- 
torical sacred  canon.  Respecting  the  gospel  of  Mark,  the  testi- 
mony of  some  very  early  and  valuable  accounts  given  by  the 
Fathers,  is,  that  he  wrote  under  the  general  direction  and  super- 
intendence of  his  spiritual  father,  Peter ;  and  from  this  early  and 
uniform  tradition,  he  accordingly  bears  the  name  of  "  Peter's  in- 
terpreter." The  very  common  story  is,  also,  that  it  was  written 
in  Rome  ;  but  this  is  not  asserted  on  any  early  or  trustworthy  au- 
thority, and  must  be  condemned,  along  with  all  those  statements 
which  pretend  that  the  chief  apostle  ever  was  in  Italy.  Others 
affirm,  also,  that  it  was  published  by  him  in  Alexandria ;  but  this 
story  comes  on  too  late  authority  to  be  highly  esteemed.  Taking 
as  true,  the  very  reasonable  statement  of  the  early  Fathers,  that 
when  he  wrote  he  had  the  advantage  of  the  personal  assistance  or 
superintendence  of  Peter,  it  is  very  fair  to  conclude,  that  Babylon 
was  the  place  in  which  it  was  written,  and  that  its  date  was  about 
the  same  with  that  of  the  epistle  of  Peter,  in  which  Mark  is  men- 
tioned as  being  with  him.  Peter  was  then  old  ;  and  Mark  himself, 
doubtless  too  young  to  have  been  an  intelhgent  hearer  of  Jesus, 
would  feel  the  great  importance  of  having  a  correct  and  well-au- 
thorized record  prepared,  to  which  the  second  generation  of  Chris- 
tians might  look  for  the  sure  testimonies  of  those  divine  words, 
whose  spoken  accounts  were  then  floating  in  the  parting  breath  of 
the  few  and  venerable  apostles,  and  in  the  memories  of  their  favored 
hearers.  As  long  as  the  apostles  lived  and  preached,  there  was 
little  or  no  need  of  a  written  gospel.  All  believers  in  Christ  had 
been  led  to  that  faith  by  the  living  words  of  his  inspired  hearers 
and  personal  disciples.  But  when  these  were  gone,  other  means 
would  be  wanted  for  the  perpetuation  of  the  authenticated  truth ; 
and  to  afford  these  means  to  the  greatest  possible  number,  and  to 


628  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

those  most  especially  in  want  of  such  a  record,  from  the  fact  that 
they  had  never  seen  nor  heard  either  Jesus  or  his  personal  disci- 
ples,— Mark  chose  the  Greek  as  the  proper  language  in  which  to 
make  this  communication  to  the  world. 

His  gospel  is  so  much  like  that  of  Matthew,  containing  hardly 
a  single  passage  which  is  not  given  by  that  writer,  that  it  has  been 
very  confidently  believed  by  many  theologians,  who  suppose  an 
early  date  to  Matthew's  gospel,  that  Mark  had  that  gospel  before 
him  when  he  wrote,  and  merely  epitomized  it.  The  verbal  coin- 
cidences between  the  two  gospels,  in  their  present  state,  are  so  nu- 
merous and  striking,  that  it  has  been  considered  impossible  to  ac- 
count for  them  on  any  other  supposition  than  this.  But  these  and 
other  questions  have  filled  volumes,  and  have  exercised  the  skill 
of  critics  for  ages ;  nor  can  any  justice  be  done  them  by  a  hasty 
abstract.  It  seems  sufficient,  however,  to  answer  all  queries  about 
these  verbal  coincidences,  without  nieddlini:  with  the  question  of 
prior  date,  by  a  reference  to  the  fact  that,  during  the  whole  period 
intervening  between  the  death  of  Christ  and  the  writing  of  the 
gospels,  the  apostles  and  first  preachers  liad  been  procluiniing, 
week  after  week,  and  day  after  day,  an  oral  or  spoken  gospel,  in 
which  they  were  constantly  repeating  before  each  other,  and  before 
different  hearers,  the  narrative  of  llie  words  and  actions  of  Jesus. 
These  accounts,  by  this  constant  routine  of  repetition,  would  un- 
avoidably assume  a  regular  established  form,  which  would  at  last 
be  the  standard  account  of  the  acts  and  words  of  the  Savior. 
Tiiese,  Mark,  of  course,  adopted  when  he  wrote,  and  tlie  otiier 
evangelists  doing  the  same,  the  coincidences  mentioned  would  na- 
turally result ;  and  as  ditferent  apostles,  though  speaking  under 
the  influence  of  inspiration,  would  yet  make  numerous  slight  va- 
riations in  words,  and  in  the  minor  circumstances  expressed  or 
suppressed,  the  ditferent  writers  following  one  account  or  the  other, 
would  make  the  trifling  variations  also  noticeable.  The  only  pe- 
cuharity  that  can  be  noticed  in  Mark,  is,  that  he  very  uniformly 
suppresses  all  those  splendid  testimonies  to  the  merits  and  honors 
of  Peter,  with  which  the  others  abound, — a  circumstance  at  once 
easily  traceable  to  the  fact  that  Peter  himself  was  the  immediate 
director  of  the  work,  and  with  that  noble  modesty  which  always 
distinguished  the  great  ajjostolic  chief,  would  naturally  avoid  any 
allusion  to  matters  which  so  highly  exalted  his  own  merits.  Other- 
wise, the  narrative  of  Mark  can  be  characterized  only  as  a  plain 
statement  of  the  incidents  in  the  public  life  of  Jesus,  with  very 


JOHN  MARK.  629 

few  of  his  discourses,  and  none  of  his  words  at  so  great  length  as 
in  the  other  gospels ;  from  which  it  is  evident,  that  an  account  of 
his  acts  rather  than  his  sermons, — of  his  doings  rather  than  his 
sayings, — is  what  he  designed  to  give. 

"  Among  all  the  quotations  hitherto  made  from  the  writings  of  the  most  ancient 
Fathers,  we  find  no  mention  made  of  Mark's  having  published  his  gospel  at  Alexan- 
dria. This  report,  however,  prevailed  in  the  fourth  century,  as  appears  from  what 
is  related  by  Eusebius,  Epiphanius,  and  Jerome.  It  is  first  mentioned  by  Euscbius  in 
his  ecclesiastical  History,  lib.  ii.  cap.  16.  It  appears  from  the  word  ipaaiv,  that  Euse- 
bius mentions  this  only  as  a  report;  and  what  is  immediately  added  in  the  same  place, 
that  the  persons,  whose  severity  of  life  and  manners  is  described  by  Philo,  were  the 
converts  which  Mark  made  at  Alexandria,  is  evidently  false.  Epiphanius,  in  his 
fifty-first  Heresy,  ch.  vi.,  gives  some  account  of  it.  According  to  his  statement,  Mark 
wrote  his  gospel  in  Rome,  while  Peter  was  teaching  the  Christian  religion  in  that 
city ;  and  after  he  had  written  it,  he  was  sent  by  Peter  into  Egypt.  A  similar  account 
is  given  by  Jerome  in  his  '  Treatise  on  Illustrious  Men,"  ch.  viii.  Lastly,  the  Coptic 
Christians  of  the  present  age  consider  Mark  as  the  founder  and  first  bishop  of  their 
church;  and  their  Patriarch  styles  himself— '  Unworthy  servant  of  Jesus  Christ, 
called  by  the  grace  of  God,  and  by  his  gracious  will  appointed  to  his  service,  and  to 
the  see  of  the  holy  evangelist  Mark.'  The  Conis  pretend,  likewise,  that  Mark  was 
murdered  by  a  band  of  robbers,  near  the  lake  Menzale;  but  if  this  account  be  true, 
he  was  hardly  buried  at  Alexandria,  and  his  tomb  in  that  city  must  be  one  of  the  for- 
geries of  early  superstition."    (Michaeli.s,  Vol.  III.  pp.  207—209.) 

That  it  is  not  wholly  new  to  rank  Mark  among  the  apostles,  is  shown  by  the  usages 
of  the  Fathers,  who,  in  the  application  of  terms,  are  authority,  as  far  as  they  show 
the  opinions  prevalent  in  their  times.  Eusebius  says,  "  that  in  the  eighth  year  of 
Nero,  Anianus,  the  first  bishop  of  Alexandria  after  Mark,  the  apostle  and  evangelist, 

took  upon  him  the  care  of  that  church."  Ylpwros  ficra  Mapxov  rov  airoso^ov  koi  cvayvc- 
Xifiji',  rrii  CI'  AXt^iU'^ntia  mwoiictaf.    Aiiiivot   rr/w  Xcirovpyiav   Siaieyfrat.      H.  E.  I.  2.  cap.  24. 

f  Lardner's  Crcd.  Vol.  III.  p.  176.) 

Of  the  later  movements  of  Mark  nothing  is  known  with  cer- 
tainty. Being  evidently  younger  than  most  of  the  original  apos- 
tles, it  is  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  he  long  survived  them; 
but  his  field  of  labor  is  unknown.  The  common  tradition  among 
the  Fathers,  after  the  third  century,  is,  that  he  went  to  Alexandria, 
and  there  founding  a  church,  became  bishop  of  it  till  his  death ; 
— but  the  statement  is  mixed  up  with  so  much  that  is  palpably 
folse  that  it  is  not  entitled  to  any  credit. 


LUKE. 


Very  little  direct  mention  is  made  of  this  valuable  contributor 
to  the  sacred  canon,  in  any  part  of  the  New  Testament ;  and  those 
notices  which  seem  to  refer  to  him  are  so  vague,  that  they  have 
been  denied  to  have  any  connexion  with  the  evangelist.  The 
name  which  is  given  in  the  title  of  his  gospel  is,  in  the  original 
form,  Lucas,  a  name  undoubtedly  of  Latin  origin,  but  shown  by 
its  final  syllable  to  be  a  Hebrew- Greek  corruption  and  abridgment 
of  some  pure  Roman  word  ;  for  it  was  customary  for  the  New  Tes- 
tament writers  to  make  these  changes,  to  accord  with  their  own 
forms  of  utterance.  Lucas,  therefore,  is  an  abridgment  of  some 
one  of  two  or  three  Roman  words,  either  Lucius,  Lucilius,  or  Lu- 
canus ;  and  as  the  writers  of  that  age  were  accustomed  to  write 
either  the  full  or  abridged  form  of  any  such  name,  indifferently,  it 
seems  allowable  to  recognize  the  Lucius  mentioned  in  Acts  and  in 
the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  as  the  same  person  with  the  evangelist. 
From  the  manner  in  which  this  Lucius  is  mentioned  in  the  last 
chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  it  would  seem  that  he  was  re- 
lated to  Paul  by  blood  or  marriage,  since  the  apostle  mentions  him 
along  with  Jason  and  Sosipater,  as  his  "  kinsman."  In  the  begin- 
ning of  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  Acts,  Lucius  is  called  "  the  Cy- 
renian,"  whence  his  country  may  be  inferred  to  have  been  the  pro- 
vince of  northern  Africa,  called  Cyrene,  long  and  early  the  seat  of 
Grecian  refinement,  art,  eloquence,  and  philosophy,  and  immortal- 
ized by  having  given  name  to  one  of  the  sects  of  Grecian  philoso- 
phers,— the  Cyrenaic  school,  founded  by  Aristippus.  Whether  he 
was  a  Jew  by  birth,  or  a  heathen,  is  not  known,  and  has  been 
much  disputed.  His  birth  and  education  in  that  seat  of  Grecian 
literature,  may  be  reasonably  considered  as  having  contributed  to 
that  peculiar  elegance  of  his  language  and  style  which  distin- 
guishes him  as  the  most  correct  of  all  the  writers  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament, 

His  relationship  to  Paul,  (if  it  may  be  believed  on  so  slight 
grounds,)  was  probably  a  reason  for  his  accompanying  him  as  he 


LUKE.  631 

did  through  so  large  a  portion  of  his  travels  and  labors.  He  first 
speaks  of  himself  as  a  companion  of  Paul,  at  the  beginning  of  his 
first  voyage  to  Europe,  at  Troas,  and  accompanies  him  to  Philippi, 
where  he  seems  to  have  parted  from  him,  since,  in  describing  the 
movements  of  the  apostolic  company,  he  no  longer  uses  the  pro- 
noun "  t^e."  He  probably  staid  in  or  near  Philippi  several  years, 
for  he  resumes  the  word  in  describing  Paul's  voyage  from  Philippi 
to  Jerusalem.  He  was  his  companion  as  far  as  Caesarea,  where 
he  probably  staid  during  Paul's  visit  to  Jerusalem ;  remained  with 
him  perhaps  during  his  two  years'  imprisonment  in  Caesarea,  and 
was  certainly  his  companion  on  his  voyage  to  Rome.  He  remained 
with  him  there  till  a  short  time  before  his  release  ;  and  is  mentioned 
no  more  till  Paul,  in  his  last  writing,  the  second  epistle  to  Timo- 
thy, says — "  Luke  alone  is  with  me."  Beyond  this,  not  the  slight- 
est trace  remains  of  his  history.  Nothing  additional  is  known  of 
him,  except  that  he  was  a  physician ;  for  he  is  mentioned  by  Paul, 
in  his  Epistle  to  the  Colossians,  as  "  Luke,  the  beloved  physician." 
The  miserable  fiction  of  some  of  the  papistical  romances,  that 
Luke  was  also  a  painter,  and  took  portraits  of  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Virgin  Mary,  (fee,  is  almost  too  shamelessly  impudent  to  be  ever 
mentioned ;  yet  the  venerable  Cave,  the  only  writer  who  has  here- 
tofore given  in  full  the  liives  of  the  Apostles,  refers  to  it,  without 
daring  to  deny  its  truth  ! 

(That  Luke  was  also  regarded  by  the  Fathers  as  an  apostle,  is  shown  by  the  fact 
that,  in  the  Synopsis  ascribed  to  Athanasius,  it  is  said  that  the  gospel  of  Luke  was 
dictated  by  the  apostle  Paul,  and  written  and  published  by  the  blessed  afustle  and 
physician,  Luke.) 

HIS  WRITINGS. 

But  a  far  more  valuable  testimony  of  the  character  of  Luke  is 
found  in  those  noble  works  which  bear  his  name  in  the  inspired 
canon.  His  gospel  is  characterized  by  remarkable  distinctness  of 
expression  and  clearness  of  conception,  which,  with  that  correct- 
ness of  language  by  which  it  is  distinguished  above  all  the  other 
books  of  the  New  Testament,  conspire  to  make  it  the  most  easy 
to  be  understood  of  all  the  writings  of  the  New  Testament ;  and 
it  has  been  the  subject  of  less  comment  and  criticism  than  any 
other  of  the  sacred  books.  From  the  language  which  he  uses  in 
his  preface,  about  those  who  had  undertaken  similar  works  before 
him,  it  would  seem  that,  though  several  unauthorized  accounts  of 
the  life  and  discourses  of  Jesus  were  published  before  him,  yet 
neither  of  the  other  gospels  was  known  by  him  to  have  been 


632  LIVES  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

written.  He  promises,  by  means  of  a  thorough  investigation  of 
all  facts  to  the  sources,  to  give  a  more  complete  statement  than  had 
ever  before  been  given  to  those  for  whom  he  wrote.  Of  the  time 
when  he  wrote  it,  therefore,  it  seems  fair  to  conclude,  that  it  was 
before  the  other  two  ;  but  a  vast  number  of  writers  have  thought 
differently,  and  many  other  explanations  of  his  words  have  been 
offered.  Of  his  immediate  sources  of  information, — the  place 
where  he  wrote,  and  the  particular  person  to  whom  he  addresses  it, 
nothing  is  known  with  sufficient  certainty  to  be  worth  recording. 
Of  the  Acis  of  the  Apostles,  notliing  need  be  said  in  respect  to 
the  contents  and  object,  so  clear  and  distinct  is  this  beautiful  piece 
of  biography,  in  all  particulars.  Its  date  may  be  fixed  with  ex- 
actness at  the  end  of  the  second  year  of  Paul's  first  imprisonment, 
which,  according  to  common  calculations,  is  A.  D.  03.  It  may 
well  become  the  modern  apostolic  historian,  in  closing  with  the 
mention  of  this  writing  his  own  prolonged  yet  hurried  work,  to 
acknowledge  the  excellence,  the  purity,  and  the  richness  of  the 
source  from  which  he  has  thus  drawn  so  large  a  portion  of  the 
materials  of  the  greatest  of  these  Lives.  Yet  what  can  he  add  to 
the  bright  testimonies  accumulated  through  long  ages,  to  the  honor 
and  praise  of  this  most  noble  of  historic  records  ?  The  learned 
of  eighteen  centuries  have  spent  the  Ix^st  energies  of  noble  minds, 
and  long,  studious  lives,  in  comment  and  in  illustration  of  its  clear, 
honest  truth,  and  its  graphic  beauty ;  the  humble,  inquiring  Chris- 
tian reader,  in  every  age,  too,  has  found,  and  in  every  age  will 
find,  in  this,  the  only  safe  and  faithful  outline  of  the  great  events 
of  the  apostolic  history.  Tlie  most  perfect  and  permanent  impres- 
sion, which  a  long  course  of  laborious  investigation  and  composition 
has  left  on  the  author's  mind,  of  the  task  which  he  now  lays  down, 
exhausted  yet  not  disgusted,  is,  that  beyond  the  apostolic  history 
of  Luke,  nothing  can  be  known  with  certainty  of  the  great  persons 
of  whose  acts  he  treats,  except  the  disconnected  and  floating  cir- 
cumstances which  may  be  gleaned  by  implication  from  the  epistles; 
and  so  marked  is  the  transition  from  the  pure  honesty  of  the  sa- 
cred record,  to  the  grossness  of  patristic  fiction,  that  the  truth  is, 
even  to  a  common  eye,  abundantly  well  characterized  by  its  own 
excellence.  On  the  passages  of  such  a  narrative,  the  lights  of 
criticism,  of  Biblical  learning,  and  of  contemporary  history,  may 
often  be  needed,  to  make  the  sometimes  unconnected  parts  appear 
in  their  true  historic  relations.  The  writer  who  draws  therefrom, 
too,  the  facts  for  a  connected  biography,  may,  in  the  amplificationa 


LUKE.  633 

of  a  modern  style,  perhaps  more  to  the  surprise  than  the  admira- 
tion of  his  readers,  quite  protract  the  bare  simphcity  of  the  origi- 
nal record,  "  in  many  a  winding  bout  of  hnked"  wordiness,  "  long 
drawn  out," — but  the  modernizing  extension  and  illustration, 
though  it  may  bring  small  matters  more  prominently  to  the  notice 
and  perception  of  the  reader,  can  never  supply  the  place  of  the 
original, — to  improve  which,  comment  and  illustration  are  alike 
vain.  When  will  human  learning  and  labor  perfect  the  exposition 
and  the  illustration  of  the  apostolic  history?  Its  comments  are 
written  in  the  eternal  hope  of  uncounted  millions ; — its  illustra- 
tions can  be  fully  read  only  in  the  destiny  of  ages.  This  record 
was  the  noble  task  of  "  the  beloved  physician ;"  in  his  own  melo- 
dious language — "  To  give  knowledge  to  the  people,  of  salvation 
by  remission  of  sins  through  the  tender  mercy  of  our  God,  whereby 
the  day-spring  from  on  high  hath  visited  us, — to  give  light  to  them 
that  sit  in  darkness  and  in  the  shadow  of  death, — to  guide  our 
feet  in  the  way  of  peace  !"  _ 
84 


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